report writing

[kurt]

Originally posted by Les

Mike,

One problem is most inspectors only know one way to write reports. They know how to inspect in many ways and protocols, but can only write report one way.

Good thread!

Yes.

My comic book approach is only one method; I use it when working w/HOA's as a summary. It's wonderful, as condo owners want simple explanations, w/lots of pictures. The underlying principles & fundamentals are in the long winded narrative, that no one understands anyway, so I tell folks to cut to the photolog (comic book), and if they don't understand something, go back & read the underlying fundamentals.

Attorneys also love the photolog (that's what I'm calling it now).

Commercial stuff gets the full blown narrative, w/pics, in InspectExpress, sometimes in my database.

HI's get the database approach, w/bullet pointed concerns, organized by system.

You gotta have more than one "product" approach.

[kurt]

Originally posted by Chris Bernhardt

One thing that hasn't changed much is the organization of HI reports. They are horrible! If one has a particular question one usually has to dig thru the report page by page. Even though these reports have a purported table of contents realtors and clients usually need set aside a good hour to read the reports and put together their own list because the reports are so unordered!

Chris, Oregon

Exactly.

Formatting. Primary concerns should be numbered.

The only disagreement is mixing pic's & text. Doing it otherwise duplicates effort; I know, because that's what the photolog approach gets me. I've got something in the narrative, then I have to retype something else for the photolog.

My new format will have bullet pointed items, numbered, narrative description, and up to 4 photos per comment. (I could make it 6, 10, or 2 dozen, but I have drawn my arbitrary line @ 4).

The "summary" will be the first thing after the usual instructions, disclaimers, and bothersome administrative stuff, followed by system descriptions, materials, and locations.

The items are ordered by system, or I can assign them priority #'s & sort by degree of concern. I can print & deliver both ways.

The point being, folks around here have hours, or a day to think things through; they want bullet pointed & numbered concerns so they can easily communicate which items they're talking about; no more "go to page 34, 2nd paragraph". Now, it's "Go to #17".

[Les]

I "stole" my format from ASTM commercial standards. Started using an Executive Summary, Component Summary, and whatever else I think appropriate. Usually a Photo Summary with comments right there under the picture. Shortens things up a whole bunch. You could read all of it or some of it, depending on what you want to know.

I once did a 260+ page report for GM that was bound and beautifully illustrated - they read 1 1/2pages! The next one I did for them, similiar building, was three pages of text and 60pages of photos and comments, both paid the same. BTW, they demo'd both buildings within thirty days.

[kurt]

Originally posted by Les

I "stole" my format from ASTM commercial standards. Started using an Executive Summary, Component Summary, and whatever else I think appropriate. Usually a Photo Summary with comments right there under the picture. Shortens things up a whole bunch. You could read all of it or some of it, depending on what you want to know.

I once did a 260+ page report for GM that was bound and beautifully illustrated - they read 1 1/2pages! The next one I did for them, similiar building, was three pages of text and 60pages of photos and comments, both paid the same. BTW, they demo'd both buildings within thirty days.

Similar experience here. I finished up a 25 medical clinic project this summer; total pages was somewhere around 550-600.

Corporate types don't read reports. They want summaries, w/pictures. Those 550+ pages of reportage got condensed down (eventually) to 11 pages of critical concerns, 33 photos in all. That's all they cared about.

I use the ASTM E2018 sample report format too. I think it's excellent. For all the beefing about ASTM-ification of the HI process, I'm still trying to figure out why it's such a bad idea.

[hausdok]

Originally posted by SonOfSwamp

Mike, let me gently suggest: Ask the students to read some reports, and tell you if the HI was trying to educate or obfuscate.

WJ

Hi Walter,

Yes, that was the point of the exercise; to make them understand that not all reports provide truly useful information or are necessary telling them everything they need to know, so that they'll be able to wend their way through the maze of inspector candidates and sample reports and find someone who will be truly working for them and not the seller, reeltor, bank or mortgage lender. We discussed the various tell tales that will tip them off as to whether the inspector is speaking clearly or is trying to minimize something. I think they get it. If not, they'll certainly figure it out by the end of the semester.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[chicago]

Perhaps we need four versions of the report.

1)For the agent ,with soft unscary text

2)For the client with lots of home maintenance tips to show they got their monies worth.

3)For the lawyer a quick brief summary

4)For ourselves to prove what great unpublished writers we are with lots of adjectives and stories.

[hausdok]

Originally posted by chicago

Perhaps we need four versions of the report.

1)For the agent ,with soft unscary text

2)For the client with lots of home maintenance tips to show they got their monies worth.

