Performing a Home Inspection with InterNACHI® Certified Professional Inspector CPI® Jim Krumm.

[Music] hi I'm Jim Chrome with Colorado's best home inspections today we're gonna do a gentle home inspection on this house I hope you follow along learn a few pointers before we start the home inspection I'd like to start with a little bit of gear we're wearing all of my inspectors use body cams you can either use it like this you can use it with a little camera attachment we actually had one of our inspectors get bit by a dog the other day and he has it on body cam so it's good for our insurance so it also kind of verifies that you don't do anything you're not supposed to and it kind of shows what you're seeing through the inspection I use dive cameras you know this is what we're using right now there's several manufacturers of dive cameras but they take the dust they take the drop tests they take things like that if you drop it in a sump pump they hold up really well we average about 450 pictures for every inspection so when we first go into a house we're taking a couple hundred pictures that's documented what we see immediately you know are their pets and the premise if there are pets in the premise like this house actually has a sign beware of dog you know we send a seller's notice out asking them to have all their pets either contained or off-site even with that said sometimes you'll get there and there's a pet you know do your best to make friends with it right off the bat try not to let it out but part of our sellers disclosure says we're not responsible for your own contain pets so I like to use the flashlight sabai off inspector outlet they hold up really really well it's the Phoenix this is probably three years old now the battery gets charged about once a month so they hold up really really well I can also we bought the body cams two inspector out light so this is my cell phone may not look too nice to have a clipped on like that but if we do need it it's available it's actually also my backup camera this here I use motion f5 military-grade tablets it's actually a Windows 10 there's a docking station in the truck there's a docking station in my office it is the only computer I use so and it'll run pretty much all the software's out there I buy my inspector accessories through inspector outlet you can find them inspector outlet comm you can also find them on the international forum you can actually buy the sewer camera I use through inspector outlet comm okay when we go in the house the first thing we do we knock on the door of course we make a lot of noise if we open up the house and a seller doesn't let us in we're constantly yelling to begin with hello cbhi home inspection cbhi radon test and drop however it is you just want to make sure somebody knows you go up the stairs coming up the stairs especially if somebody's home you don't want to walk in on somebody in the bathroom of changing or something like that makes a very bad situation so we make lots of noise I once had the neighbors call the police on me when I was setting the radon because I made so much noise I would rather have that happen then surprise somebody and have them not know were there so when we enter the house the first thing we start to do is take pictures we typically take a couple hundred pictures doing our general walkthrough we're taking pictures of any money any jewelry at least four or five pictures of every room from the different angles or also remember we're using a body cam it's videoing this whole thing we're taking pictures of our water heater we're taking pictures of our bathrooms when we're done with that then we actually come out to the house and start our inspection on the outside but that way I know where the furnace is I know where the water heater is we've figured out where we're going to access everything so that the inspection kind of rolls out smooth after that it also documents the actual condition when we walk in the house so if there's a broken blind if there's broken furniture we have that all on our camera right off the bat those are there we'll cover yourself pictures they typically don't end up in the report but those are the you know things that I keep forever to protect my business assets let's go in the house yeah when he come in the house first thing in the morning or afternoon what we do is start at the front door we just start taking pictures now we have our body cams for our backup but we are taking on a big room like this will probably take 8 pictures because we're coming in from all different angles but from every corner we take now if we find something expensive anything like that that ok I want to document it - they're beginning and the end of the inspection like here I take a picture of this whole area and we're gonna call them over here and it just kind of shows as you walk through now remember we do clockwise so all of my pictures are gonna be clockwise so if I have any questions they can go back and I know where it's gonna be in my pictures so I take to the bathroom now we take a picture from away we take a picture under the sink from a distance and then we take one close-up so we have at least three pictures of every sink and if I see something obvious like the worn floor we're gonna take pictures of it now this is usually where we'll take our data tags that are readily accessible like right here it's a 40 gallon water heater so I put that in my report we have a catch pan and we have our 18 inch copper I'm also gonna take a picture that humidifier so that I know I have to go back to it later I also take they're made of fire settings our thermostat so we know exactly what it was we walked in the door now we try to do these in right when you want to the door because you haven't may have an agent who comes in and turns the heat up or turns air-conditioner on we want to know where what the seller left at it not so much as what the agent turns it to and then we'll continue upstairs doing the same pictures okay we just took our preliminary pictures now we're actually going to start the inspection on the outside of the house you notice we were booties we will not enter somebody's house without booties so always always always put booties on or take your shoes off so we're on the outside of the house now you know I typically grab a screwdriver as I'm coming out that way when we take apart some electrical panels things like that I'm all prepared in my business we go around the house clockwise all the time once we do that then we work around counterclockwise on the inside of the house everything's done clockwise the big thing if you learn nothing else today is get a system and stick with it it doesn't matter if the house is a thousand square feet ten thousand square feet or forty thousand square feet if you use the same systematic approach you will not miss things it's a really bad day when you have to knock on somebody's door at night and ask if you could look at the fireplace because you forgot to look at it so don't do that always do the same inspection okay when we're doing an