Thread: How many points in your inspection?

I continually see some inspector say that his inspection includes 500+ items - yet I have never seen that list. Does anyone have a solid list or is this vapor?

Thanks, Mike

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I think you could break things down to everyday items.
Things you will find on almost every home.

1. A plumbing issue. Number of.
2. An Electrical issue. Number of.
3. Pest issue. Number of.
The list can go on and on.
There are thousands of types of wood boring Beetles.
I do need to be able to list each one and its type
and how to correct. I may only see 5 types in any year.

I think A ( 500 point inspection ) Is over the top.

Best

Ron

Well... as of this morning my ever growing field notes - which are only the items where I have not memorized the relevant requirements (stuff like the allowable overhang for different thickness of stone) - have 428 footnotes alone, and every entry relates ether to some situation I encountered in the field where I had to do additional research or to material presented here or elsewhere I noted as likely useful in the future.

If you assume that the stuff where I don't have it memorized is 25% of the items I observe, then you are at 1725 items. And as posts here often reference information new to me, it's reasonable to assume there are many inspection items that are still to be added to my list.

You also have the material presented by specialists like Bob Harper, who I'm certain is aware of many items I'm not which would be "useful" to me as a home inspector, primarily as indications to defer, or for that matter the material familiar to the people with various ICC certs, which include many items that even experienced inspectors may not be catching if they don't have this knowledge.

So if I was going to make a WAG guess as to how many potentially significant items I'll eventually be aware of in residential inspection, I would guess it's 3000-5000.

So then the question is, what is a "point"? The water heater? The vent? The joints between vent sections? The fasteners at the joint?

For the typical single-family dwelling ... 1 item: "the house"

If you wanted to, you could break it down into 5 items:
- structure
- electrical
- mechanical
- plumbing
- fuel gas

If you wanted to, you could then break those down into more items, etc., arriving at as many items as you can think of.

What and how many items did I inspect?

Everything I could see, smell, hear, taste, touch or think of.

Good answer Jerry.

Originally Posted by imported_Mike Crow

I continually see some inspector say that his inspection includes 500+ items - yet I have never seen that list. Does anyone have a solid list or is this vapor?

Thanks, Mike

I provide that information for free, but only to paid members of my Millionaires Infomercial Community ™.

Dom.

There's at least 55 things to inspect on a water heater alone so 500 items is not an unreasonable stretch. Actually as others have said here the list is darn near endless. However, it could be the one thing you don't mention that could hang you?

As someone's E&O insurance provider told him several years ago:

"Home inspectors inspect dozens of systems with hundreds of components and thousands of individual items."

I use it to manage my Clients' expectations of me as a generalist home inspector. Others are free to use it, as well.

Of course, the second sentence was, "So your premium will be _________."

One well known franchise advertises they inspect 1600 items! Ya, sure, right, okay....

Originally Posted by Raymond Wand

One well known franchise advertises they inspect 1600 items! Ya, sure, right, okay....

Key word is "items," so that's probably true. Actually, it's probably much more. Just the roof covering has probably a thousand items--each tile, each nail, each flashing, etc. When I'm in a crawl space, there's 30 or 40 sections ("items") of sewer pipe, water plumbing, gas plumbing, joints, electrical wires, junction boxes, wire nuts on the wires in those junction boxes, etc.

Just the ceiling fan in my office here has a fan housing, five fan blades, four light bulbs, four light sockets, four light bulb covers, two pull chains, five screws holding the blades in place so they aren't loose, a reversing switch, the wall fan switch, and the wall light switch. That's 28 items in two components (ceiling fan and lighting) of one system (electrical). Just for one ceiling fan!

You inspect the item you don't check every nut, screw, nail, staple, shingle, you look at the overall component as per the SOP. Its misleading in my opinion to be stating how many items you supposedly inspect.

P2P


As Pillar To Post Professional building inspectors, we are highly trained Professionals. Our broad expertise in construction, design, engineered systems, and maintenance techniques can greatly assist your decision-making when purchasing your new home. Matched with the Pillar To Post industry leading 1,600 point inspection program, our service to you is unparalleled.

Amerispec

The AmeriSpec Home Inspection is a visual inspection of over 400 items including the foundation, roof, and structural components, plus visible electrical, plumbing and mechanical operating systems of the property.

Originally Posted by Raymond Wand

P2P


As Pillar To Post Professional building inspectors, we are highly trained Professionals. Our broad expertise in construction, design, engineered systems, and maintenance techniques can greatly assist your decision-making when purchasing your new home. Matched with the Pillar To Post industry leading 1,600 point inspection program, our service to you is unparalleled.

Amerispec

The AmeriSpec Home Inspection is a visual inspection of over 400 items including the foundation, roof, and structural components, plus visible electrical, plumbing and mechanical operating systems of the property.

Worth repeating:

*The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely. - Sir William Osler 1905*

Who knows, who cares. It's advertising BS for customers. Depending on how you want to break it down, hundreds or a few thousand items is probably what is being looked at.
I've never counted the items in my report, nor do I want to. If I did it would mean I wasn't actually working.