Had a peculiarity fall in my lap. A home inspector inspected a house, generated a confusing report, and prompted the realtor representing a potential buyer to contact me to evaluate. I couldn't make much of the report and offered to take a look at the house and tender an opinion in a report.
Any pitfalls to following through on this? I have made it clear that I am a licensed master electrician and instructor but not an electrical inspector or electrical contractor. I have made it clear I would not perform any repairs to whatever violations I notice. As far as I know I'm not breaking a law.
Also, what would you charge for this service? I shot a number that my wife thought was low (but I thought was a bit high) and they went for it anyway.
You are absolutely adding value with a good inspection, an experienced eye on the problems and advice of what to spend money on, what is good and has useful service life left within its original rating. You could charge whatever and still save them money by spending wisely.
Typically they will use the report for deficiencies and either require repairs before closing or take a deduct at the closing for the cost of necessary repairs. I always add some kind of disclaimer avoiding liability for what I did not see. I don't take down ceiling fixtures because I already know the wiring may be baked by heat, no ground, or no box.
Usual suspects would be any wiring done by the previous owners themselves, fixture changes or new fixtures where there was no original wiring, corrosion, heat, or water damage at the service, knob and tube that is in contact with insulation (it's not insulation contact rated), GFI's, extension cord wiring, appliances on the old wiring where new direct lines would be advisable, condition of the SE cable, proper intersystem bonding terminal bar (CATV, phone) or lack thereof, service grounding ...
Got a new service change from a home inspection report, never saw the report. When I reconnected the old boiler I purposely lifted one of the control wires so it would not fire and wrote it up as lacking the proper safety devices. It was an obvious candidate for change, something from 1910, 3 times too big for the house and hacked up over the years. Now that I think about it, the house had freeze alarms in the windows and water damage where the pipes had broken.
Turns out the HI had noted something about the boiler and they had required an insurance policy costing $500 that would cover any repair the boiler would need for a year. I told them they were wasting their money on the insurance and they could either put the $500 towards a new boiler change or they could connect the control wiring themselves if they wanted to run it. Somehow they got the message.
