CERTIFIED PLUS
NORTH CAROLINA HOME INSPECTIONS

 

CERTIFIED PLUS NC HOME INSPECTIONS The North Carolina  Home Inspection Company with the MONEY BACK GUARANTEE INSPECTION PRICES START AT $199 FOR A  NORTH CAROLINA HOME INSPECTION BY A STATE CERTIFIED NORTH CAROLINA HOME INSPECTOR. STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA / NC LICENSED ASHI, NACHI CERTIFIED, NORTH CAROLINA INSPECTOR,  HOME INSPECTION SERVICES FOR COUNTIES ALAMANCE, CHATHAM, JOHNSTON, LEE, ORANGE, WAKE. TOWNS AND SURROUNDING AREAS APEX, CARY, CHAPEL HILL, DURHAM, HILLSBOROUGH, RALEIGH   CERTIFIED PLUS NORTH CAROLINA HOME INSPECTIONS   PRICES STARTING AT $199 -The price is set according to the size of the house, call for exact prices for your inspection. ON-SITE WRITTEN REPORT - At the end of the Home inspection, you will receive a summary report of the repairs. You are ready to negotiate any repairs right after the inspection. MONEY BACK GUARANTEE! Our home inspectors are professionals, we are one of the few companies that offer a money back guarantee, if you not satisfied with our home inspection, we will gladly refund your money. FREE! TEST OF ALL APPLIANCES All appliances that are purchased with the house will be tested at no extra charge. Appliances such as: dishwasher, stove, refrigerator, and the washer and dryer. PRICES START AT $ 199.00 FOR A NORTH CAROLINA HOME INSPECTION. HOME INSPECTION IN NORTH CAROLINA INCLUDES: MONEY BACK GUARANTEE HOME INSPECTION, NORTH CAROLINA ON SITE REPORT HOME INSPECTION, FREE TEST OF ALL APPLIANCES WITH EVERY NORTH CAROLINA HOME INSPECTION. RED TAG REPAIR AREAS OF THE DIFFERENT STYLE HOMES CAPE COD STYLE HOME This style house is one of the most difficult houses to inspect. This style house was designed for the "do it yourselves?" It was designed for the returning veteran solders after world war two. The theory being that as the solders family expanded, the house could be expanded by finishing the second floor and maybe adding dormers which would double the size of the original size. With this type dwelling, many times the second floor has been finished by the owner and expanded with a dormer. The structure and the quality of the workmanship has to be inspected very carefully. Many of the do it yourselves should not be doing expansion or repair work and for this reason I would say "It is the most difficult house to inspect." Some areas in a cape style home that our inspectors will pay special attention, too. (A) Stair Well Opening - The second floor stair well at the top of the stairs must be safety guarded. This area must have a wall or proper rail guard around the opening to prevent children from falling down into the stair well opening. (B) Heat and A/C - Second floor heat, many times the home owner will finish the second floor and not install any heat or air conditioning. Or they will add electric heat with a plug in heater, or, run under size ducts and the heat and a/c to the second floor will not be adequate. And, sometimes the old furnace with one fan speed can't handle the expanded room space on the second floor.   (C) Quality of Work - Our home inspectors will evaluate the quality of any finished work done in this style house, particularly on the second floor, Over the years we have seen some very poor amateur work done in a cape style house. On the second floor our home inspectors will first evaluate the quality of the finished wall covering. Many times the paneling and sheet rock is installed improperly with waves in the paneling and poor seam work on the sheet rock.   (D) Electrical System - The electrical system is always an important part of any inspection but the second floor of a cape cod style home is a major concern, particularly when the home owner finished the second floor attic area himself. Many times our home inspectors find that the whole second floor is serviced by extension cords which is a real safety hazard. (E) Dormers - If the dormers are small window dormers chances are the original builder constructed the dormers and they are constructed properly. Large expanded dormers many times were constructed after the house was built and special attention should be paid too the quality of construction and also important is the chimney location. The home inspector must make sure that the chimney is at least three feet above the roof line. Sometimes the chimney is located right where the dormer has been installed and the chimney is now too low to meet safety standards. In other words, if a dormer is installed in the chimney location, make sure that the chimney is extended too the proper height over the roof. COLONIAL STYLE HOME The colonial style home is probably the most popular style home with all the bedrooms on the second floor and many colonials have a full basement. Our home inspectors will inspect this type house throughly from top to bottom, particularly the following areas: (A) A colonial house can have five different style roofs. Our home inspectors are familiar and experience with all the different roofs and know the strengths and weakness with each roof. When we say that our home inspectors will inspect the house from top to bottom, we mean from the roof to the basement. (B) Another area of special concern is the water flow to the second floor bathrooms, particularly if the dwelling is an older home with original plumbing. Our inspectors will do a special water flow test in all bathrooms to verify that the water pressure and water flow is acceptable. (C) Basement - The basement is an area of major concern with any style house and our inspectors will pay special attention to the following areas when inspecting the basement: the foundation, the wood structure; signs water penetration into the basement; structure wood rot or termite damage. WHAT ABOUT MOLD AND ASBESTOS? Mold and Asbestos are separate inspections and not included in a regular home inspection. However, If our home inspectors see any Mold or Asbestos in the basement or any place else, they will give a courtesy report and recommend that a licensed professional evaluate the mold and or asbestos.   