Here are some of the resources available:
1. Home Inspection Video - See a home inspection!
2. Read an actual home inspection report.
3. Read/search Barry Stone's column, Inspector's In the House (below).
4. Send a question using the form to the right. ===>
5. If you are a Seller, get your own inspection before you put your home on the market.

California does not require any license to be a home inspector, so it is important for both home buyers and sellers to make sure that they hire an inspector who is a certified residential inspector and who carries errors and omissions insurance. To help you think through the selection of your home inspector, click here for our 10 Tips.

QUESTIONS/ANSWERS Click on any of these topics to read questions and answers by syndicated columnist Barry Stone.
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As a buyer, you can be present on the home inspection (and we really recommend it). Being there gives you a chance to ask questions, to see and discuss what Mark has found, and to ask other questions about your new home. Some of the areas inspected include: structure, heating and cooling, roof, electrical system, plumbing and fixtures, attic, basement and/or crawl space, foundation, gutters, insulation, interior and exterior walls, porches and decks, and the water heater and appliances.

A good inspector helps both buyers and sellers become aware of any defects that weren't already known. (If they had been known, they would have been disclosed.) Please note: Sellers have no obligation to repair any defects. Repair requests are just that--requests. However, if an unknown defect is a safety issue, violates the then-current building code, or affects functionality, many sellers will accommodate the request in one way or another. A good inspection helps to put all those issues on the table so that everyone is satisfied with the transaction.

For information about various topics, just click on any of the links to the left or run your own search! One of our 600+ articles is posted below.

EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE BENEFITS OF HOME INSPECTION
Inspector's in the House by Barry Stone, Certified Building Inspector

Dear Barry,
As a home inspector, I am writing as a representative of the entire home inspection industry. Some U.S. Government officials will be meeting to discuss the long-term benefits of performing home and building inspections on federally owned properties. I have been asked to present evidence of the long-term benefits of our industry, to show that inspections are worthwhile. Government people seem to like paperwork, but thus far I've been unable to find any studies or other documentary evidence to support the benefits of home inspection. What do you advise? De Anna

Dear De Anna,
To the best of my knowledge, there have been no official studies to demonstrate the efficacy of home inspection. But one must ask whether such studies are truly necessary and how such studies could actually be conducted.

There are facts that require evidential proof, and there are those which are self evident. Any random sampling of home inspection reports would clearly demonstrate that significant defects are routinely discovered by home inspectors and that without a home inspection these problems could produce costly consequences for unsuspecting buyers. Many of the problems found by inspectors involve violations of established safety standards ' fire safety, gas safety, electrical safety, etc. What more is needed to convince sensible people that inspection of government property is advantageous to everyone involved.

Unfortunately, it is typical of government bureaucracy to require documentary proof of the obvious. Until the paperwork is submitted, beneficial actions are routinely avoided and recommendations to implement positive procedures are summarily shelved. It recalls the days when the adverse health affects of cigarette smoking had not yet been documented. Never mind the countless smokers desperately wheezing with chronic emphysema or the fact that all smokers were inclined to be short of breath during physical exertions. Proven studies were needed: Otherwise, the observable was not factual.

So now we need a contingent of university statisticians to assure us that evaluation of real estate, prior to acquisition, is superior to buying a 'pig in a poke.' What can you say to such people? They are the ones who debate which exit door to use while their house is engulfed in flames.

Formal proof of the benefits of home inspection may not yet exist, but neither have there been studies to demonstrate the inadvisability of swimming in a river inhabited by crocodiles. In such situations, common sense precludes the need for exhaustive investigation. Your task, therefore, is to convince entrenched government types of that which is plain and obvious. Not an encouraging prospect, but I wish you well in this worthwhile endeavor.

Distributed by Access Media Group. To write to Barry Stone, please visit him on the web at www.housedetective.com.