Hoaglin Signature Home Inspection

Excellent! Bob did a great job pointed of areas for repair and provided suggestions for continuing maintenance. He is very particular and provided a through review of the property.

I used Bob Hoaglin for two home inspections. He was really quick to respond, was able to fit me into his schedule quickly, and I received the report the same day as the inspections. The report was detailed and thorough and even included photographs many inspected items. He was kind enough to talk with me on the phone after I received the reports to clarify some issues and to estimate what it might cost to have some of the issues fixed. He was very professional from start to finish. I would highly recommend him.

We have worked with Bob before on our first house. He is very thorough and accessible. He has been in the construction and home inspection business for years. He builds and remodels houses also, so he has a wealth of experience to draw on. He provides a binder with a printed report including pictures the day he does the inspection. He will walk you through the home and point out his findings. He is sure to include, not only problems, but also nice/unexpected upgrades. He responds as quickly as he can in between jobs he's on. We highly recommend working with him as we have been highly satisfied both times we have used him.

On the recommendation of our realtor, we hired Robert Hoaglin of Hoaglin Signature Home Inspection to look at a home which we had under contract. First, the positives. Mr. Hoaglin was very professional. During the course of the inspection he created an entire Home Inspection Report binder that he created and printed on site. The binder included photos and descriptions of what he found as well as the important manuals for major appliances. The inspection took about 6 hours and he seemed to be very thorough. My husband was present throughout and was quite enchanted with the binder and the overall experience. Mr. Hoaglin caught some minor issues, like a sticking shower door, and some moderate ones like lack of flashings on the deck and issues with the stucco. He was helpful in writing up repair orders for the owners and being specific about what company should be used for the stucco. All the issues were in the minor or moderate category, so we proceeded with the purchase of the house. Only after occupying the home for a few years did we realize the magnitude of the major issues present in the home at the time of inspection that Mr. Hoaglin missed. I want to emphasize that there are not issues that suddenly came up years after the inspection...they were present during the inspection and some represent major issues present in many Utah homes, issues that should have been looked for during any inspection. One issue was a fire-code issue. This should have been an easy one to catch. There was a microwave mounted over the stove. Unfortunatley, this was a microwave without a vent - it was instead the kind designed to be placed on a counter. It was "mounted" by drilling and installing a flammable, particle board shelf between cabinets less than two feet above the stove. We only discovered this issue when we went to boil water for pasta and condensation was dripping all over. Then we realized this was not a microwave designed to be mounted over a stove. The individual who installed a new, venting microwave informed us that it was against fire code to have particle board that close to the stove. This was an issue right out in the open that Mr. Hoaglin should have caught. After we moved in, something seemed "off" about the house. We couldn't get pictures to look like they were hung straight, even when using a level. Window screens were hard to change out. Dropped items rolled longer than usual. Small things. In the meantime, we decided to have the deck replaced. This is a very large, second-floor deck with two access doors: one out of the kitchen and one out of the master bedroom. While getting a bid for the new deck, the first thing the person looking at the deck said was, "Do you realize when you walk out from the kitchen, you step 5 inches down, but when you walk out from the bedroom there is no step?" In other words, the house was completely crooked. The deck builder literally noticed this after spending 30 seconds on the deck. After further investigation, we found out that we actually had a straight house built on a crooked foundation. The house was not shifting, it had been built crooked on purpose after the foundation was poured incorrectly. It had not moved since the inspection, or since being built. The problem was there during the inspection. Sure, this could be seen as a subtle thing...but applying a level anywhere in the house would have sent up a red flag (a lesson we will apply in our next home-buying experience). The step issue in the deck should have been obvious for a home-inspector. Another major issue was evidence of water damage in an area of the unfinished basement. I will concede that the owners cleverly hid this behind a emergency food shelving system and lied when they filled out pre-inspection information about the home. Still, the issue was obvious the day we moved in. Later, we found out that basement leakage/seepage is a major issue in our area of Utah. So, if it is a common problem, the inspector should either move the shelves himself or tell the client (my husband, who was present) that it might be a good idea to check for water damage on the walls of the basement where spring melt and drainage is likely to occur. We spent a great deal of money having a professional drill into the concrete and insert a filling agent to stop the problem. No inspector can find everything, but he should be able to find things like code violations and issues prevalent in the area. That's why people hire inspectors! This is especially true here in Utah where everyone seems to want to "Do it himself/herself!" with no regard to local codes and laws. I honestly can't say whether we would have purchased the house if we knew about these issues or not. My hunch is that we would have lived with the microwave issue, but not the water damage or crookedness. People hire home inspectors to catch the things they are not trained to see themselves. Even the slogan of the company is "Inspection Brings Peace of Mind." Sadly, that didn't happen in our case - the inspection just led us to buy a house with a ton of problems. For these reasons, I cannot recommend this company to anyone interested in buying a home.