AmeriSpec Home Inspections-Bloomington Office

Kevin was very thorough and explained everything to us in a way that we would understand. He was punctual, efficient and very detailed in the inspection and in the report. He went above and beyond by explaining different causes for some of the issues that were found and how we could fix them.

It went really well. The inspector, Mark Slotvig, arrived on time and immediately began his work. We found Mark to be a quick but thorough worker. He was pleasant to speak with and readily answered our questions.

Rob is an excellent inspector. Very professional as well as super helpful, giving us so many maintenance and safety tips and suggestions that I filled about 5 pages with useful information about the house. I appreciated that we could follow him through the inspection and ask questions along the way. Top notch!

Kevin was punctual, professional, and helpful. He pointed out things as he went along that will help me as the new homeowner better understand my home. He worked as both educator and inspector. I would recommend him to friends and family.

Kevin from Amerispecs was extremely professional, thorough and informative. As first time home buyers, we were instantly put at ease by Kevin’s willingness to answer our questions and educate us. We would highly recommend Kevin and Amerispecs!

John was a very thorough and very knowledgeable inspector. Tagging along on his inspection allowed us to learn a lot about the home we were purchasing. Great experience!

The Home Inspection was done by Kimball Martin from AmeriSpec. Kimball checked EVERYTHING in the house! He made sure all of the the big stuff like the furnace, air conditioner and water heater were working properly. As well as all of the household appliances. He checked all of the electrical outlets and light fixtures, even the ones in the garage. The faucets, shower heads and toilets were inspected. He climbed the roof to assess it's condition and checked the chimney. He made sure the woodburning fireplace was in working order. He even went into the attic. The entire house was gone over, from top to bottom, inside and out. When Kimball finished with the inspection, he reviewed with us his findings. He had pictures to show us what he had seen. He was very knowledgeable and could answer questions we had. I liked that he made sure we knew where the main water shut-off was and he explained how the fuse box worked. We would definately ask Kimball Martin from AmeriSpec to inspect any house we were interested in buying.

AmeriSpec was very accommodating. I had to reschedule from the origian date due to sellers drain backing up and they worked through it with me, no questions asked. They were able to place the radon before my inspection so I got the results the same day as the inspection. I had my home inspection with John on a Saturday. I brought several people with (agent, significant other, and parents). John was very patient with me and my crew yet efficient with the inspection. During the process he encouraged me to observe what he was doing and explained pertinent findings, both positive and negative. When I had questions he would explain things in a way I could understand. John helped me get a realistic picture of what I was getting into and any work that may need to be done, presently and down the road. The report provided was thourough and prompt (right after the inspection). We spent around 2 hous going through an 1800sq ft house and every nook and cranny was covered. There were a couple details on the report that I wanted changed and when I called Monday, John got it back to me that day without question. The office staff is very curteous and accommodating.

Rob was excellent. Explained every detail of the process. He took time to walk me through all the points of the inspection. He was patient with all my questions and answered them thoroughly. I would recommend to anyone looking for a home inspection.

Kimball was an excellent inspector! We’re first time home buyers so he provided a lot of details about what he was looking for and also made several recommendations for home maintenance. I would recommend him to anyone buying a new home.

This was the second home I had inspected by Kevin with AmeriSpec. I definitely wanted him to come back on the second one as he was so thorough and informative. He earned my trust and saved me from a huge hidden mold problem on the first one. He again was thorough and I feel confident and comfortable moving forward with the purchase of the second home.

Mark was great to work with! He explained things in very simple terms making our first time home buying experience easier to understand. I would highly recommend AmeriSpec to anyone looking for an inspector. Buying a home for the first time is really scary but after working Mark & AmeriSpec, we have more confidence!

I’ve used them twice! I wouldn’t use anyone else. They walk through the house with you, they make sure you know how to use everything and make recommendations. They’ve saved us thousands on our new home!

