Private Residential Inspection: What to Check

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Greg H

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Location
Durham, NC, USA
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Electrician
Hey all, I have a customer that recently bought an older house and they are worried that there may be some problems with the old wiring. The only specific things they mentioned are that the house has cloth insulated wiring that might be either aluminum or tinned copper. I didn't ask if it was knob and tube wiring as I didn't get the impression they would be able to tell. Long story short, I agreed to charge them $100 for an electrical inspection as well as to answer some of their questions about some possible future upgrades.

My plan for the inspection is to look inside the MSP and and any subpanels looking for any obvious problems (double terminated breakers, damaged wire, incorrect bonding etc.) as well as to scratch test any silver colored wiring to determine if it is aluminum and tinned copper. I'm going to look inside any readily accessible parts of the attic and/or crawlspace to see if there are any visible problems with the wire runs focusing especially on any runs of older cloth-sheathed NM cable for signs of fraying or cracking or if there is any knob and tube wiring, and to use a plug tester to test all readily accessible receptacles for correct grounding, etc. as well as pick maybe 1-3 receptacles at random to actually open up and check for any kinds of improper wiring.

Obviously, once I see it, there may or may not be a little or a lot that needs fixing, but my question was if any of y'all had had similar types of inspection type jobs, if you think $100 is a fair price for this, where/what you looked at/for, what kinds of problems you've found, anything else you recommend I make a point to take a look at, or just general advice for these kind of jobs. Thanks
 
Please update your profile with your occupation.
 
Are you a licensed inspector? Some places may require you to be licensed to actually perform an inspection. Also I would look the potential liability, many inspectors carry E and O insurance to cover mistakes that may result in a lawsuit.
 
infinity said:
Are you a licensed inspector? Some places may require you to be licensed to actually perform an inspection. Also I would look the potential liability, many inspectors carry E and O insurance to cover mistakes that may result in a lawsuit.
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I'm a licensed electrical contractor in North Carolina. I'm not a licensed home inspector. My understanding is that the home inspector advised the homeowner to have an electrician (me) assess their system.
 
Greg H said:
I'm a licensed electrical contractor in North Carolina. I'm not a licensed home inspector. My understanding is that the home inspector advised the homeowner to have an electrician (me) assess their system.
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Please update your profile to reflect that..

And BTW, unless you know the manufacturer of the breakers double tapping is not necessarily a problem.
 
If you find both grounding and non-grounding receptacles in that house, be suspicious and make sure that no grounding receptacle is installed in an ungrounded metal box without the required GFCI protection.
 
They need to understand they get what they pay for..... for $100... "looks good..not smokin', didn't get shocked'" :)

If you get a Service Charge plus your hourly rate I would check the following:
No AL on 15 and 20 amp branch circuits; proper over-current protection; visual check for damaged wiring and open splices; proper wiring & grounding of any 3 wire receptacles; GFCI in bath, outdoors & kitchen; as you suggested, random inspection of a few receptacles & switches; presence of grounding electrode system; service size & condition

There are a number of checklist available on line and you can pick one relative to your fee.
 
Look for more than one neutral (or a neutral plus ground) in the same hole. A panel schedule would be nice. They are usually wrong or vague. You may not have time to trace all the circuits though for $100. A wrong panel schedule made things difficult to assess when I bought this current house. It has two kitchens, but I did not determine until after I'd bought it that there was only one 120V circuit serving the 2nd kitchen, and it was a #14 on a 20A breaker.

Upsell items: AFCI upgrade (which could require a new panel), GFCI's where needed now (not just locations in the past which it may have), Grounded circuits if you find any branch circuits that are ungrounded or were falsely grounded (jumper from neutral to ground).
 
I would make no assertions or assumptions about any wiring that is not visible or accessible.
$100 is way too low.

I charged $250 just for a report to a realtor with just basic items checked. You'll spend $100 in time just writing up what you find!
 
Greg H said:
I'm a licensed electrical contractor in North Carolina. I'm not a licensed home inspector. My understanding is that the home inspector advised the homeowner to have an electrician (me) assess their system.
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As a licensed electrician you should be able to provide a home electrical inspection. You should always limit the scope of an inspection by stating what you will inspect and what will not be covered.