3)For the lawyer a quick brief summary

4)For ourselves to prove what great unpublished writers we are with lots of adjectives and stories.

Jeez,

Some guys just love to dream up ways of making more work for everyone. [:-bonc01]

OT - OF!!!

M.

[Chris Bernhardt]

What kinda comics you reading??? All my comics have the text right over the pics - and I like it that way. (I think you are using the Playboy model, not the comic model.)

Well I said comic book model. All my pics are captioned and annotated. There is a minor amount of duplication with my list of findings. I take a lot of pics and when I sit down with a client we basically go right to the pics and start talking. I usually have 8 pics a page and page after page of pics.

I knew that some would disagree with the pic in with the narrative as its a popular approach in many report writer programs but all that text surrounding the pic is confusing to clients. I know you won't believe me. I believe more information is conveyed much more quickly by using pics and I don't mean a single pic of the issue. I might take several pics of an issue to try an comunicate it. Think making a movie. Our world is going so video. Big blocks of narrative in relation to a single pic is boring.

Why? Because people have learned that they have to slow down and be careful when reading narrative and then have to work hard at deciphering what the inspector has written via all that passive, vague wording. A pic lets their minds run free - to find Waldo.

I have tried to upload a copy of my report format but can't. How big a file can we upload? I think my file size is about 1.5meg.

Chris, Oregon

[chicago]

Pictures tell a thousand words.

Since inspections are visual, digital cameras are in my opinion the most important tool we have,and if I could only bring one that would be it.

[Brad Manor]

While I believe that pics are a great tool for reporting, I also believe that they have the potential to be the great undoing of many inspectors. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but they may be a different thousand words for every viewer. Instead of the thousand the picture gives, I'd rather a couple hundred carefully chosen and well phrased words.

I learned (the hard way) that too many pictures leads to confusion on the part of the client. Now I include pictures of the relevant items - but a make absolutely sure in writing that what I want shown is seen and, more importantly, understood. I still take loads of photos, way more than I need, but a lot of them are there just for my benefit.

-Brad

[Richard Moore]

I might take several pics of an issue to try an comunicate it. Think making a movie. Our world is going so video. Big blocks of narrative in relation to a single pic is boring.

So...I'm thinking of wearing a head mounted video camera and posting each entire inspection on YouTube.

Seriously though, while I think photos help, and I do use them sparingly, I also think that if you are incapable of describing the issue clearly and concisely in words, then maybe you shouldn't be writing narrative reports at all. I really don't care if it's "boring". I'm not writing a best seller.

The whole report may be for your client, but, like it or not, we are also producing a negotiating "tool" and any particular section describing a needed repair is possibly going to be faxed to the listing agent/seller for remedy. As I doubt the pictures will often accompany that, the wording needs to stand up by itself.

I saw a report a little while back that had a close-up photo of a GFCI receptacle with the caption "GFCI did not trip when tested". Do we really need photos of everything?

[Chris Bernhardt]

While I believe that pics are a great tool for reporting, I also believe that they have the potential to be the great undoing of many inspectors. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but they may be a different thousand words for every viewer. Instead of the thousand the picture gives, I'd rather a couple hundred carefully chosen and well phrased words.

I have never had that experience and thats just not logical. I got a call from a realtor on a recent inspection it turns out that the house had just been inspected by somebody before me who didn't call a bunch of stuff. I asked him if the sellers were disputing anything extra that I had called. He replied "no, it's hard to argue with pictures."

Chris, Oregon

[ozofprev]

Good point, Brad. It's like sex. Most of us assume we are good at it, but that's just not the case. Like writing, it can be done well or not-so-well.

Client reaction is similar too. If the client goes, "Oooh, yeah" then you're doing a good job.

[kurt]

The trick is thinking like a photographer; too many photos is bad, not good.

One has to learn how to frame the photos in such a way that the story is told in one, maybe two shots. For commercial work, I might document several locations, but for HI work, a couple shots to get the idea out there, and then fill in the supporting narrative.

I was in the "every defect gets a photo" school for a brief bit of time, but learned quickly it is a major pain in the butt, and it doesn't necessarily get the point across acceptably; folks get bogged down in too many photos.

I was also in the "don't need no steenkin' photos; words is better" approach for a long time, but that's not nearly as good as a well thought & presented photo display for the major items.

[Chris Bernhardt]

I saw a report a little while back that had a close-up photo of a GFCI receptacle with the caption "GFCI did not trip when tested". Do we really need photos of everything?

I can't tell you how many times when I am going over my findings with a client and they have no idea what a GFCI receptacle is. Would I take a picture of it? It depends on who my client was. I tend to take more pics for older clients and definitely for non-english speakers. Most grandmas and grandpas won't read the report. They will have their sons and daughters do it for them and what will the sons and daughters use to explain things back? The pictures!