inspection most of the time my clients are with me we invite them to follow us anywhere but our ladders liability wise nobody gets to touch her ladders now I use the same spiel to begin with always tell the same the clients the same thing you know my jobs to point out defects we're really good at it you know number one is always safety it's the one that hurts or kills you were the kids - is water it bankrupts you so we're gonna talk a lot about water how to prevent problems right here we have a subsurface drain subsurface drains are supposed to daylight I can't find where this daylight's so I will talk to my clients about that because if this gets plugged up then it could cost settlement problems at the garage as we're working here I'm gonna be taking pictures of defects I'm looking the pain is pretty faded so we're gonna talk about you know it's really due for a paint job you know you can see a little bit of peeling here it is a fiber siding so the quicker they get paint on it the cheaper it's gonna be if they wait another winter or two they're probably gonna have to do some siding repairs and now I think the dogs are off let me take a quick peek they're not just checking to make sure we didn't have any dogs in the backyard now when we come in again going to the backyard I'm gonna take a bunch of pictures and all that it's just the document what you're seeing when you get here you also if there's pets you want to watch make sure you don't step on anything so over here with a patio we're gonna look right here we can see erosion so we're gonna take a picture of that you know in the report we do our inspections at site so we want to make sure that we get all this things documented so that you're not trying to go home that night and we're writing the report off memory that's a good way to forget things so we have a concrete patio in the rear and we have soil erosion now as you do this a lot you'll get dropped down so you don't have to do a lot of writing you know for us typically all I have to write is north west south west we just have to do locations we have pretty much all the defects we're gonna see already pre-written so we're happy with them now I always write up dog doors as a safety issue just the other day I went in to do a radon drop through a dog door because the lock box didn't work so I could fit through that one so could a burglar or a thief so we always write them up as a safety issue now here we're looking I think we have a flue up there it could also be a drain for a laundry but you want to pay attention to you know when you see things like that so you can figure out what's going on if it is a flue it should have a screen in it their conditioning we always write down take a picture of all data tags we have had water heaters switched out we've had a couple of furnaces switched out between when we do the inspection and when the closing so this is a 2003 it's a 2-ton and if you look this one actually uses r22 now r22 was outlawed as a refrigerant in 2008 meaning they can still sell it but they don't make it so we put a note in our report that the refrigerant can be very expensive or difficult to find so basically if this has a problem it's really not worth fixing anymore we also we've got a lot of erosion underneath here so it's no longer level that's really hard and it's really dirty so those three things are really hard on an air conditioner hopefully we'll be able to run it today if we can if it's above 65 degrees we will so right now I'm just putting down the notes that that I see and it's pins are dirty it's not level it doesn't look to been serviced recently it should be serviced annually now over here the refrigerant line installations missing also there's a big hole right there on the siding so you should note that it's not cocked at the siding but also in the refrigerant section you should have a note about that now what we do is if we have something we've seen this several times so we have a drop down but if I have to write something new that I haven't written before and it's a long paragraph what I'll do is I'll spell check make a few mistakes put long with 3GS or something like that so that when I do a spell check on my computer brings it up and it's like oh yeah I need to write that story so that way I'm not sitting in an inspection trying to type out a big long story I can do it in my office when I have a keyboard now here we're actually missing the downspout extension pipe so that water has been coming down onto this so now this has been getting wet that trim is moisture damaged as we speak and it all goes back to to not having a downspout extension that's a very quick way to ruin a house so I'm gonna put a note about moisture damage trim we have a picture now here's our electrical panel we always take a picture coming up every house we ever inspect we pull on the tag it's amazing how many times you're gonna see this cut and put together so it looks good this one's still secure if you pull down and somebody's been into it it's either they've been stealing electric or somebody's been into it the wasn't supposed to be into it so we checked that in every house we look at and we open it up first thing we do is take a picture that way if we take things part we can and we trip a breaker we actually know what was on what was off so this is a Siemens panel right here so we should have Siemens breakers just looking these are all Siemens these are Siemens arc faults now you can still read the legend it's getting kind of faded but you can read it so it's a hundred fifty amp service now we had already been around the house when you check this you should also brush the panel that way if you have a problem your hands clasp like this and not onto the panel normally we'd also be wearing safety glasses for this for the video shoot we're not doing that but you do want to wear your protective safety gear like gloves are a good idea glasses or a face shield are a good idea now with this style you have to be careful try not to trip the main breaker now if the homeowner is home while we're doing the inspection and they're working on a computer I will advise them that I'm going to be going to the electrical panel that there's a chance I could trip the breaker so they should be saving their stuff on their computer so when we go through this you never want to take a screwdriver anything hot to be looking at your panel so what we do is we do check every breaker see if our wire size correlates so for sizing is correct over here we have 20s we're looking at our grounding a bonding system how is this busbar here this is the main panel so it should be physically attached to this panel here we have another bus bar down here that also has to be attached because we everything has to be bonded so we're looking at that we can't tell what the service wires are on this one but we can see we have copper for our mainline for our one 20s down here all of our two 20s are copper also so we don't have a lot of two 20s in the house we have our range we have our dryer we have our air conditioner these white wires