Pre Settlement Inspection

Today I met my home inspector and did my pre-settelment walk through with him.  As I have mentioned in other posts it is important to have a home inspector take a look at your new house as it is for them to look at old houses.  My inspector told me about how he was looking at a deck on a new house and found one of the footings cracked completely through, it was just a matter of time before it broke apart completely.  The whole inspection took about two hours (although I hear it varies quite a bit).  I scheduled it for the day before my walk through with the project manager (which is tomorrow), that way we didn't need to rush.  The cleaning crew was also there making sure it looked clean for settlement.

I walked around with my home inspector and some of the things we examined were:

• We turned the AC on and measured the temp of the air coming out of the vents (he had a meat thermomitor looking thing to do this) and then turned the heat on and did the same.  It looked good.
• We ran all of the appliances in the kitchen and made sure they worked and that if everything on the stove (all the burners and oven) was on the breaker didn't trip.
• We opened up the furnace down stairs and ensured the proper filters were there.  He also found that the safety switch for the furnace cover was taped down which wasn't good.  It is designed to turn off if the furnace cover is open so you (or your kids) can't electrocute yourself. 
• Checked the toilets, he found one that had a slow leak, wasting water.
• He checked that all the breakers work as they were supposed to.
• He checked the sump pump.
• He checked the GFCI outlets.
• He also found a couple scratches on the cabinets and mirrors.
• He checked every window making sure it was sealed well, opened and closed well.  One window was a bit tight.
• We walked around the outside, he made sure the spigots worked well, found a piecie of siding that wasn't tucked in as it should.
• There were end caps missing off the molding near the garage door.
• He checked that garage door and the safety features of the garage all worked as they were supposed to.

He checked a gazillion other things as well, but this was some of the stuff that we checked and found wrong. In the end I had a list of about 12 things to give to the project manager that we wanted fixed.

The inspection was about $200, and considering how small that is compared to the home I think it is worth it.  He also found problems that if I hadn't found on my own would have cost more than $200 to fix.  He just knew to look for things that I wouldn't have looked at.

I emailed the list to my project manager and I will see him tomorrow and we can go over the list and he can do his walk through.

Our kitchen

The outside of the house with the new sod.