But another point I need to make clear, I am not advocating pics over narrative. I wish I could upload my report format so you could see what I mean.

Chris, Oregon

[hausdok]

Photos are important, but without a good explanation accompanying them they can do more harm than good.

As a criminal investigator, I used to take a lot of crime scene photos, but those were only rarely attached to reports. Instead, we relied primarily on our hand and type-written notes, narrative descriptions of our actions, the crime scene, and what we learned from victims, witnesses, and subjects, and from crime lab analysis to make our cases. Out of a file with several hundred photos in it, only 3 or 4 might actually make their way into the final report or be used at trial. The rest remained in the file.

Today, I only rarely take photos during inspections. A little because I can't find the plug-in-memory thingy for my CMU-sized 8-year old digital camera, but mostly because I'm still not real comfortable with the whole digital imaging and editing thing. If a client is following me around with a digital camera and wants to have the pictures in the text, I ask them to send me an email with the photos attached and I can very easily plug them into the text anywhere I want using the PhotoDrop feature of my Inspect Express software. Otherwise, I rely on my "boring" narrative report and a few graphics that I've found on the net to illustrate my points.

I purposely do a walk-n-talk with the clients. I call it "The School of the House." When I'm done, they're not only intimately familiar with the home and what they'll need to do to maintain it properly, they're very familiar with every deficiency; why it's a deficiency and what needs to be done to correct it and when it needs to be done. If I know, I'll give them a ballpark figure of what it will cost to correct. Lots of inspectors don't like this approach; others would like to do it but they're not real good at the whole walk-n-talk thing. I like to teach, so I'm very comfortable doing it. Most of my customers have told me that they like that approach; I can't speak to others' methods.

I almost never get phone calls from my clients asking me to explain anything in the report. Since the referral rate from past clients far and away outstrips referrals from reeltors or any other referral sources, I'm assuming that folks have been happy with their reports. Anyone who's ever voiced anything about the report, it's format, and it's presentation have always expressed satisfaction and I've never had a call from anyone complaining that it was too hard to read, too boring, or too technically complicated for them to understand.

Now, I suppose that if the client could not be present for the inspection that photos would be a great benefit, but, since most of my clients accompany me on the job, and I tend to write very descriptive reports, I don't think that photos make that much difference. A 5 or 10 word caption on a photo is easy to read, but, unless there is a well-written explanation with it, it's not necessarily an accurate depiction of the scene. Years from now, myself, an attorney or a judge will be able to read one of my narratives and understand exactly what it is that I'm saying. However, if I took a picture today and didn't accompany it with a detailed narrative description of the issue, I'm not certain that I could accurately describe the issue to a jury 10 years from now. After all, out-of-context it's easy to confuse similar photos.

From my point of view it's the inspection that I do onsite with the client which is the "product" that I produce. The written narrative report only reinforces what the client has already learned and knows about the house and the report keys their memory. Still, it's not enough to write it so that it just keys the client's memory - heck, I could do that with a couple of words - it needs to be understandable by others reading it who have never been on-site if you want it to be understood by a contractor and defensible at trial.

Last year, when a builder threatened to sue me over the fact that I'd reported how he'd built an entire development of houses with incorrectly installed I-joists, I contacted a lawyer. He asked me to write up the issue so that he could understand it and then send the explanation to him. I just cut and pasted the explanations from my reports, added a chronological explanation of events, and emailed the whole thing over to him. He called back the next day and said that the issues had been crystal clear and he didn't have any questions for me. The next day, I received his response to the builder. It was about 95% my narrative. It's been more than a year - not a peep out of the builder or the builder's attorney.

I think there are long narrative reports that are full of fluff and gobbledygook, and then there are long narrative reports that aren't, and which people have no problem reading and understanding completely. Like I said previously in this thread - there is no single report writing protocol or accepted method for writing reports. Inspectors have to find what works best, using their own existing skillset, and then do the best that they can with it.

I think that a checklist report is fine, as long as the author of the report can pull it out of a file 10 years from now, read it and then fully explain what he saw and did onsite; the same for semi-narrative reports. However, I don't see that happening Hell, I make very short hand-written notes to myself and use them to key my memory for the report I'll write. If I wait more than a few days before I start to transcribe those notes, I can find myself really struggling to remember everything - that's why it's so important to get home and get it fully documented as quickly as possible. Keep in mind, though, that if an inspector's writing skills are poor it won't matter which type of report system he or she uses; that lack of ability is going to increase the chance of something coming back to bite them in the future.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

You know, the nicest thing about the camera is it's a great note taker. I don't necessarily use them all in the report, but I sure use them to review the building.

