Inspector Gadget

Okay - so we're going blog crazy today - I think this is entry number four for the day. Last week I had a chance to visit our new home with the home inspector guy. It was an awesome experience - if any of you homeowners haven't had a chance to go through a home with an inspector, I highly recommend it. Future homeowners - when you buy your house, be sure to go with the inspector to look at it - it's very enlightening. I learned a tremendous amount about caring for the home - things I'd never even thought of.

All-in-all the house was in great shape. He said that homes built in our area in the late 80's are some of the best built homes around. That's because we were just emerging from the recession of the 80's and only a few new homes were being built. Because of that, they were done with more care. For example, he said that most homes built in the 90's (during the housing boom) are already starting to show some cracks in the foundation. That's because they were building houses so fast that they didn't allow the foundation to properly set up before they started building on it. He said our foundation looks to be in great shape.

I crawled up in the attic with him to look at the insulation - which was very thick. The attic is also well-ventilated (I think it was 100 deg up there that day - he said normal would be close to 120 on a day as warm as we had) which means the roof will last longer (it's already 16 years old and he said we could get another 5-10 out of it). It also means that our utility bills will be lower.

He reviewed a number of saftey devices we could put in the home. Since the fireplace has a gas starter, he suggested something called a damper-stopper (or something like that) that holds the damper slightly open in case the kids decide to turn on the gas - it won't gas the whole house. Knowing our kids - that's probably not a bad idea.

Anyway, enough rambling about the inspection. Suffice it to say that it was a great experience for me to learn more about home maintenance than I ever thought one would need to know!