BASEMENT FOUNDATION WALL THAT FACES IN-GROUND POOL. - This foundation wall must to be inspected very carefully because, if the in- ground pool has a severe leak, major damage to the foundation wall facing the pool could be the result. Over the years, our home inspectors have discovered several foundation walls literally buckled and pushed in from in-ground pool leak problems. (D) Termites - North Carolina is abundant with termites, for this reason Certified Plus Home Inspections, when a termite inspection is requested, has a professional termite inspector inspect for termites and other insects .The termite inspection is preformed at the same time as the home inspection. With a Certified Plus Home Inspection, there is a structural home inspector and a termite inspector that will inspect all the wood components in the basement for structure, condition and termite damage. OLD HOUSE STYLE HOME HOME INSPECTOR NC - Certified Plus Home Inspections has inspectors that are very familiar with the inspection of older dwellings. With the inspection of these type houses, the home inspection takes a lot longer that two hours. The home inspector has to really slow down and inspect very carefully. Every area of an old house inspection is of major concern. For the purpose of this article, the author will give a quick overview of the concerns with an old house inspection. (A) Slate roof - The roof could be over 80 years old. The home inspector must inspect very carefully for missing slates and leaks. If the house has an asbestos shingle style roof, the inspector will inspect the condition of the shingles and how many layers of shingle are on the roof.   (B) Structure and settlement - The house and roof structure may settle unevenly or is the house leaning or the roof sagging. Are the floors sagging or pitched out of an acceptable level? (D) Bathrooms - have they been updated and how efficient is the water pressure and flow throughout the house. (E) Heating system - how old is the furnace and has the whole heating system been up-dated. The home inspector must make sure there are no missing radiators if the house has a radiator type heating system. (F) Electrical system - has it been up-dated or does the dwelling still have the old knob and tube wiring. With knob and tube wiring the buyer will have difficulty obtaining home owners insurance. The insurance companies deemed this type of wiring a safety hazard. (G) foundation - Our home inspectors will evaluate the type and condition of the foundation. With old houses some foundation deterioration is expected but the question is, is the amount of deterioration acceptable. Our old house home inspectors are very knowledgeable when it comes to old house foundations. SPLIT LEVEL STYLE HOME A split level inspection is a class room study in home inspection. A split has two of everything: two roofs, a basement and a slab and sometimes a crawl space, and, an upper and lower attic area. With this type dwelling, Our home inspectors will pay particular attention to the front roof rafters, they are very long and sometimes split and bow. The inspection of the attic area and the rafters in this type house is very important to the long term condition of the roof. The attic must be well ventilated and the insulation must have an air space between the roof sheeting and the insulation to prevent any moisture on the rafters and the sheeting. As mentioned earlier, the rafters are very long and to keep the rafters straight and have a good flat roof surface, attic ventilation and moisture control is a must. RANCH STYLE HOME HOME INSPECTOR NC - A ranch style is a very popular type house for a very good reason, all the living area is on one level, there are no stairs to climb. The ranch style home is also one of the easiest free standing home to maintain. The handyman home owner of this style home can do most of the maintenance himself . With the one level style, most maintenance problem can be handled with a 12 foot fold up ladder. Again, our home inspectors will inspect this type home very carefully because many time all the maintenance has been completed by the home owner himself. And, not all the home owners doing the maintenance and repair, should be doing the maintenance and repair. BI-LEVEL STYLE HOME A bi-level is a large house that gives the buyer more living space by using both the lower and upper level as living space. With this type dwelling, the lower level is ground level and usually has a glass sliding door to the rear yard. The front entrance has steps leading to the entrance door located between both levels. Once inside there are steps going to the lower or upper level. In plain English, instead of having a finished basement below ground, with this design, there is a finished lower level that is still above ground. Our home inspectors understand the design and will inspect this type of dwelling very throughly. A few red tag areas of a bi-level are as follows: (a) The rail around the entrance steps on the second level must be well secured. If a child leans against a unsecured loose rail, the child could wind up on the first floor with the rail on top of the child. (2) A deck built off the second level is another area of serious concern particularly if the deck was a do it yourself installation. These type of decks have very long support post and the Home Inspector should examine the posts very carefully to make sure they are not undersized and bent from the deck weight. All decks should be lag bolted to the house , not nailed. Nails pull out too easy and the deck could