Du Bose Home Inspection

Description of Work: I used Mr. Dubose to inspect a house I was purchasing based on the recommendation of my realtor. This was my first home purchase and I am single, so I thought I was being careful and watchful to make sure not to get taken advantage of in any way. Mr. Dubose did arrive on time and was very nice and appeared to do a thorough inspection. His charge was very reasonable. He did find a few obvious things in the inspection, such as the dishwasher not being secured in place, an exhaust fan not being vented out to the roof, and a problem with the dryer exhaust opening. On the re-inspection after the seller fixed the required items, however, Mr. Dubose did not recheck two electrical outets that didn't have power. A couple weeks after moving into the house, I had to get an electician to come fix that at about $100. This was not enough to upset me. However, in the last year I have found two major things that were missed or ignored in the home inspection. The first time I had an HVAC company inspect and do maintenance work on my heating/AC unit (summer 2012), I was informed and shown that there was obviously open duct work at the bottom of the unit. The service technician explained that the open areas at the bottom of the unit were essentially blowing hot and cold air out into the street and wasting my money. Additionally, the exterior gas line at the HVAC unit was an INTERIOR pipe without the required lining/insulation required for outdoor lines. He explained to me the risk of gas leaks, etc. In total, it cost me about $800 to close the duct work, replace the gas line with one that meets building codes, and replace some sort of capacitor box in the unit. The capacitor box may have been fine at the time of the inspection in June 2010, but the unsealed ducts and the inadequate exterior gas line were obviously original problems. NO mention of the ductwork or gasline was made in the inspection report. Then over the last few months, spring 2013, I have noticed some cracks in the tile grout and some suspcious "sinking" in the floor in an extension on the back of the house that was done by the seller when he purchased and renovated the house. I had a foundation services company come out to inspect that addition and my foundation in general. I was told (and saw for myself, going under the house with the supervisor) that the supports underneath the extension were done by "drystacking", which is basically a cheap, fast way to stablize support beams, and not considered good building practice. This drystacking was also done under the front porch. As for my foundation, there are multiple places in the brick runner around the bottom of the house (overall house is siding) where the mortar has been obviously, messily patched. There were other places visible from within the crawlspace where vents in the brick runner have been sealed from the inside with spray insulation, which also indicate some foundation settling. The end result of my visit and learning session with the foundation person is that it will cost me $4000 to have the supports underneath the extension/addition at the back of the house redone and properly secured. The foundation inspector was aghast that no mention of the evidence of previous foundation shifting and 'band-aid' repair of the mortar was found in my inspection report. I was told that eventually, possibly not for a few years, the foundation will start to have further problems and either I will need to fix the foundation (an estimate of $25-30,000) or try to push the work/problem off on the next person to buy this house. I also was told that if the foundation folks had come out and inspected when I was negotiating to buy this house, they would have steered me away from the purchase at all, due to the significant evidence of foundation instability and poor stabilzation/supports done under the addition and front porch.

Description of Work: He did a home inspection for me.

Description of Work: Inspection of a house that we were purchasing as an investment property.