Home Inspections

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GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
Except for those few items that are mandated by federal, state or local ordinance upon sale of residential property.

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norcal

Senior Member
Another 'report' stated all 'red handled breakers be taken out and replaced'

again....
WWYD?
~RJ~
What does handle color mean? If my memory serves me correctly, there were 3 manufacturers who used color to denote the ampere rating of the breaker, Murray, (way back), Bryant/Westinghouse/Cutler-Hammer/Eaton, & Zinsco. Guess it could be a ignorant way to say remove 20A breakers where 15A should be.
 

McLintock

Senior Member
Location
USA
Occupation
Electrician
Looked at one where the HI listed “panel wired improperly”. The would be homeowner had me there while the HI was there. I looked at the panel and saw nothing “wired improperly”, so I ask the HI about it and he said “you should know”. The grounds and neutral were on the same bar. Showed him the green bonding screw, asked him to give me the code volatilization and for course like all HI give me a dumb look.

Point is they just go off the 3 hour class to become a HI and really do not know the first thing about inspecting homes.


“ shoot low boys their riding shetland ponies”
 

romex jockey

Senior Member
Location
Vermont
Occupation
electrician
What does handle color mean? If my memory serves me correctly, there were 3 manufacturers who used color to denote the ampere rating of the breaker, Murray, (way back), Bryant/Westinghouse/Cutler-Hammer/Eaton, & Zinsco. Guess it could be a ignorant way to say remove 20A breakers where 15A should be.
iirc, they were really after the old federal pacific , which they identified as 'red handle'

~RJ~
 

infinity

Moderator
Staff member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Journeyman Electrician
Point is they just go off the 3 hour class to become a HI and really do not know the first thing about inspecting homes.
That's not true of every jurisdiction. Some require much more than 3 hours of classroom time may even exceed a 100 hours. They may even require dozens of hours of working under a licensed inspector.

Like electricians there are good and not so good HI's. Obviously if the licensing standard is 3 hours of study time than they will probably fall into the not so good category. And like many here I've had my share of both types.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
to my knowledge , none of the trades Ramsy

although a number of us were confronted , it never made a court docket

~RJ~
And it won't. This is why you have liability insurance. Your insurance company will go to court to deal with the other insurance companies and the lawyers. When something goes south everybody who has something to do with the project and even some people who didn't are going to get contacted by the lawyers. Just turn it over to your insurance company and let them deal with it. That's why you buy insurance.

Personally I am not too worried about the quality of the home inspector. I don't worry all that much about the quality of the electrical contractor either. They can both be good or bad and most people don't know the difference between the two when they go to hire someone.

For the most part it is an exercise in trying to eliminate the possibility of a serious surprise happening when you buy a house. It's not a perfect solution but there is no real perfect solution because who is willing to pay $10,000 to inspect a house you're paying a few hundred thousand dollars for.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
By the way I do agree with that statement. Overyone tends to remember the bad one's.
And most people have no way of knowing the difference between a good one and a bad one. They almost always decide the guy they like is better than the guy they don't but this is a horrible way to choose anybody that requires skill because con artists are very good at getting people to like them.
 

ramsy

Roger Ruhle dba NoFixNoPay
Location
LA basin, CA
Occupation
Service Electrician 2020 NEC
And it won't. (end ip in court)
Not without casualty claims, since accident attorneys aren't competing for a piece of the action.

And most people have no way of knowing the difference between a good one and a bad one..
Thats not true. Unlike most home owners, property managers scrub down contractors to remove unqualified persons before they touch the building, and void property insurance.

My clients are advised to demand "Additionally Insured" certificates from remodel contractor's General Liability policy, or file performance claims against their license for negligent construction.

Certificates of additionally insured remain in affect, long after remodel contractors go AWAL, bankrupt, or change corporate names.
 
I don't know about in PA but here if you go to make corrections from an inspection report you do not own all of the electrical problems that may be present. You're not there to do an electrical inspection you're there to fix things that have been negotiated between the buyer and the seller.

If they want to pay you go beyond that then you can offer that service but if you're there to change out a few receptacles you don't own every other electrical problem unless the laws in your state say that you do, here they do not. Does the law in PA actually require you to bring the place up to the current code?
I’m not sure about the law specifically but I would do as you said with regard to different outlets and such. But if something is cited like “replace an outlet in a dining room” and there is no mention of installing the AFCI, I wind up doing the job per code and tell the client that in order for me to do what the inspector wants I have to also do something additional for it to be code compliant. So the homeowner thinks they’re paying for an outlet and then I tell them they also have to pay for an AFCI. But I only expand on things that are cited in the report, if I were to find another bad outlet somewhere, I would not replace it unless the client wants me to when I point it out. But I am specifically talking about expanding upon things that were cited when they were not cited correctly or inclusively.
 
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