Pillar to Post Home Inspectors

Al did an in-depth inspection of our property prior to our settling on the home. He spent 3 hours poking around and trying everything, which certainly gave the impression of thoroughness. He noticed some problems with the roof (some shingles not attached!), some galvanized pipe that needed replacing, and a lack of insulation. His demeanor was professional, and he told me that I would receive a detailed report, and that taking notes wasn't necessary. The report, which came 2 days later, was very long but did not have many details of our discussions. It was overall fine. Since then, however, we have discovered a variety of problems that were not part of the report. Because some of the smaller problems may have changed in the last few months, I won't go into those. The issue that is most troubling is the roof. At the time of the inspection, part of the roof wasn't completed (there was a stack of shingles next to an area that wasn't done). This was the only roof issue that was brought to our attention. Unfortunately, we recently learned that the same roofers who didn't finish the job also did not use enough nails or properly install flashing. We now have shingles sliding off the roof. A roofer looked at this and saw from the ground the flashing problems and also went up on the roof and found many areas with loose shingles. Because these are not problems that would have changed since March, it seems that Al did not see the flashing problem or check for loose shingles. We now need to tear off and replace the roof. Another issue was with the downstairs bathroom. This had major problems: (1) tile in the shower was coming off, (2) there was no pan under the floor tiles of theshower, and the drain is horrible when you look inside, and (3) the sink in this room had no trap. Several plumbers have noticed these issues, but it went unnoticed by Stanczyk. In addition, two contractors have told us that local code is for all decks to be 6 inches below the doors (to prevent snow moisture from damaging doors). This is not the case behind our sun room, and Stanczyk did not notice this. Finally, efforts to get advice from Stanczyk on contractors went unanswered; he has not returned any emails since our inspection. We realize that home inspection is not an exact science, and don't expect the inspector to find everything. However, this fell so far below our expectations that we thought it was worth contributing a review.