Complete Book of Home Inspection 4/E

I thought about taking a class on home inspections and bought this as a recommended guide. This book might also be beneficial to someone buying a home or selling one. This book has useful information and is well organized. The only negative is that the pictures are dated and not very clear. It can be hard to visualize what is being discussed.

Great book

Despite the flaws in this book I haven't seen a better book for home buyers and owners. (Although it might not be obvious that is who this book is targetted at, not professional inspectors.) So if you are in the market for a house I would recommend you at least browse through this book.The good parts are that the author lays out a methodical approach to inspecting a house and usually includes good descriptions of how to investigate and evaluate the various components and systems of the house. The end of most chapters contains a checkpoint summary of that chapter.The downsides are that the information in the book is almost a decade old now; this second version was published in 1993. Sometimes the author assumes knowledge that I didn't have. The book is targetted at a lay audience but doesn't really have enough illustrations and definitions and examples to really deliver on this promise. For instance, when inspecting a hot-water heating system he says, "A forced system will have a circulating pump in the return line near the boiler." It would be nice a picture was shown to illustrate the difference between having a circulating pump and not having one.Also, the author gets something wrong in at least one place. When talking about tankless water heaters he says, "From an energy-conservation point of view, a tankless water heater is not desirable. It is inefficient and wasteful of energy." This is untrue today and I doubt whether it was true when the book was written. The US Department of Energy in their reference brief on tankless heaters acknowledges that tankless heaters are more efficient and less wasteful of energy; that is part of the reason they are used in Europe and Japan where energy prices are higher than here in America. They also tend to have longer life expectancies than conventional tank heaters.I find the author's statements strange because they make little sense. It also makes me a little worried because now I wonder what else he got wrong that I don't know about. Despite this, I still think the book is very useful to potential home buyers.

The book did not contain info regarding solar panels.

I believe this is required reading for any home inspector. I require any potential new hire to read BEFORE I will even consider taking them on. It is a bit simplistic or I have difference in emphasis/protocol in areas (put 10 inspectors in a room and you'll get 10 opinions). I have other procedures in place in a number of areas (I'm 28 year ASHI Certified Inspector). Book revision is still years behind the times IMO. However, it's still one of the best books out there and a great foundation on home inspection. Imagine you can get the distilled knowledge of such a H.I. founding father in a book! For that reason alone, must give 5 stars. I've read the book a number of times and had to purchase again as I couldn't find my old copy...

This third edition of the book contains a lot of information for would be home buyers, whom the author claims is his target audience. I definitely wish I had read it before I bought my first house. It'll help you evaluate the condition of items from your roof down to your crawl space or basement and everything in between. It is written in an easy-to-understand format and is well organized so you can find exactly what you are looking for.I am studying to become a home inspector myself and found this book to be a very useful first step. The North Carolina Home Inspection licensing bureau still pulls quite a few questions for their licensing test from this edition of the book.

This book thoroughly walks the reader through the home inspection procedure in a step-by-step fashion. It is definitely worth buying and reading. Some chapters, such as the one on wood-destroying insects, have much detail. Others have a bit less detail and would benefit from additional illustrations and text. The author focuses on safety and cost considerations in performing home inspections. Sometimes he is a little puritanical in championing safety considerations first, but it's hard to knock that. He gives many useful tips to the novice home inspector, for example on how to check septic systems for proper function. I've read this book once over and have reread some chapters. It deserves careful study of the individual chapters. I intend to carry the book with me when I look through prospective houses.

Super useful book for a realtor to have! Already found things in it that I needed to know on the first day!