I was very pleased with Kevin's inspection of the home I am purchasing. He was very personable and thorough and helped me learn a lot of things a homeowner should know.

I have been using them for 15 years. Excellent.

I love how my husband and I were able to be there during the entire inspection, and how Mark explained everything to us on how it’s supposed to function and how to maintain the water valve and electrical box, etc. He was also able to answer a lot of questions as we were going through the inspection. It was the best service we’ve ever had!

Amerispec failed to detect leaks in the plumbing in 4 places (water meter patched with duct tape, outdoor shut-off valve that was beyond corroded, and 2 nonfunctioning patches in the mechanicals room). Also, the insulation contractor pointed out that the downstairs bathroom was venting directly into the attic, and was not connected to the flu that had evidently been installed directly above it for that purpose. The inspector had spent quite a bit of time in the attic and missed this. Nice guy, just felt it was less than Inspection Lite. I contacted Amerispec about these issues and sent photos. They explained that their job is to "note problems not repairs that are adequately performing," and I contend that duct tape and rubber hose do not fall into the repair category, but are more along the lines of lipstick on a pig. Amerispec offered to reimburse my inspection fee of $285, but it took them a month and another email from me to actually send it. I ended up having to replumb the entire house and replace the downstairs ceiling at a cost of more than $5000.

Arrived punctually. Completed inspection as stated. Reviewed results. Made suggesttions.

Provided thorough and professional inspection. Pointed out issues and concerns and also degree of seriousness of any identified problem. Patiently answered all questions. More than an inspection, it was an educational experience. Would definitely use them again.

For a basic visual inspection, I felt it was pretty thorough. There were some items for which he remarked that he could not make an accurate assessment because the object/area was obstructed, which is kind of frustrating, but that is the nature of the visual inspection. I don't know if other places do it differently or not, but I more or less expected this, so I was too put off by it. Aside from those less-than-helpful comments, I felt the inspection was good overall. The inspector showed up a little bit late (only 15-20 minutes), but he called me ahead of time to let me know that he was running late. Once the inspection started, he was very informative about things that he noticed that could use a tune up or repairs in general, and he was very open to me shadowing him throughout the inspection and asking any questions that came to mind. After the inspection, throughout which he had been keeping notes in his computer, he printed out a summary that detailed all of his findings. The primary areas of "concern" were all listed together on the first page of the report to make them easy to find, and the rest of the report was organized by home area (deck, garage, kitchen, bedroom 1, roof, etc.), making it fairly easy to navigate.

As i can not speak for the entire inspection I can speak from a few key issues that nearly ruined this buying and selling experience for both parties. This company (and I am told the owner completed the inspection although when I requested follow up I received none) reported to the buyers of our home that the boiler was emitting carbon monoxide into the home at 1200ppm- 12 times higher than the allowable amout. Upon receiving this information I (having two small children) called both the fire department and the gas company. The house was evacuated and cleared. The gas company ran the gas appliances and completed a report. I was told from the gas company they often receive calls like this after home inspections as they have faulty equipment or are under qualified for their jobs. I returned this to the buyers. The buyers, upon the advice of this company insisted this was NOT enough. Although the boiler and ALL the gas using appliances had been run and tested they insisted we complete another an thurough inspection of the boiler. Sensing our frustration after the panic that we had already been through at the hands of this inspector the Realtor offered to pay for the inspection. On 6/7/2013 Pronto Heating came to the home and completed a thurough cleaning and inspection of the boiler. Not only is it in fabulous working order but one of the most reliable and cost efficient boilers available. The inspector also made some errors on his electrical inspection. This was verified by Mendota Electric when they came to our home and found outdoor outlers (marked as not working) in working order as well as items he told the buyers that were required to code that are not. All in all his poor inspecting, failure to return phone calls and lack of knowledge and cause of panic in the area of gas appliances and boilers/furnaces cost us about $400 and the buyers no doubt close to $850 in inspections and insisted upon radon tests (which came back fine). I will be filing a complaint against this company with the BBB in hopes of protecting other buyers and sellers in the future. For now all I can do is share our experience with others and the buyers at the time of closing in a few short weeks. An inspection should be to protect the buyer, not to rack up additional expenses.

