Robin Wells's Blog

When you selling or buying a home does the fact the home contains a circuit breaker or fuse panel ever come up, do you think about it, and should you?When in a home with a fuse panel, often times it may be stated that it will need to be replaced.  Is that an accurate statement?Well, the insurance...

Not all American states or Canadian provincdes require that Home Inspectors hold a license.However, some do and the number is growing all the time.But is licensing a good thing?  Does it help the homeowner to find a good Home Inspector?Well, we all know that no licensing leaves the home owner in ...

Many Home Inspectors are offering their ‘complete IR services with their Home Inspections. Let's look a bit at what an infrared camera is, what it can do, some limitations and what is required to actually perform a proper inspection of any value.   What is an infrared camera? The media, partially...

Now don't get me wrong, I support green living and am in favor of us doing the right things for our enviornment.But, began to wonder is the "Organic" industry primarly a marketing scam to make us pay more?I started down this road when I saw Organic Maple Syrup.  And the price point on the syrup w...

Continuing the blog (see Part 2 here), in part 3 lets look at the electrical items. Starting with aluminum wiring. Often the biggest risk with aluminum wiring is the insurance company! Yes, the insurance companies do not understand the risk and any risk they can not quantify is too big.I began my...

The Home inspection profession can be somewhat of a risky business, customer's expectations are often very high.  Sometimes too high, elevated by television shows where homes are a literally torn apart during the inspection process, where infrared camera technology is presented to make one think ...

We left off talking about vermiculite in Part 1 (click here), so I guess it makes sense to next go to asbestos, as we have already begun talking about it in the previous item. Asbestos is a mineral fiber that can be positively identified only with a special type of microscope. There are several t...

I enjoyed this article, and it reminded me a lot of growing up in Quebec, so I wanted to share again. Ice Roads, Getting the Job Done in the Northwoods We are often asked, how do you get machinery into my remote property with equipment for logging and construction. The answer is an age old techni...

Really there is no such thing as the perfect home, period.  Although I must admit that after seeing the Home Inspector report on the home we sold this past summer, there were zero issues or items shown. Now, I have a bit of an unfair advantage on that one but think I could have found one or two i...

Here is a tough one, and gets a bit of conversation back and forth between Home Inspectors. Should a Home Inspector always answer the phone, should they interupt the Home Inspection they are on to answer the phone and get another job?  I have had some respond, they already have the Inspection the...