are for our arc faults those are our neutrals if we had white wires as hot wires we'd write that up because you're not supposed to have that so inside we're actually looking good and now and carefully put the cover back on let's screw in tighten it and then we step back and take another picture showing that all the breakers are on we close the panel and take another picture showing that we left it as found right down here is the ground so on this one we have a driven rod ground age of the house we should also have a cold water ground so we're gonna take pictures of all of those okay we're gonna check the hose faucets now if there's a hose on it one you want to make sure that you're not just spraying yourself turn on see if we have leaks and also if it's any time around cold weather we want to put a note that leaving the hoses on a hose faucet or the cold weather can cause damage so this one the handles probably wasn't the original handle but it does function now when we check our electrical we check our outlets before tripping them then we're in the inside the house we've tried to find out where our GFCIs are gonna be so if there's a bunch of stuff in the garage this the age of this house the GFCIs will be in the garage I don't want to trip it if it's tied to a freezer and I can't get at the outlet but if we can get at them we're gonna trip them if we don't get to where the GFCI is we'll make a note that we did not trip the GSC eyes due to the occupants belongings we're looking at light fixtures one you want to see if they're loose - you want to see if they're cocked or sealed around them we don't want water getting in and again the house needs a paint job now typically before we go on the roof we step back to see what kind of venting systems we have this house has soffits and gable venting typically we don't mix the two in Colorado we do more often than elsewise because we have such a high Sun load but normally you're not supposed to do that we're gonna look and see if we have turtle or Ridge vents sometimes what we find if somebody thinks the gables kind of function as a ridge vent and it doesn't really work very good so from down below I typically look at all my lord man team and then we're on the roof we look at her upper roof Indian when you go through the gates you always make sure that you latch them that way if they do come home and let a pet out you're not responsible for letting it get loose fences aren't really part of our standards of practice so we write them up if there's a defect if a fence looks great I don't include it in my report but if there's a problem with a gate any loose post any problem with the fence at all we write it up a safety because we don't know if our buyers are gonna have kids pets etc and we don't want there to be a problem now we're gonna walk back around the house this driveway looks pretty good there's a couple cracks right here so in the report we're gonna put the few cracks I typically put that as marginal unless they're really big cracks talk to my clients it'd be a good idea to put a little on there now right here you can see the stone veneer is contacting the porch they're supposed to have a gap like this right here so that if we get any movement it doesn't knock the stone veneer off so it's going to be in my report you can see the mortars moved we've had a little bit of settlement at the front porch because of the settlement it hasn't affected to the stone if we'd had heave it would have broke that stone off so I'll talk to my clients if they see that stone come loose it's basically just have to risa cure it back on it's not a structural component of the house again we're gonna check the the outlet use a GFCI tester once we find where the GFCIs are now coming over here see right here we've had a little bit of movement again I'd want to make sure we make a note about caulking gas meter this looks really really good in fact it looks like it's been just replaced recently we take pictures of all the gas meters if there's any kind of corrosion at all we're gonna put a note about painting the gas lines because the corrosion will actually follow the threads in then we start to get gas leaks gas leaks are not part of the standards practice you are not required to check for them but you definitely want its back in case you see a situation that can make a gas leak and if you smell it you know we always snip it again we're gonna check our hose faucets make sure that they're secure that they're on this one's actually leaking it's been replaced at least once but it's currently leaking right now now this is sprinkler backflow prevention device we're gonna look to see if there is one the sprinklers aren't part of a standard because they're typically shut down for about eight months out of the year at least where we live I'm gonna look to see if it's physically leaking something like that now this backflow is typically only rated for a couple of zones again we may have more zones than that from what we see here but my concern is do we have one or not and then if we do write a complaint or a problem with this then I have a disclaimer that says sprinkler systems are not part of a standards of practice every time you exceed the Sander standards of practice you want to make sure you put a note in there and just kind of a disclaimer that way they don't think you inspected the whole sprinkler system including what's under grade now looking up here we can see the siding is a little bit bowed again it goes with just needed a paint job it's not at a critical stage right now but they could probably secure that a little bit but the sooner they get a paint job on this the better it's gonna be now we're gonna get the ladder out we're gonna go on the roof from our roof inspection and we'll be going in the house okay when you're coming up a rough you always want to keep a three point connection that way if wind comes up you don't get blown off you always want to have three rungs up when we're here we're gonna look and see how many layers there are we're also going to check it on something like this coming in the gutters this one has an awful lot of granulars in there that's typically an indication we have some hail damage right here we're gonna see we have moisture damage somebody did try to put a kick-out flash in there but it's a really low kick-out flashing and they ran the siding too close to the roofing material so it's gonna damage all of that side and we're supposed to be two inches off and here you can see that they gable end flashings right here our WAAFs be very careful when you're going on a roof because a lot of times the bees are the wasps will have made a nest there and it's very easy to get upset and jerk away and not pay attention and fall off a ladder so this is why we want the three point connection and we want three rings up now when you're on a ruff never ever ever back up that's the easy way to fall off the roof it's a good idea to try to stay at least three feet away from the edge that way if you stumble your trip things like that you don't have a problem now