Home Inspection Checklist

Home inspection checklists are conceived by specialized companies that want to help you find the house of your dreams. When you want to purchase a new house, or when you want to sell your house, a home inspection checklist will be very useful, for both parts, the beneficiary and the supplier, as well.

Firstly, you have to know that free home inspection checklist forms can be downloaded from the Internet.

Detailed Data about House
To begin with, we would like to inform you that your home inspection checklist must contain data about the house, about the property. The most important aspect in this case is the sale price, in dollars, and then of course the address is necessary. The house type and the house style must not be omitted. Your house can be 1-1/2 storey, or rambler, or tuck under, for example, and concerning the house style, it can be traditional, modern, or any other style. Furthermore, the age of the house is important too, as well as its surface and its orientation.

Neighborhood Information
Secondly, neighborhood information is needed, and according to average home prices in the neighborhood, you may establish your price, taking into account an average family income.
Services like garbage collection, fire and police are checked, as well as distance from churches, playgrounds, shopping centers, or schools. The checklist can continue with proximity to nuisances or hazards like road noise or airports. The following aspect is related to utilities like water, natural gas, telephone, or cable TV.

Accurate Measurements
Thirdly, the checklist provides information about the rooms and their size: bedrooms, dining room, living room, kitchen, basement, garage, if some of them are not finished, or other structures, like storage shed, for example.

Structural Details
In the checklist you must include information related to the structure: foundation type, that might be stone for instance, wall framing, that might be platform, and then comes the roof type, for example mansard.

Exterior components
The exterior components of the house are: the roof, gutters, and other exterior surfaces, windows, together with the frames, decks, or driveways. An inspector might be interested in the roof covering and its age, the type of the gutters, actually their material, the type and the condition of exterior brick surfaces for instance.

Accessories
The next point in the checklist is related to eating and air-conditioning; for example if the house is equipped with hot water boiler or if it has natural gas equipment or air-conditioner, as well as fireplaces and their type and condition.

Plumbing
In addition, plumbing will be also checked. This means main water line, made of lead, copper, steel, or other materials, type of water piping and condition of plumbing lines, apart from water heater capacity and the type of fuel.

Electrical Fittings
The house will be checked from the electrical point of view, too. This means main service capacity, number of circuits and service panel type, as well as the wiring condition.

Interior
Interior and finishes come next. In this section, the inspector is interested in the wall and ceiling material, the condition of the windows and the doors, and the condition of walls and ceilings. Moreover floor finishes and their condition are important, too. Walls and ceilings might be made of plaster; you might have drywalls or paneling, or any other material. On the floor you can have tile or hardwood, or carpets.

Appliances
Appliances include all the equipment a family needs in order to be safe and to reduce their work load, especially in the case of housewives. Therefore, the following appliances are checked: refrigerator, oven, dishwasher, microwave, and vent in the kitchen; garbage disposal, washing machine, clothes dryer, and water softener in the bathroom; central alarm system and lawn sprinkling system.

Insulation
As far as energy and insulation are concerned, you have to provide the wall insulation thickness, the wall insulation type, for example, rigid board; attic insulation thickness and attic insulation type, for instance loose fill. In order to have a more valuable house, it needs upgrades of its components and appliances: windows and doors, furnace, air-conditioner, thermostat or insulation.

Garage
Most of the home checklists finish with the garage. The first aspect checked here is whether the overhead door is large enough for your vehicles. Secondly, you must check if it is equipped with automatic opener, and if it is operational from the safety auto-reverse point of view. Of course, the garage must be large enough and the doors must be equipped with locking systems. Furthermore, the condition of electrical settings in the garage is checked, as well as the general condition of the garage.

For an exhaustive and appropriate check the future owner of the house must know very well what he wants, and those persons or that person who comes with him, must have a lot of knowledge in different domains, like construction, architecture, design, or engineering. If one person is not able to complete such a checklist properly, you will need a team of experts and you will spend some money, but it is worth it, for a comfortable home.