home inspections, Roof Inspections and Consulting

Attention Home Buyers, Don’t Ever Rely on the Sellers Pre-Sale Home Inspection Report, Get Your Own Independent Inspector

William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC recently performed a building envelope inspection on a home that had recently sold. While there were other issues with the house related to appliances etc, our focus was on the expensive critical weather resistant barriers, the roof and wood decks attached to the structure.

The seller had a pre-sale home inspection done, which is a good idea if the inspector actually does their due diligence and performs a detailed inspection. We are of the belief that some home inspectors who do pre-sale inspections do not do an in-depth inspection. In our opinion, they do what we call “pre-sale light” home inspections instead. In our experience, the real estate agent usually recommends a pre-sale inspection to their seller. In our experience, one unnamed home inspector does a lot of these pre-sale inspections, and from performing secondary inspections, in our opinion, he’s not trying to find many issues. Don’t piss off the real estate agent, because if you do,  they won’t call you anymore.

A tile covered deck hides damaged posts and railing stiles. Six of seven posts have dry-rot in them that impacts the structural strength of the post, and because they are notched, are even weaker with half the post cut away.

Well our client started finding problems with their newly purchased home, and they called us. Our initial conversation revolved around their discoveries, what we could do and how much our inspection would cost. We left the conversation with the “I’ll get back you.” Which is a polite way of saying you’re too expensive.

Several weeks later, the client calls back. They’ve discovered more issues, they need help and after calling around to other companies, realized that we were the best choice to inspect, investigate and report on the issues.

Daylight illuminates the attic from a faulty installed roof system at a gas flue pipe penetrating the roof.

We performed a detailed inspection of the property, found numerous defects and issues and then compared our findings to the other inspectors report. It should be criminal what they missed. Water damaged drywall, mold, an improperly installed roof, a deck with dry-rot in the structural life safety railings, a hokey “water management system” that leaked set up in the crawl space under the house adjacent to living space.

The “water management system” someone thought was a great idea. Us, not so much, to us, this is a joke.

The lesson we want to impart is get your own inspection done. At William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC, we don’t do traditional home inspections, we only do building envelope inspections. We concentrate on what really matters and are really expensive to fix if there’s problems. The buyer in this situation told us they would not have purchased this home after we wrote our report. A $1200 investment before the purchase would have saved our client a hundred thousand dollars in repairs. While they will sell to recover their financial losses in Court, their mental and physical health will continue to suffer, a cost that is unknown and their legal costs will be a heavy burden as well.

Before closing, do your own due diligence, never rely on the presale inspection report and call William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC to do a thorough evaluation of the building envelope on the home you are considering purchasing.