this is the 612 pitch most of our jurisdictions now are requiring tie off gear at a 612 or higher pitch if this roof was wet we could not safely walk it without using our tie off gear your safety is always first when we come up on a ruff here's the tie off gear we're talking about right here this is the safety tie off hook before you tie off to it pull on it and make sure it's actually secure the problem with tie off equipment is you need to get to the hook before you can tie off so can you safely get to that spot to use your tie off gear it's also the question now right down here they've made a partial cricket for this chimney which is great but the water is still damaging the trim so I put a note down here we can see the trim is damaged again we're supposed to have a two inch separation between our siding and the roofing material because of this I cannot see the step flashing I can't even tell you if there is a step flashing there until there's going to be a note on my report from the flashing step flashing sidewall flashings we're not visible because of the siding again we're getting some damage there again we need a paint job this is that soffit vent that I was talking about from down below there's one each side of the house typically we don't mix those with Gables now this is our flue for the water heater in the furnace most manufacturers require this flue to terminate at least two feet above anything within 10 feet so it is too close to the roof so if we get the right wind we may not draft correctly or we could actually force our exhaust gases down so you want to put a note that the the flue terminates too close to the roof right here you can't see it from there but there's another tie off hook walking the ridge is one of your safest places now I'm not going to get too close on that end without using tie off equipment because you could fall now standing here I can see there is no original so what they did is they're using soffit vents in the Gables thinking it's gonna push the heat out the Gables that doesn't work so my reports going to have insufficient venting insufficient or improper venting this roof is gonna be much hotter the attic space is gonna be higher than it needs to be sometimes that will cause things like this where the ridge will loosen up that heats trying to find a place out looking at the roof itself we're in pretty good shape we're gonna walk where we can safely walk check the sewer boot flashings like one right over there we're going to be checking for any exposed nails uncock nail heads things like that like I say you can walking like this pretty safely but if this roof was any steeper or if was not perfect conditions like today we would be using tie-off equipment now I have found street shoes like this to be the best reference shoes I have ever found so this is what I walk them if I was using tennis shoes I probably won't be walking this roof right now okay we finished with the roof inspection now we're gonna safely head down the ladder put our equipment away we never leave our ladders out even though sometimes would be more convenient we always put them away then we're gonna get inside and start the interior inspection okay we just wanted to kind of show you how we set up our truck you know we have multiple ladders we always want to use the right ladder for the job because it makes it safer we have multiple painters sticks we use these we put a camera attachment on it so when we're looking at concrete rust sometimes it's too windy for drawing things like that so it's never too windy for a pole notice they are fiberglass so we don't have to worry if we should hit electrical wires not saying you want to be near electrical wires but if something catastrophic happened and you drop them you would be okay this is our bag that we use on our day to day basis we have our shirt test electrical we have our booties we have backups for everything in our truck here we have our little ferret camera this bag here has extra moisture meters things like that I believe that you should always have two of everything in case you break something we have a safe in the truck there's actually another backup computer in there along with a backup infrared overhears our raid on this is we're put our tripods that kind of stuff that is our backup sewer camera we have another one in front of it that we use on the day-to-day basis this is my incidentals and this is a locator this is a heavy umbrella we use for doing super scopes in the Sun and this is their tie off gear so I guess they every house should have tie off gear and then we have drop cloths so that when we go in the Attic things like that we don't make a mess the house remember if your insurance is like mine you have no insurance on your equipment if your truck is not locked so even if you're just going in the house to set a radon monitor always always always lock your truck what's going the house okay we're gonna put on our booties turn on lights we turn on lots of lights in fact if a seller is that the inspection I explained that we're gonna turn on all the lights and leave them on we're trying to load test the house as much as possible in a couple hours so part of how we're gonna do that is using the appliances the lights things like that now seeing how I'm dressed Nick Ramiro when I first started as a home inspector 15 years ago told me it's okay to get dirty in an inspection but it's never okay to start the inspection dirty so we have clean clothes out in the truck so we do two inspections a day if we get dirt on the pants on the shirt and anything like that we change before the next inspection so we always start the inspection looking clean you may have heard my my phone ding I try not to answer phone calls during the inspection if I do have to take one I'll make it brief but we do get a lot of text from our students or past students and that's what that was right there we don't want as internationally view hanging if you're in the middle of an inspection you don't know what you're looking at we want to help you so a text is a great way to do that because then when we get a quiet area I can step aside and I can answer your text you know send me a picture do something like that a phone call is a much harder way to do it because we need to answer it now so I love it when you text me because then when I get a couple minutes just like that I can respond to you okay when we come in the house we put our booties on first thing we do is turn around and look at the door look we have a poor seal this door is actually rubbing when it comes in a lot of times that's as simple as putting longer screws in the hinge so if my clients here I'll tell them that but we're gonna write it up for it rubs and it doesn't seal correctly now we've already came through and done our general look so we've already put on what type of floors we have the wall material the ceiling material all that kind of stuff so when we're come in checking our bathrooms we're gonna run a lot of water so as we come into a bath the first thing we do is try to push the toilet where