Do You Need a Home Inspection?

Posted in Home Insurance

April 28th, 2009

If a home inspection is one of the items on your list of “things to do” that you want to complete before buying a home, you’re on the right track. However, a home inspection is not required by every municipality, and is rather a strong recommendation for most. In fact, you should do a home inspection well before you ever commit to a house or purchase home insurance.

If your municipality requires an inspection, or you are pursuing it on your own, the key to having it done properly is understanding exactly what should be inspected in the first place. If you get the wrong items analyzed, the whole process will have been in vain.

Why Get a Home Inspection?

The main reason you should consider getting a home inspection when buying a home is that there are so many aspects to any house that can be ill-constructed and hidden from plain sight. There may be repairs that need to be made, plumbing issues, gas leaks, or just about anything else you could think of. Because there is so much that can go wrong with a home especially one that hasn’t been built to your specifications it doesn’t hurt to get it inspected.

The Home Inspection Checklist

There are a number of items that should land on your home inspection checklist when buying a home. Here are a few:

• Structural Elements. Your ceilings, floors, roof, foundations, and even the construction of your walls should be thoroughly looked over by the inspector.
• Exterior. The outer portion of your home, including the wall coverings, landscaping, elevation, drainage, driveway, fences, sidewalks, doors, windows, and lights should all be inspected.
• Roof and Attic. The inspector should check your framing, ventilation, flashing, gutters, and type of roof construction.
• Plumbing. Toilets, showers, sinks, faucets and traps are all included in this inspection but not sewers.
• Electrical. The inspector should look at the main panel, types of wiring, grounding, exhaust fans, circuit breakers, receptacles, and light fixtures.
• Garage. In this inspection, the slab, entry, vents, ceiling, firewall, garage door, openers, receptacles, exterior, windows, roof, and openers should be checked.

If you’re not sure whether a home inspection is required in your municipality when buying a home, you should contact a real estate agent to find out. However, even if a home inspection is not required, it’s a good idea to get one done anyway.

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