Borescope and Liability Protection

[GrantJones]

Hi all,

I'm looking for your advice or experience here. I currently use a 90% boilerplate inspection agreement and on there are about 200 items that are 'not covered' items. I realized a while ago that I'd hesitate to sign this myself as a customer, so I really want to trim that list down. One item I wanted to remove (and also make my inspections more valuable) is heat exchangers. So I just ordered a BR250 borescope so I can get a good look inside the exchanger more often. I'm sure it will take a while to get good with it, but it should be useful for this.

My question is for those who already own/use borescopes. How do you protect yourself? I've seen pics of some heat exchangers with hairline cracks that expand when hot so they're not real clearly visible when cold. Am I opening myself up to a lot of liability on this?

By the way, in case you're wondering, I went with the br250 instead of 200 because of the smaller head and additional 2 LED's (total of 4) which are dimmable.

Thanks for the help.

Grant

[kurt]

Take the whole list off. If you're worried about liability, this is the wrong business.

Disclaim a few things if you want, but the list doesn't necessarily mean anything if push comes to shove.

I don't see how a boroscope would increase liability; that's the old saw of "don't do a good job, because then everyone will think you should have done a good job on everything" approach, which I think is nuts.

Use every tool that benefits you providing a better job.

[Neal Lewis]

I would also be hesitant to sign something like that. Are the 200 hundreds items in a list somewhere on the Agreement?

[Jim Katen]

Hi all,

I'm looking for your advice or experience here. I currently use a 90% boilerplate inspection agreement and on there are about 200 items that are 'not covered' items.

What? You actually list them? What good is that? You just know that there's always one more thing that you didn't list. Such a list can never be complete.

I realized a while ago that I'd hesitate to sign this myself as a customer, so I really want to trim that list down. One item I wanted to remove (and also make my inspections more valuable) is heat exchangers. So I just ordered a BR250 borescope so I can get a good look inside the exchanger more often. I'm sure it will take a while to get good with it, but it should be useful for this.

It will be useful but it won't come close to being as useful as you think it's going to be. It'll get you from 95% inaccessible to 90% inaccessible. Hardly worth striking heat exchangers off your list for that modest improvement in inspectability.

My question is for those who already own/use borescopes. How do you protect yourself? I've seen pics of some heat exchangers with hairline cracks that expand when hot so they're not real clearly visible when cold. Am I opening myself up to a lot of liability on this?

By the way, in case you're wondering, I went with the br250 instead of 200 because of the smaller head and additional 2 LED's (total of 4) which are dimmable.

It's just a tool. You're putting way too much faith in it.

My advice is to just do the best job that you can within the time restrictions that you set for each inspection. Then rewrite your contract so that it's not quite so anal. You can say, "I won't enter any room that contains uncaged dangerous animals such as tigers or poisonous snakes." You don't have to list every freakin' dangerous animal that might be in a room.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[GrantJones]

Wow, you guys know how to make a point. I got the agreement template from my training company, but obviously I need to be looking at more even templates. I noticed a few on NAHI's site a while back. It'll be worth a start. The items on the list are right there on the agreement and are mostly items excluded in the SOP's but wouldn't come to mind for the buyer. I'll be moving on from that thing...

For the tool, I'll just have to see as much as I can and not give the thing too much credit. Thanks for the honest feedback guys.

[John Kogel]

Wow, you guys know how to make a point. I got the agreement template from my training company, but obviously I need to be looking at more even templates. I noticed a few on NAHI's site a while back. It'll be worth a start. The items on the list are right there on the agreement and are mostly items excluded in the SOP's but wouldn't come to mind for the buyer. I'll be moving on from that thing...

For the tool, I'll just have to see as much as I can and not give the thing too much credit. Thanks for the honest feedback guys.

Use the tools but don't brag about it. I do a "visual inspecton of readily accessible and visible major systems".

If you don't find a crack with your boroscope, would you say there are no cracks? Not me.

[kurt]

There's almost always cracks somewhere we can't see without field stripping the thing.

Harsh reality.

[Chris Bernhardt]

I took the plunge and chucked all but one paragraph that refers the client to my website for disclosure disclaimer stuff about two years ago.

The only function that limitation of liability crap has is to clutter the report. It's a self imposed delusion that it has any power to save your butt once the client is upset, and it won't hold back any lawyer anyway.

Chris, Oregon