I arrived at the house at the hour specified and Mark Slotvig had already been there for an hour. He went over all the exterior things he found, none of which were issues. Once inside the house, he went over all the potential problems and some of the quirky things he found with the house. The one thing that proved to be the most important was where the cutoff valve for the external pipes was located! I *never* would have found it on my own as it was buried behind an air exchanger! When Mark left, I had a binder full with the entire report and photos of the house. I have used that book several times over the past year to both find things and pick which items were next for an upgrade. Though we have had little snow this year, I do have some pretty significant ice dams, however, Mark pointed this out as a potential issue. Since we were not yet in winter when he inspected the house, there were none present at the time of inspection. They have appeared in both spots he said the probably would. To date I have recommend Mark and this company to many people and two real estate agents. Good inspectors are hard to find and of the 4 I have hired, Mark has been the most thorough, professional and courteous. I would not hesitate to hire him again and neither should you!

AmeriSpec was recommended by our realtor, and we are very happy that we went with AmeriSpec, as the tech provided us a great experience. We felt sure that we had a grasp on the condition of the home he was inspecting with us. We asked lots of questions, and he answered in layman's terms, with as much detail as we could have asked for. He arrived on time, and got right to work, clearly having done this before many times. He inspected the exterior of the house (noting that the land sloped toward the house, making for potential flooding issues), and all parts of the interior (attic to basement). He tested the appliances, ran water from faucets, examined cracks in the walls and ceiling, reviewed the electrical box, and explained everything he was doing all the while. He printed us an easy-to-read report and put it in a binder for us when he was finished (he had a printer with him). The binder even included a book on home maintenance, which we have kept and still use. A home inspection in real life doesn't seem to be what you see on HGTV; our inspector wouldn't tell us if he would buy the house, and he wouldn't be very specific on costs for repairs. However, the information he provided us was still very useful, and we ultimately decided not the buy the house because the homeowner wouldn't take care of the inspection issues our tech found. (The house sold several weeks later for about 10% less than we were discussing paying for it.)

My real estate agent arranged it and the inspector met me at the house at the appointment time. did a very thorough job of inspecting everything in the house. Retrospectively a few points were missed but nothing big.

This was my first home purchase and first home inspection. The inspection went fine and John was very professional but as I lived in the house I encountered several problems that he did not point out. 1) My house was a flipped foreclosure. They installed a new furnace and duct work but they did now close the vents during construction so large amounts of sheet rock and other debris including a lot fine dust from the sheet rock was spread throughout my duct work and furnace. Simply opening the furnace would have revealed this and I had to spend several hundred dollars having all this cleaned. I also found that there is no duct work for some of my return registers. The air simplify travels through my floor and basement ceiling between two floor joists which really affects the air quality in the house. 2) The company who had remodeled the house installed a cheap hollow door for my front door. John missed this and it caused a lot of moisture issues and damage during the winter. 3) My attic was just a mess. John only pointed out I could use thicker insulation but the company who remodeled the house did not properly insulate the attic at all including not insulating a bathroom vent that vented through the roof. I spent well over $2000 dealing with the resulting ice dams as well as now having to spend at least another $2000 to have the attic properly insulated for this upcoming winter. I have had several people come look at the attic and everyone of them could not believe that a home inspector could have missed all these issues with my attic. The company who remodeled the house did a lot of nice work but they took a lot of shortcuts on other parts like the attic. I came in at asking price with a fast closing date so the seller was more than agreeable about fixing issues. I could have saved so much time and money had these issues been properly pointed out. From my experience the home inspection is the most important part of the whole process and after learning so much I cannot believe how many things John missed during my inspection.