NEW HORIZON HOME INSPECTION CO

Bob came out and did a very thorough inspection on a small house I was looking to buy. He pointed out a number of faults from minor to some major things I was not aware of. He was very friendly and very patient in explaining what we were looking at. At the end of the evaluation he was great about explaining everything, letting me know I could call if I had any questions later and more importantly did everything he said he would (showing up when he said, sending me the follow up report when he said). The day after the inspection he emailed me a detailed report pointing out the items we had talked about. As a result of his inspection I am able to go back to the seller and may not purchase the house after all. He was able to save me from some real potential headaches down the road. I plan on buying and selling properties and while I am still looking for a good plumber, sheet rock person, etc. I feel that I found the person / company I can use from now on whenever I need a home inspection.

My inspection was performed by Bob Feather, the owner of the company. He arrived at the residence we are planning on purchasing a few minutes early and had already started before I arrived. I attended the complete inspection with my Realtor present. The inspection was performed on a split-level house that was 58 years old. It had 5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, with a living, family and dining room. There was no attic or basement. As Mr. Feather went through each part of his inspection, he took pictures. Once completed with an area, he would review all of the various findings with me. He broke his report into two main components: problems that needed immediate attention and maintenance issues that I should be aware of for the future if I purchased the house. By breaking the report into two components, it allowed me to know what repairs to ask the sellers to fix, but also listed things that I should be aware of once I moved into the house. He also took pictures of all components of the report and presented me with a disc at the end with all the photos. The inspection took 3.5 hours. He checked every electrical outlet, every light switch, every bit of plumbing on the property. He also did a very thorough inspection of the outside features of the house, including the roof, the condition of the brick, siding, drainage, exterior A/C unit, etc. He crawled through the entire (!) crawl space under the house, as well as all over the "attic". As he went through the inspection, he would point out things that were in good condition, items that would need attention eventually and those that he would have repaired before the house purchase. Even my realtor was impressed and was asking him questions about what he was doing, as she had never seen inspectors checking some of the things he did (such as shine a flashlight along a wall to see if it had been repaired, was bowing out or had structural issues). One thing I worry about when moving into a new house is learning about all the little unknown maintenance issues. Unless you have a great seller who will leave you a list of maintenance items, you are on your own to figure out what needs to be done routinely. Mr. Feather eliminated a lot of my worry by making recommendations for general maintenance issues that I would need to be aware of if we purchased the house. The nice thing about all of his extra comments and suggestions is that they all ended up in the report, so I didn't have to try to recall them later. Even if they weren't relevant to us purchasing the house, I still had a list of things that I should do or be aware of once we moved in. The report itself was well organized and broken down into sections, based upon the area inspected. It was 14 pages long (!) and had absolutely everything that he had mentioned as we went through the house. At the end of the report, there was a page on immediate repair issues. These we passed along to the seller to ask that they be fixed. The last page had a list of general maintenance issues that we should pay attention to if we were going to buy the house. Overall, it was an excellent report with a lot of detail. Having a disc of pictures was very helpful to show the sellers exactly what we were asking for, especially for repairs on items that I didn't personally see, such as on the roof or in the crawl space. The only item that wasn't included in the report was an estimate of repair costs. Although my realtors said that other ASHI inspectors gave estimates, Mr. Feather stated very clearly up-front that he would not. This was a minor concern, as the sellers had to get professional estimates for all the repairs anyway. The only time it might be helpful would be if a buyer was asking for money off the buying price rather than for repairs, but a professional contractor should probably be brought in anyway, as Mr. Feather is only an inspector, not a professional plumber, electrician, roofer, etc. who can list the current repair prices. We wanted the repairs done, as they were critical, so it didn't matter much to us. Who wants to move into a house with potentially unsafe conditions?! And, as all that repairs that we asked for were reasonable, our sellers are fixing them all.