their leg if it moves at all we write that down as a leak it's another student and we flush it we actually fill water and the sinks and the bathtubs typically a couple inches in each we always take a picture of our sink when it's running just like our bath in our showers so we actually check it feel free any leaks that way now we're gonna drain it make sure hot hot cold cold just make sure we don't have any leaks we check our outlets electrically this one doesn't have a fan half bathroom isn't legally required to but it does have a window so even if it was a three corridor a full bath as long as it has an open window you know legally need to have a fan when you're looking at the toilet we also look to see if it's been cocked all the way around the base we typically recommend they leave a couple inches at the back so that if the wax seal starts to leak they see it on the floor before they see it on the ceiling below now as we're going through the house we work around in a circle so as we come to something we're gonna turn it on usually when we first come in from from the doing the roof we open up the oven make sure there's nothing in it check our tip over there by device and then we'll turn it on we'll also turn on if we have a warmer there that way when we come in here we can switch it to broil and turn it off so that when we leave we know the ovens off the other thing we do is when we finish our inspection this is one of the items we're taking a picture of that way we know that the oven is off we have a picture to show that the oven is off and we leave the property we never leave a house with running water so when we turn this on right now we'll typically run one of the shorter rinses or washes but if we turn it on early then by the time we're done with the inspection its shut itself off now you're not wired to move furniture not required to move blinds things like that we like to look at the windows and see if we can't open them but I'm not gonna move the couch to do it I'm not gonna break lamps I'm not gonna cause problems that way so if I can reach in and open it safely we're gonna do it but don't get in the habit of moving things to get it outlets switches things like that everything's supposed to be readily accessible now I like to use this over this we use this to trip GFCIs because it's easy but this here tells me a whole lot more about the circuits on an older house we don't take this out at all we just use this anything older than 63 this tells me we're wired correctly this shows me my voltage this will show me my voltage drop at 15 they'll also show you true RMS voltage they'll show me a lot of different things so these are really handy we use it a lot and again this is another one of those tools that inspect your outlet cells so you can get it in edit inspector outlook.com now if you look they have the routers all their stuff connected to here I would not be disconnecting this cord right here because everything's hooked to it if I can see this is just the lamp I disconnect that one but because everything's powered into that I don't want to reset it caused them a problem so the reports going to say a few outlets were not accessible could not be test to do the occupants belongings and I just take a picture of that now we typically take pictures inside every closet here's our crawlspace access that's where we'll finish the inspection okay let me come into the kitchen now we had already turned on the bake feature so now I'm going to turn that off I'm going to turn the broil on so that when I finish in here I can turn it off when I leave I know it's done now like I say we run a lot of water as we come in and check our outlets this is where I like to use this it's just easier to trip with this so we're gonna check all of our outlets and then we're gonna trip and here's our GFCI make sure you always reset and recheck your outlets after you trip now depending on the age of the house and the age of the outlets GFCIs may not have been required remember when something is performed to the house like an outlets replaced is supposed to brought up the current standards so if everything looks new we're gonna write lack of GFCIs up as a defect yeah everything looks original in the house is older than like 86 then we're gonna write it up as an upgrade for safety we always put it in the report though we always recommend it and I would just check the disposal now under the sink this is one of our pictures we take when we first start out but we're gonna check to make sure there's a clamp on the disposal wire make sure we haven't missed ABS 2 PVC except for mechanical connections right there that is an air admittance belt so because this is Peninsula they didn't bent this through the roof they use this arid mittens belt event to sewer system as we're looking at our cabinet upper cabinets it's not recommended to use deck screws it's a particle board back and with a deck screw it can pull through they're supposed to use either panhead screws or screws with washers so we're gonna write that improper screws were used to hang the kitchen cabinets again we see it a lot so we have that in a drop-down we actually write it up as safety because we have seen where the cabinet's come off the wall and break things so we're gonna open up all the cabinets now you'll notice I'm really not looking in the cabinet's especially like bathroom cabinets things like that you don't want to be nosy and snoop your job is just to see if they work I don't care what's in them you will see all sorts of crazy things and you don't want to really be looking at that stuff now let me grab a tape and a microwave tester so with the microwave this microwave looks like it might be a little close for me so we're gonna go down here okay where it's 16 and a half inches the microwave is supposed to be a minimum of 18 inches from that the cooktop and that's for safety so we're going to take a picture of that then we come back we take a picture and put that in the report we're gonna put a microwave tester in don't run them more than 10 seconds otherwise you will destroy it we're running for a couple seconds I'm gonna turn the fan on this is actually just an internal yeah it was a gas oven we would recommend an external fan although it's not a requirement anymore but it's a good idea I'm gonna make a note about it being due close and then I'm gonna put my stuff away you know our standards of practice are built-in appliances refrigerators not a built-in appliance you can check to see if it makes ice on that if you like but you're not required to so you know like I say we send a copy of the SOP we send a link to our clients three times before we do the inspection with their contract with their quote and with their confirmation email so they already know we're not doing the refrigerator if they ask me about it I'll talk to him about it but there's always disclaimer because it's not checked in the report now backdoor look at it you're gonna open it I want to make sure locks and latches we check to make sure our lights work we've already looked at the outside