Buy a Home with Knowledge

Are you a first-time home buyer?
Going from an apartment to house living?

When it comes to your home, having the right information at your fingertips can mean a world of difference. Let us help you make informed decisions about one of the most significant investments of your life. 

Our purpose is to educate our clients and encourage them to see firsthand the inspection and ask questions.

One focus is on how systems work. Knowing how a system works gives you the proper toolset to recognize potential problems and to ask good questions to contractors. In addition, it allows you to better identify potential fraud. Knowledge is power. With better knowledge of the systems in your house, you can better sense when people are trying to cheat you on renovation or repair jobs. That knowledge may save you thousands of dollars.

Typical Air Conditioner System

Another focus is safety. If you have a family, knowing potential dangers around the house is important to protect the people you love. For example, did you know that the spindles for the handrail should not exceed 4" wide? Why? Because you don't want a child to crawl through and fall.

Child Safety Staircase

Energy efficiency. Although a standard home inspection does not replace a proper home energy efficiency inspection, we can provide some tips on improving your energy efficiency in the home. Here, the IR thermal camera becomes an indispensable tool in providing the homeowner the ability to see potential energy efficiency concerns that cannot be seen by the naked eye.

Lack of Insulation in the Attic

If there is a question we cannot answer immediately, then we will research the question as best we can and provide an answer shortly after the inspection. We love to inform people about how things work in your new house, how to maintain them, and how to improve them.

The Home Reference Book

As a bonus, each report provides clients with an online PDF version of the “Home Reference Book” by Carson Dunlop for FREE as part of the inspection report. This encyclopedia of systems in a home provides a good understanding of how things work in your home.
What is in it?

• Over 460 online pages!
• Complete resource information on common problems found in a house.
• Many colour illustrations on components/system issues.

Free with every report, a $60 value!
Note: you will receive an online PDF version of the book, not the physical book.

Additional Bonus

With your report, we will also provide you with a useful Life Expectancy Chart guide, which provides the average life expectancy of everything around the house. From appliances, doors, decks, and roofing material, to the paints, and even types of caulking. Provides a good starting point to plan renovations or repairs. (17 pages, PDF Document courtesy of InterNACHI)

Upgrade your old hose bibb

Why? In Canadian winters, your old outdoor hose bibb can freeze with water, expand and then crack the piping. One way to avoid this is to install a "Frost-Free Hose Bibb". The homeowner can turn off the hose bibb as normal, but it moves the shut-off valve of the hose bibb inside the house, so no water is exposed to the outside to freeze the water.

Integrate the hose bibb with a vacuum breaker. Avoiding water contamination in an outdoor hose bibb. The hose could be submerged in water and under certain circumstances could result in water contamination. Installing a backflow preventer device (atmospheric vacuum breaker) in the faucet adds a level of protection against contaminated water coming back into the home. Many are integrated with the frost-free hose bibb. The frost-free hose bibb can be found in many hardware stores.