My partner wants to do some renovations to her house, and we thought it might be a good idea to get a home inspector to inspect the house, point out the main problem areas that need addressing, give us rough estimates of what the likely costs would be, and to give his opinion on some of our plans. This way we would get an unbiased opinion from an independent expert (i.e. not from a contractor who might stand to gain from recommending some improvement) We found Brent through Homestars and hiring him was probably the best investment we could have made. He took his time to walk with me through and around the house, explaining what he saw, what the problems, possibilities and likely costs are. Because of the snow on the roof he couldn`t inspect the roof as well as he wanted to, but he said to give him a call in the Spring and he would come back, free of charge, once the snow is gone. Then after the inspection he sat down with me to go over things once more in great detail, but in a very accessible manner. He also basically described the market for home renovations, what to expect from contractors, how to best deal with them, and so on. (it`s also worth pointing out that I now have a much better sense of how the market works, what some possible renovations should costs, and so on. This knowledge may end up saving us (tens of) thousands of dollars. Brent gave us a very detailed written report, and later e-mailed the many photos he had made in and around the house. Given the things we learned from Brent about our house, about home renovation, and about the market for it, and given how generous Brent was with his time, I don`t think we could have made a better investment than this home inspection from Brent. We are also thinking about hiring him to review the quotes we get from contractors, to supervise the renovation (so as to solve the problem that the contractor knows much more about these things than we as clients do), etc.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $350.00
- Company Response
Thank you so much for the review Koen! You are too kind! You also certainly raise an interesting issue. As we had discussed at the inspection, yes, I also agree with what you had suggested however not many people would agree with you and me. As I told you, people believe every word their contractor has to say. What people must understand is that the home inspector should be looking out for your best interest and as well keeping your bank book in mind! Are all contractors going to have the same mentality? I would doubt it. You just simply wouldn’t believe what I hear. Many contractors just make stuff up to either make themselves look good or to make extra money. In many cases, both. You mentioned that I could save you thousands of dollars. I could save a lot of people a lot of money! Simply because I have nothing to sell them. I told you the time a person called me up, came down on me hard because I had inspected the home telling them they have copper wiring within the home when I inspected the electrical, everything was fine. The contractor or “friend” (as they referred them to) told them that they have aluminum wiring in the home and it all must be changed to copper and that they will also require a new panel box. The bill was about $15K. I don’t blame them for being mad. However, I proved the contractor wrong by showing the people and proving that it was copper and everything was fine. I just saved them $15K!!! The last thing I want to do is to get into a battle of wits with people. However, I just saved them $15K! Did they even bother to thank me? Nope. Not even a “thanks”. That’s how much people put faith into their contractor. That’s one of a thousand stories I could tell you. Thank you so much for the great review Koen! Thank you for choosing Classic Home Inspections!!!