from the outside of the house so I don't need to do that I've already done it there will be an oath of the screens damaged come in here this is our stacked laundry and on the back side we have our furnace and our water here now one of the things we need to look at when we're looking at combustion appliances were we getting our oxygen now when a water heater or furnace are in close proximity of a dryer it doesn't matter for the gas or electric we need to have outside combustion air because we can starve it and the dryer will actually pull the exhaust right back out of the flue so at this point I'm not seeing any kind of outside combustion air so we're definitely gonna put that in both the furnace and the water heater section now this is something we've already looked into taking our pictures but this one's pretty simple it was built in November 2013 if you look at Bradford white there's actually it's better than the serial number but it's a letter so we have that cheat sheet on our tablet so we can look it up and figure out the age of it we don't put the age in our report but I do like to use it because typically we get 9 to 12 years so we can say at or near the end of its useful life the furnace we saw that pipe sticking on the back side of the house and I was kind of wondering what it was that's actually combustion air for this 80 percent efficient furnace that's fine there should have been a screen on it this here is a single wall flue most manufacturer of 80% recommended double wall flue I'm gonna put a note in it but the age of this it wasn't required so then we tie out so we have our furnace and our water heater in the old days it used to be a requirement that the larger appliance entered the flue before the smaller appliance because of our powered draft now they've got rid of that code but it's still a good good thing to look at I write it up that if they're not correct you may not draft correctly this is a humidistat it's for this humidifier over here again you should look at the media pad see how dirty it is if it needs to be clean but they do recommend it be serviced every year just like your furnace here we have pecs pecs is not allowed to be installed within 18 inches of your water heater that's why we have these copper risers here we do have a drain down here looking in on the backside we have a drip leg on our gas line so those are things we're looking for we're happy to see because this is low voltage for the thermostat that can be that way now it does look like our condensation from our air conditioning lines is dripping on the furnace so I would have a note in my report about that because that can actually cause corrosion problems inside the furnace now we're gonna fire this up later but you always want to look at it again we take pictures of the data tag so we know exactly what furnace was installed here we're gonna take a picture from far back but this is an Aries and it looks like it's a 50,000 BTU so we'll write down model number serial number of things like that it's a sealed burner so there's not a lot you can see on it it is dirty though so we definitely recommend it be cleaned now when you fire it off you can check for carbon monoxide that is entirely up to you again our SOPs do not require it but we don't prevent it so it's not a bad idea to do we have gas leak detectors we have carbon dioxide detectors we have all that and our truck in our bag so we bring them to site but you're not required to have them so just understand that now back here it's laundry we look this one has occupants belongings in it so we'll have a note that the laundry could not be test to do documents belongings now we always recommend a catch pan if it can damage the house we always recommend the dryer vent be cleaned that particular style would not be approved for a gas dryer but as I can't check any of the outlets I can't get at them there's going to be a note that we couldn't get at them here's our garage this should be a self closing fire rated door coming out here we'll look here's our star tag for the fire rating now they have painted over it but it does look like it's their turn the lights on now we have a car that's taking up most of the space here so there's not a lot we can do to check here you know I personally will be very careful open the garage door we want to check a reverse stops things like that I'd have somebody trip it from here and I just the outside of the house and check it because I don't want to scratch their car going in and out but I want to take as many pictures as they can to document the condition I'm in here and check out the outlets things like that right here you can see this outlets been burnt so we want to test it but even if that outlet test good they should have further evaluation because because it trips today doesn't mean it will trip tomorrow when we've been overheated like that a lot of times it damages the outlet and it'd be a good idea to have it replaced and again because that's not something I see commonly I don't have a drop down for it so I just put burnt with three T's that way when I do a spell check my computer will catch it and then I'll write a better story that way I don't just sit here and spend the time to do it right now now I check make sure there's door locks correctly and the deadbolt does not lock so I'm gonna put that as a safety issue we've already looked at it from the outside but it also rubbing now if you look at that so the hinges are loose so we'll have that in their report not that the hinges were tightened up the deadbolt might latch in this garage we can't see a lie I also look and check to make sure the steps have an even rise all of our stairs should be within three days of each other I guess a normally right now we check the reverse stop on the garage door because we have that car on the way we'll do it later when I can have somebody push the button and I can be out there checking it because we don't want to open it without checking I'm gonna make a note about the Tyrian on the wood floors it could be considered cosmetic but until there's been dogs in here okay so here I just caught up on what we looked at in the garage like I see when there's a car in there I just try to kind of keep everything closed we don't take a chance of scratching anything so now over at the oven we've already checked now the broiler it's working we're gonna turn the broiler off this is hot right here we're gonna check our burners quickly you don't want to leave them on too long without anything on it cuz you can burn things but so this is a two-stage so we'll check both so now we have everything off so now we're gonna take a picture that shows it off and when we're done with the inspection we're gonna take a picture that shows this off now remember first thing we did is we looked inside here to make sure there was nothing in there we take a picture of that as we're doing our general walk around but you know always look as people start Tupperware they store all sorts of weird things in their oven and you don't want to melt it and now we're gonna go