pull away from the house. Also large decks should have metal joist supports for strength and safety. If one or all of the items mentioned are missing or in poor condition, the deck could be a real safety hazard. Another area of concern is support columns used on the southern style bi-level that has a front overhang. When inspecting a dwelling with support columns, our home inspectors will inspect the columns for wood rot. They will also inspect for signs that the columns have been removed. Some times a home owner will remove rotted columns with the idea that the columns are not needed. Either situation could be an expensive repair problem. HALF DUPLEX STYLE HOME A half duplex style home is really a full house divided in half, and each half of the house is separated by a center concrete dividing wall. There seems to be two red tag inspection areas with this type house.(1) If the center dividing wall has heavy settlement, the home on each side of the wall will slope towards the wall. The first thing noted with this condition is that the steps to the second floor will not be level. Another tip off that the wall has heavy settlement is when there are extra support post in the basement to support the inside stair wall section. The roof of a half duplex is another area of concern. As mentioned earlier, the half duplex is really a house divided down the middle by a concrete dividing wall. The problems with the roof begin when the roof needs changing. A new roof should be installed on both sides of the duplex at the same time. With the complete roof changed at the same time, both dwelling now have a functional new roof. The problem begins when one party wants a new roof and the other party wants to keep the old roof even though the roof needs changing. In this type situation when a new roof is installed on one half of the structure and, is butted up to an old roof, rain water may leek under the old roof. The water then migrates into the plywood of the new roof and damage the first few feet of the new roof that is butted up to the old roof. When an inspector sees an old and new roof on this type dwelling, even though the roof sheeting is new, it should be evaluated very carefully for water migration and damage. TOWNHOUSE Townhouses are usually newer style houses and they have all the problems of any other style home but, there is a couple of red tag areas that the home inspector should pay particular attention . RED TAG AREA - Most townhouses have thermopane windows which means that each window has two panes of glass. With two panes of glass the window becomes a regular window and a storm window all in one. In between the panes of glass is argon gas to keep moisture out which keeps the window nice and clear. Problem arise with these type windows when the window seals leak and moisture gets in between the panes of glass. When this happens the window become fogged and hard to see through besides the fact that a fogged window looks terrible. The only real way to correct the fogged window problem is to change the window which could cost between $ 150.00 to $300.00 plus dollars per window. This estimated price depends on the size and style of the window. The thermopane window leaking seal problem pertains to all houses with thermopane window particularly townhouses and condominiums. CONDOMINIUMS There are four red tag areas of a condo, particularly one floor condos on the lower level. (A) WATER DAMAGE - Many times ceiling and wall water damage is caused by the up stairs unit. If the upper unit has a plumbing problem, the water runs down and damages the lower unit.   (B) THERMO WINDOWS - Thermopane window damage - leaking seals in the thermo window. This problem was described in the townhouse section. (C) FURNACE PROBLEMS - Furnace problems are quite common in condos particularly if it is a rental unit. Many times the filters have not been changed for years and the unit is putting out high carbon monoxide. (D) BATHROOM PROBLEMS - Again, tenant occupied condos appear to have the most bathroom problems. Water can cause a lot of damage if it not controlled. If one is careless with water in the bathroom, it will damage the floor, walls cabinets, tiles, etc. It could also cause a Mold condition which could cause health problems. Licensed North Carolina Home Inspector Serving: Alamance County, Chatham County, Johnston County, Lee County, Orange County, Wake County. Towns and surrounding areas for Apex, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Hillsborough, and Raleigh. Disclaimer - North Carolina DISCLAIMER - The information contained on this site/article is for general information only. Anyone using information obtained from this site/article has the responsibility to obtain professional advice on your particular problem or circumstance Certified Plus home inspections LLC. disclaim all responsibility, including negligence, for all consequences of any person acting on, or refraining from acting in reliance on, information contained in this site/article. The laws and regulation undergo frequent changes and the fact that there is a multitude of items covered under the "Grandfather Clause" anyone using this information , should first obtain professional advise on your particular circumstance before using information from this site/article. Note - Due to the fact that every home inspection is unique, and many of the items mentioned in this site/article may be inaccessible, covered with wall covering, storage, etc. Certified Plus Home Inspections LLC. gives no guarantee, or promise, expressed or implied, that every/any item mentioned in this article will be inspected or addressed in a home inspection. Any home inspection conducted by Certified Plus Home Inspections LLC, the actual home inspector's report supercedes any information contained in this site/article.