eaugustin

Ok. we can agree to disagree, but the real questions still remains. Narrative or Check List? Just kidding...

In one breath you say 20 years of building experience does not make you a Home Inspector, then you say if you're new, go get some experience before you speak. If I thought my 20+ years of experience was enough, I would not have gone with AHIT for training (insert your joke here), then joined a nameless professional society association and have earned more than 250+ hours of CE's. I don't know everything, and never will, and the need to broaden my vision is what brought me here instead of sitting on my nameless professional society association site where everyone knows me. However, I do have an opinion, and will state it, whether it's my first post or my 1000th post. Sorry if I stepped on any toes. I don't believe you serve your customer in the best possible fashion by e-mailing in your report. I just don't. I've spent a lot of money to set myself up for on-site reporting because I feel it's the best way. When I go to my doctor for a check up, I have to come back for the results. They don't just e-mail it to my computer. The main reason is I won't understand the report completely. I guess I could tell my doctor that if he wrote a better report I would not have to come back, he could just e-mail it, and save us both some time. And the statement about going home, reflect, write the report scares me. What do you do if you miss or forget to note something. It happens, it really does, unless you're perfect? I've forgot things. Am I incompetent? Should I leave this field? Some will say yes, but my desire to serve my customer to my best possible abilty will make me a better Home Inspector. I look forward to your rebuttal.

I'm sorry it's taken a few days to respond. I've been swamped with Inspections. Yes, my reports have built in narratives that need to be fixed on the template, and I'm catching most of them as I go. I do run across ones that I haven't seen before (there over 1000 built in comments) and I try to catch them all, but some get by. The big one is the ASHI disclaimer needs to be switched to InterNACHI (best site on Earth, by the way) and I switch on each inspection, but I have not on the template, yet. I've been a HI since 2009, but I owned a very successful home remodeling business since 2002, and in residential construction since 1984, so it's not my first trip to the farm. My skin is plenty thick enough for what I've seen here so far, but I don't see the draw to this sight? Do you all just sit around and write to each other? Am I missing something? I'll hang around a while and maybe I'll catch on here... Anyway, bottom line, my customers love my reports. They love to be able to walk through with the report at the end of the inspection and go over each item. I guess it might suck that they have to wait on me to do the report on-site, "Sit around and tap their feet" I think was the clever comment posted here, but it sure beats driving back a second time to meet with the inspector, again, or to get it via e-mail. Even if you produce the best report in the world, the customer will have questions about it, and they would much rather have you there in person to go over it, then to play phone tag with you. IMHO O.K. your turn.... Let me have it....

There's really no debate here. Computer printed reports done ON-SITE are the only true professional way to handle this, and here's why... If the Inspector leaves the property to compile the data and misses something, he can either lie, guess, skip it, or try to see it off of the pictures he took. If he's building the report on-site, he can simply walk back inside. If the report is e-mailed to the client, the client is left, alone, to try and figure out the report. They hired the inspector because they do not have the skill set to know these things on their own. If the report is built on-site, the Inspector can do a walkthru with the client to show them everything in the report, and answer questions. Yes, it's much easier to built the report back in the office, feet up, shoes off, cold drink in hand. One eye on the report, the other eye on the game. Hit send, DONE. Time for another cold drink. It's much harder to sit in the truck, printer plugged into the power inverter, you're twisted sideways typing on the laptop, inserting pictures from the memory card, but it serves the client better. You can walk back into the house, hand the client a finished report in a binder, and go over it step by step until they fully understand what you've found. It's the right thing to do. After all, we are supposed to be professionals. Click to Enlarge 63.96 KB