upstairs check upstairs again if there's any occupants we always announce coming upstairs okay we're coming upstairs I'm gonna say I like to announce it now we're gonna check make sure all of our handrails are tight actually are there now in Colorado we have a law that we have to have a smoke detector within a CO detector within 15 foot of each bedroom that's a smoke seal so that does qualify Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends a smoke detector in each bedroom common area the house one on each level of the house and then a CO detector each occupied level the house so that's what we recommend so coming into bedroom we're gonna turn on everything but we typically try to run our fans at high to see if they wobble when we turn them off we're going to see if they're tight at the ceiling see how this one's wobbling so we're gonna put a note on that because it can actually rip loose from the ceiling if that's the case so we write that up as safety there gonna be a notes at the rear bedroom fan wobbles we've already came through and taken our general pictures but we're gonna come in and quickly look I guess a we have to look at everything but we're not here to snoop so I'm not gonna move intimate articles I'm not going to move things like that we're just kind of looking for water stains in the ceiling damaged holes things like that we do a pretty brief in the closet in their personal space as we try not to spend a lot of a lot of time with that kind of stuff now in here again we're going to check and see if the toilets loose then we're going to turn on the water and we're going to come over here in a shower or bathtub here we're missing growlin so we're gonna look you can hear that sounds different than here so that tile is actually coming loose so there's gonna be known about loose tile and deteriorated missing grout in the report because that's only gonna get worse now I'm gonna talk to my clients and tell them if they fix the grout and they fixed the caulking that tile is still intact they can probably buy themselves some time but eventually they're gonna have to read redo this shower now we want to see if hot hot and if it actually gets hot again we run our water [Music] and again under you know personal space we're looking do we have leaks that's what we're looking for again we have an air admittance valve right down there [Music] I'm going to see if that holds we show a picture of actually operating get a picture for the report we're hot now over time you're gonna kind of come to the the feeling and what's too hot if I turn on hot and I see steam or it feels too hot now that one's not holding so there gonna be a note in the report that it doesn't hold if the water seems too hot I'm going to take my infrared take picture of it we don't want to be above 130 we really want to be about 124 119 to 125 so we're gonna check that but you're gonna come to a point where you can just sense if it's too hot so we open and close all the doors that way we can tell if we're have any binding if the house has moved things like that now this one we're missing the drain stopper it'll be a note that it's missing on this one again we're gonna come up see if the toilet moves now this bathtubs missing the drain stopper we actually carry a little rubber grain stopper so I can hold the water if need be now this one the grout looks much better shape will typically add if we have a drain stopper to three inches of water in there just to check we don't have a leak now we take pictures of it wet and dry that way especially the plastic tubs sometimes if somebody's replaced a toilet or a wax seal they set the toe they did toilet in the bathtub and they break the bathtub so we always take a picture that shows the actual condition of the tub during the inspection again we're gonna look underneath it now look at their personal stuff let's see we're not dripping we're not leaking things like that again the age of the house the outlets are all GFCI protected you check things like that okay as you notice I use this flashlight a lot but we're going to check the closets coming in here if I can sleep safely close the door when they have a cord like this I will with that we consider an office we're gonna look in the closet again but not look at their stuff here's the attic this would be the second the last place we are we've taken multiple pictures of that just to show that if it's damaged we have the pictures of it if it's not damaged we have pictures that it's not damaged again when you can get it a window like this then we open it now this one see it as a damaged track also missing the screen so there's gonna be a note about the damaged loose damaged track and if you mean not about the missing screen now right up here is a smoke detector these are looking good they're white if they are yellow or turning yellow we recommend replacement they are made out of a resin it turns yellow on purpose so that way you can date them just by looking at the color so again coming in opening the windows checking our outlets coming over here checking our closet remember we've already been in here and check taking three four pictures of each from each angle so when we're just kind of doing this walkthrough we don't have to spend a lot of time because we've already been in here and and kind of noted any big defects like if we had water stains things like that but you want to make sure you you know open close every door open close every accessible window if you can't get at a window put it on it's not possible to open you know do the occupants belongings and if there's only one or two windows will actually put the location if there's more than that we'll put several of you whatever the case may be and we'll rely on our pictures to show which ones we can head downstairs okay before we make any changes to the thermostat we take a picture of where it is right now we're on cool 74 degrees that way we run the air conditioner if it's warm enough we run the furnace when we get done after the furnace will go back to cool 74 you have that as your memory kisses you forget but as we're doing our final walk through the house we always take a picture again that it's back to where it was in the winter that can be really important because you don't want to forget to turn the heat back on and that way you can document we left the heat of 68 degrees right where you had it so always getting the habit of taking your thermostat pictures that way it covers you okay so now we're gonna look at the crawlspace so we take a picture showing the access you know when it's in carpet not a big deal but sometimes you'll come in a wooden and that the floor will be damaged things like that so now right below me is the water shut-off that is going to be the only picture in my report that doesn't relate to a defect is gonna be the main water shut-off now there should also be one of the entrance to the crawlspace so we're gonna look in there now I typically don't take my tablet in the crawl space just because it's a dirty area now you want to look down make sure you're not