Thread: On my way to becoming an Inspector

Hello, I presently working on my certification to become a professional home inspector. This will be my 2nd career as I will be retiring from the AF in about 3 months. So I'm slowly gathering sites to get info from. Does any one have any recommendations for studying for the test, what helped you the most? Thanks in advance,
Stacey

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Welcome Stacey, keep up the good work.

Retired from Canadian Army just over 4 years and Home Inspection has been all I have been breathing since. Read what you can here and any other references you can. Post any questions and someone from North America will respond. Thats cool.

Merry Christmas.


Steve

Originally Posted by Stacey Law

Hello, I presently working on my certification to become a professional home inspector. This will be my 2nd career as I will be retiring from the AF in about 3 months. So I'm slowly gathering sites to get info from. Does any one have any recommendations for studying for the test, what helped you the most? Thanks in advance,
Stacey

Welcome, Stacey!
I just took the NHIE earlier this month. I was soooo nervous about it and studied a LOT. A few things really did help me. First, going through two excellent collections:
"The Illustrated Home" (Carson & Dunlop)
"Home Systems Illustrated" (Mr. Fix-It)
I also found it useful to sign up for the NHIE practice exam, offered through Online Courses for Home Inspectors. For $50 you can take a 50-question sample test as often as you like.

I'm a visual learner, so going through all these illustrations helped me get comfortable with the "hard numbers" I had to learn (clearances, for example).

My husband is a home inspector (since 2003), so I've sort of been learning the trade since then; every evening he would do a "slide show" of that day's inspections. This really did help me learn to spot defects.

What surprised me about the test was that there were a number of "here's a picture; what's the defect?" questions. Some were pretty tricky.

Take every opportunity to look at pictures from home inspections. Many inspectors have pictures on their websites (including ours -- we have about a thousand uploaded).

Good luck!

Hello Stacey and good luck. I am a disabled air force veteran and I love this profession. The challenges of being your own boss and keeping busy are never ending.

You already got the advice to study defects in pictures. Spotting defects in pictures id the key to the test. You can't always tell what you see and they are tricky. Seems like to me when I took the test that the picture quality themselves weren't the greatest. Wasn't a distance or lighting issue, it seemed to be they were taking with a low resolution camera or scanned from a photo print. Also, study up on your electrical and toss in maybe a little studying of insect/rodent issues as well. If I remember right, I had a handful of questions with ants, maybe it was termites.

Anyhow, reaching this forum you came to a great place for advice and assistance. Its not very often that questions don't get answered here. There is always somebody that has the answer and answers come quick on this forum. But if you have a question, do your best to include a picture or a graphic of some kind.

Again good luck and welcome to the profession.

Stacey,
Work your way through this forums past posts and you will find pictures of every type of defect that you can imagine. By using these postings you will learn to recognize many problems, the discussions that follow will help with the reasoning behind what is wrong. The Exam will give you pictures to decipher. Looking at what is wrong in real life will develop a second nature response to seeing what is right and wrong. And this site is FREE..... It is just your time.

Welcome to the industry Stacey, and thanks for your service. I don't know what your skill set includes, however I'm of the oppinion that if you don't have any previous construction or engineering experience you would benefit greatly from one of the nationally accredited home inspector schools that offer hands on training. Some of the better schools offer great GI bill financing options. Good luck, and whatever route you decide to take I wish you well!

Originally Posted by Stacey Law

Hello, I presently working on my certification to become a professional home inspector. This will be my 2nd career as I will be retiring from the AF in about 3 months. So I'm slowly gathering sites to get info from. Does any one have any recommendations for studying for the test, what helped you the most? Thanks in advance,
Stacey

Not so much advice in studying.

I recommend that you price yourself according to your worth. One critical mistake that many people make, particularly those retiring from the armed forces, is to price the services too low. Many feel that they are just looking to supplement a retirement income and they undercut their competition. This is a big mistake and will lead to conflict with your colleagues. I feel that it is in your best interest to be on good terms with the other inspectors of your area. While I am not advocating price-fixing, do not undervalue your services. If anything, choose a price that is slightly higher than most of your competition. If your service is good, people will use you. It will take time to get your business up and running, but that is true no matter where your price is.

My advice. Take it or leave it.

Thank you all for the great advice. My dad was a carpenter and a jack-of-all-trades, and I often went to work with him. I have done QA while in the AF and really enjoyed that and that has what lead me to want to do Home Inspections. I will be sure to keep coming back to this site. Thanks again.

Stacey