One thing that you can do to get a bit of imformation about the poperty is to google the address of the property. The realestate company that sold the property will normally have information such as sq ft of living space, number of bed rooms and bath rooms, basement (finished or not) and a very important item : the year it was built.

To get a good idea of the condition of the electrical system it will be necessary to go into the attic and maybe a crawl space. You may find anything from rodent chewed wiring to lots of flying splices.

If you are going to do a real inspection I don't think $100 is nearly enough. It can take at least two hours on site and many times longer. You may wish to take some pictures to go along with notes taken.

I have found a few old houses that were in pretty good shape but that's not the most common.

Have fun this is one of those live and learn situations. After you inspect a few homes you will learn more about what to look for. Doing remodeling of older homes gives more information about what you may run into.
 
If HI recommended evaluation by licensed electrician, somethings bad wrong and he's covering his azz, probably so as not to squelch sale and have realtors stop using his services

1st thing I do when I get such calls is ask customer to email me HI report, I'll give advice and sometimes estimates based on that (for free-I don't take time away from productive hours for this)

If I can't tell enough from report, I charge $125 for site visit. This is not a full inspection, just following up on HI report. (he's already plugged bugeye into all accessible receptacles, and has pictures of his tester plugged into ungrounded 3/prong, etc.)

Basically if wire is old enough to have cloth covering, it's due to be replaced, k&t or not

So for $125, I'd visit site and spend 1/2 hr finding stuff wrong, and then recommend rewire. Usually $10-$12 per square foot (if estimating labor and materials and don't hit around there, somethings unusual about house or somethings wrong with my bid)
 
Little Bill said:
I would make no assertions or assumptions about any wiring that is not visible or accessible.
$100 is way too low.

I charged $250 just for a report to a realtor with just basic items checked. You'll spend $100 in time just writing up what you find!
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I wouldn't take a ladder off my truck for $100. A lot depends on where you live and what the going rates are. Take lessons from plumbers. MY FRIEND, a plumber, came to my house to change a float in the commode tank. He was there 10 minutes, said I didn't have to pay for the float because it was less than a year old but then charged me $150. MY FRIEND !!!
 
ptonsparky said:
Some jobs should be DIY.
Changing lamps, commode tank floats, and resetting initial GFCI tripping among them. Expect to get billed from a friend if that is their profession.

On a side note:. What causes a float to fail in less than a year?
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Who knows. But, I don’t do that to people, especially not my friends. I don’t mind being billed, but he lives right in town less than a mile away so it’s not like you have to drive far to do this.
 
In some respects, it kind of depends on what you mean by an "older" house. If the electrical system is old enough, it is probably a good idea to gut it and redo it. But, the same thing can be said of the heating and plumbing systems as well.

At some point it is not worth trying to keep up with stuff that is just going to fail.
 
These people are after one thing "is it safe?"

The answer is never a simple yes or no.

When I do these I give them a report that tells what I saw usually mentioning what is current standards along with existing items that may not be up to current standards but was likely acceptable as is at the time of it's installation.

I also mention that there is no way for me to tell them the condition of everything unless they want me to open up walls and such to expose items so I can verify there is nothing lurking where it can't currently be seen.

If there is a lot of shoddy work that is easily visible, chances are there is some that is hidden as well.

Bottom line is I don't give them a Go or No-go response but rather a take it for what it is worth to you report.

If the house has a FPE panel, I might mention there is nothing that stands out code wise relative to the panel install itself but will also mention there is a lot of controversy with this particular product and is worth considering replacing and that many insurance companies might not even insure the place if it has one of these panels.

Buying a previous owned house is sort of no different than buying a used car. Things get abused, worn out, replaced with components not the same as original, etc. How safe any of that really is is a judgement call. Even with the cars the safety standards change as time goes on. You can't expect a 1975 model you are considering to purchase to have air bags, antilock brakes, etc. added on just because the new cars all require those things to pass safety regulations.
 
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