gonna hit anything and then climb in now if there's not enough access for you to safely enter it you don't have to enter it you can look from here but when possible it's always best to go in them you don't know what you're gonna find I always want to look underneath every bathroom every furnace and every laundry because that's where you're gonna see some weird things sometimes by the plumbers or if they cut out a joist or if we've had a leak so those are kind of the susceptible areas to problems we should not have carpet down here because carpet can grow mold right now we are leaking water from the furnace area the air conditioners running so I believe it's probably condensation water we're gonna look at it it's gonna be definitely noted in the report but we never want to see any kind of leaks into the crawlspace okay here we can see that the floor drains leaking so actually leaking all this water into the crawlspace here the return air has become discs and actin so they're actually pulling the air that they're pumping through the house from the crawlspace not a very clean space we don't want to do that you see there's a little trash and debris down here we really would like this to be a clear space here's our main water shut-off there should also be one near the foundation not a good place to store boxes here we have some rust and corrosion at the support post we do have a vapor barrier it is a little odd to see the spacing we're over two feet on our floor joist which is kind of odd to see that biggest spacing I would get a tape measure and measure to actually figure out what our spacing is okay we're just checking the spacing it actually is two foot on Center which is a little unusual for a floor they're two by eights we're not required to check span but if I see something looks a little unusual I will typically look we're at 10 feet span 2 by 8 2 foot on center so I'll look it up in my charts and see if that's that's acceptable now you always want to put the cover on immediately so nobody falls in ok now we're going to inspect the Attic that's typically to the lath or the second last thing that we do depending on if we have a crawlspace okay when we set up our ladder we always use drop cloth so if anything falls down we minimize how much dirt there is you want to be careful remember when you're carrying a ladder through the house it's easy to bang up walls doors things like that so be very careful we like the expandable ladders like this it's just easier to get in plus they're very stable so as you go up you never want to do this to open an attic access you can leave fingerprints you use the backs of your hands like this you can typically do it without leaving any marks so we're gonna lift up and then try to tip it over and not lay it down on the painted side because then you're just gonna make a really dirty attic access panel now you are not required enter an attic if it's safe it's a good idea because there's a lot of things you'll see from up there that you won't see from the opening if you do inspect it from the opening you are required to say that in your report the Attic was inspected from the access only due to limited clearance the depth of the insulation something like that there we go up first things first we're gonna look to see how it looks now nobody has been in this attic so you have to decide if you're the first guy that's gonna want to displace all the insulation if you can easily walk on the truss webbing definitely I would go in it otherwise you know sometimes it does make sellers upset if you're in the middle of a property and you can see it all a lot of times you can do it from the access but on this one we're gonna go in and due to the temperature of the attic you can also tell the venting is not working correctly because this attic is much hotter than it should be so you want to try and put the access back like it was like I say don't put your fingers on it now that attic didn't look like anybody ever walked it a new construction most builders will not allow you in the attic because if you displace the insulation they have to rake it smooth again to get their permits signed off for insulation so always do a seller's notice always do a Builders notice so that they can tell you know you can't be in the attic no you can't be on the roof no maybe you can't be in the electrical panel so on new construction always ask okay the owner was nice enough to move their car so we can actually do a proper garage inspection so first thing we're looking at the door they opened the door so we know it's safe to open on the openers we're looking see here we have some loose nuts on the hinges we have a loose lock on the ends right there so we're gonna put that in the report here our optic eyes we wanted to be approximately eight inches from the ground so they are I always like to come look and see what type of opener is we have a belt drive you don't want to put too much pressure on the reverse tops of the belt drive because you can actually strip the gear remember they should be at ten pounds so if I do 10 pounds and the door doesn't turn our on I'm writing it up as a defect I don't need to go 30 or 40 because I don't want to damage the unit itself so I'm gonna come up here sometimes you have to be fairly quick so the door did not turn around there we check the optic guys so I'm gonna put a note that the reverse stop is improperly adjusted and that's to protect kids pets things like that from being crushed so looking through the garage now we can see the firewall looks like it's intact the garage floor looks good we've already checked the outlets lights things like that up here these actually have safety wires installed so if they didn't tab those wires I would be recommending them and right there you can actually see there they know what it's about it so there we finish the graduate section that is what we do with the home inspection now when we're putting things away you know we're finishing up the house you want to make sure the house is locked up but then the last thing you want to do is kind of make a quick inventory of your tools you know especially your expensive items you know do I have what I brought into the house is my infrared put away is my sewer camera put away things like that the last thing you want to do is have to come back to the house to get it or just lose it because a lot of these tools are very expensive well thanks for watching our inspection video good luck with your inspection career and don't be afraid to text or email if you have any questions thank you [Music]

Channel: International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI)

Views: 106,845

Rating: 4.868032 out of 5

Keywords: International association of certified home inspectors, InterNACHI, NACHI, become a home inspector, home inspection training, home inspection education, gromicko, jim krumm, colorado's best home inspections, general home inspection, cpi, certified professional inspector

Id: 3FXGXqIghFc

Length: 65min 3sec (3903 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 23 2019