Scottpat

I lost my hampster!

They do not give you the air temperature, but rather the register or the duct work. You need a good digital thermometer. The IR thermometers are good tools; I use one to test ceilings and walls for insulation among a few other things. I have a four year old Raytex, which I paid dearly for back then. I think you can pick a good up for around $200 or less. The more expensive the smaller the measurement area. I think my Raytex reads 6" at 10'. As for buying one I would try Ebay at first and if you have a Grangers or similar store near you I would try them and then I would try the various gadget guys (Professional Equipment, Etc).

Yes I work out of Uganda! Oops, I guess I made a foopaw! My last payment for a mud hut was 2 Chickens and a Goat.

Hi George, I am glad you are on this forum; your HVAC talents are needed. As for my post, well I guess we are both passionate about our profession just in different ways. I wish you the best in your personal and professional life and I look forward to many of your post and the chance of meeting you in person someday. Scott P

I always report K&T as needing to be replaced with an updated system.

George, It's not even worth the effort to try and talk about this with you. You are so far off base. The program was not even put out to the membership till mid October, so if you left in August how do you know so much about it?

Roy, I respectfully disagree with you on your opinion of licensing, home inspector licensing is working in several states. Many states have fairly good license laws on the books that are protecting the inspector and the consumer. As for the real estate agents, being licensed takes a lot of the argument out of any conversation about the qualifications of a person inspecting homes; however this only holds true for those states that require an examination, insurance and the law is enforced by a regulatory board that has the powers to do so. As for the quality of inspectors; Meaningful license laws do cull out the weekend warriors and the bucket heads. If a person can pass the NHIE and meet the insurance requirements chances are they are going to be fairly competent. As for giving soft reports, this will never stop until the inspectors who do this go out of business due the number of claims or complaints against them. In my state we have already revoked several home inspector licenses and we are entering into our third year of licensing. The home inspectors in Washington need to get together and introduce a “Real Home Inspector licenses law billâ€

All I can say is I’ am behind it and will support it, Kurt and I both attended a meeting that gave us both a lot of insight into what is going on. I have had more insight than Kurt and I can honestly say that the money is being spent with care. (Lesson’s were learned at IW 2003[:-jump2]), the consultants learned that home inspectors want the facts without hype. As ASHI is the first home inspector origination to ever attempt anything like this, the consultants had no history to rely on. The consultants have told us time and time again that we are like no other group they have worked with. Everyone has their own opinion; none of us trust anyone and everyone wants instant results. What a challenge! The cost is a hard pill to swallow, but if everything falls into place (as it has been doing), this years assessment will be the highest and it will then decrease. I am not involved in the finance but this is how it has been explained to me. Many ways of developing revenue (not from the membership) to support a massive program like this have been developed, the initial supply of funds needed to come from the members, as there was not other source at first and they will be the ones that will benefit. If we all get behind it and give it our best effort it will work, but if we sit on the sidelines and wait to see if it will work then it will fail. The best thing about this program is that everything that has been accomplished has been designed to be self supporting or freestanding. In other words the parts of the program that have been completed do not depend on future items to maintain them. So if for some unknown reason the board of directors decide to stop the program a year or two years from now nothing will be lost. This is a safety feature that the BoD and the consultants built into the program.

The more I have thought about this the stranger it becomes. Some thoughts I have: Now does this mean PC contractor can do home inspections without being a licensed home inspector? Why not have a home inspection license only that has nothing to do with pest control? What was the reasoning, if any behind this law? Don't the true pest control contractor dislike this law as it is taking business away from them?

Kind of screwy, don't you think!

I don't think that HUD or VA requires a home inspection. Are you sure that they are not talking about an appraisal?

Lately we have had many posts on several of the home inspector forums and I have received several emails that are dealing with entering the profession and the longevity of persons entering this profession. As I enter my ninth year of this profession, I have seen an untold number of inspectors come and go and from what I can tell they had their expectations set too high and entered into a new profession with little knowledge and limited income reserves. Why do they have their expectations set so high? As with any profession you will have a core group of people who have made it and they are looked upon as examples of success in the profession, they almost make it look easy. You also have many and most of training schools that depend on the constant influx of new students to keep their doors open, this can only be accomplished by painting a rosy picture of the profession. And then we have the professional association on the other end. Over the past several years we have had an increase of home inspector originations popping up left and right, most have been created by individuals as just another source of personal revenue, some were created with good intentions, large promises and titles with little meaning just to persuade new inspectors to join and only a couple of the original professional organizations that have standards set high enough for membership so that is takes testing, experience and knowledge to achieve their highest level. My first couple of years in this profession, I worked part-time in a sporting goods store and did inspections four days a week, I had to do this to make ends meet. Inspections were slow to come, I did around 60 inspections my first year; 100 inspections my second year; and 170 inspections my third year. In my third year I went into it full time, I joined a professional origination based on its high standards and not for what it promised at that time. What does it take to make it as a home inspector? I would say that the largest factor is you. Your personality, demeanor, finances, and your knowledge of the profession are your largest assets in regards to success or failure in this profession. From what I have seen we have many individuals who enter into this profession without any business plan or a realistic idea of how much it is going to cost to succeed; I am afraid that this is one of the main reasons we have such a high turnover. Another observation is that our profession has about a 60% or greater failure rate the first two years of a home inspector’s carrier. Those that can survive the first two years stand a real good chance of making it. The reason for this post is that I received an email today from a person wanting to become a home inspector, because he/she has no money to start a business and they were told that they can make $100,000 doing home inspections their first year. I am just trying to get the truth out. Any other thoughts or comments that might help prospective home inspectors are welcome.