It's handy. My camera has a slick little feature that allows me to record a 5 second voice note attached to an image; I'll take a pic, then provide a quick explanation if it's something I might not remember easily.

The hardest thing about the long narrative is being "on" every day. Sometimes the words just flow, and sometimes not. Writer's block, and all that.

[Richard Moore]

I can't tell you how many times when I am going over my findings with a client and they have no idea what a GFCI receptacle is. Would I take a picture of it? It depends on who my client was.

Sorry, this is getting a little off-topic but, don't you explain GFCIs to all your clients (verbally and report)? I'm sure you actually do but, if you feel that a client needs a photo of one, then wouldn't you include a photo whether one is bad or not? I don't use a lot of pure boilerplate but GFCIs, AFCIs, smoke detectors all get descriptive "fluff" recommending regular testing. I also explain the "downstream" protection while on site and identify where the actual GFCIs are.

A photo of something that, IMO, does nothing to illustrate the fault is a waste of ink and electrons, and probably detracts from the really useful pictures. (My 2 cents)

[hausdok]

Originally posted by kurt

The hardest thing about the long narrative is being "on" every day. Sometimes the words just flow, and sometimes not. Writer's block, and all that.

That's exactly right. Some days I can knock out the report quickly and on others it just drags on and on and on.

I've often tought that what I'd like to do is just put my narrative onto a digital voice recorder and then send it as a file to a courtroom stenographer and let the te stenographer type the thing up. The problem with that is that first I'd have to train the stenographer to use the software and then I wouldn't have the freedom of being able to individually tweak the final document in a timely manner the way that I like to before sending it out.

I probably should try it once or twice though. Hell, maybe just put the narratives on the recorder, have them typed up and then sent back to me for cutting and pasting into the report. One never knows, the time saved by just recording the issue onto a voice file and then forwarding it to a stenographer might be a huge benefit. After all, it works pretty well for court clerks and doctors.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Chris Bernhardt]

Necessity is the mother of invention. I have historically had a lot of clients who can't attend the inspection and a lot more that are not proficient in english. Without a judicious use of pictures how do you propose to communicate the issues?

Even if my clients understood english and attended the inspection at least for the walk and talk they still often have to communicate the findings to others. It maybe a market thing. I imagine on higher end homes that they tend to negotiate price where as on the low end they tend to negotiate repairs.

I often don't have the luxury of doing a traditional walk & talk with my clients. Don't presume just because a client has hired you for an inspection that they want all that walky talky stuff because some don't or could really careless.

What are you going to do, take a client up on a roof, in an attic, or through a crawlspace? What you are saying is that all clients will understand properly written narrative and that is simply not true.

Chris, Oregon

[Richard Stanley]

Walter, did they have cameras back then? (tongue in cheek)

Mike, I think I've heard of the computer software that you just talk to and it types for you - voice activated something - can't think of the name of it - no point in paying a secretary.

[Chris Bernhardt]

When I was a budding engineer a company from Europe named Lecroy came out with the first practical digital ocilliscope and it was twice the cost of the ol textronix analog work horse. My boss and I showed all the ol farts this new way of doing things and they scoffed and snorted that you don't need all that fancy crap your just wasting the companies money.

Fast forward 5 years later and all of the analog scopes were in the trash heep and you couldn't pry one of those Lecroys from an ol farts cold dead hands.

We have gotten by just fine on the old ways. You hear it all of the time. Using pictures to communicate solves a problem. It's just a tool in our bag of communication goodies.

I am sure that I am not the first one to say this but I can imagine a day where the current way of communicating the findings of the inspection will be web based in a garden of hyperlinks to useful information should the client wish to pursue it.

I see the trend that people care less and less about learning about a home and how it works. They just want to know whats wrong and who do they call to fix it.

Chris, Oregon

[chicago]

Some people are left brained and some are right as mentioned above however as Kurt mentioned above ,it's hard to argue with a picture.

When typing captions you are forced to be accurate or the picture will catch your lie.

I was suprised Mike sort of dis-agreed on the pic subject as I have always heard that when there is a crime ,ten witnesses give ten different discriptions.

Now show those people a pic of the crime happening and the story gets more accurate.

[Brad Manor]

Pictures are great, they can convey in an instant what we are trying to say, but without an accompanying explanation, they are just pictures. When I am doing a report, I try to make sure that what I am trying to show with the picture is backed up by words and vice versa. If the narrative doesn't make sense without the picture, or the picture doesn't make sense without the narrative, then I'm doing something wrong. If our clients could identify problems by seeing pictures of them, then there isn't much call for us. We become photographers more than home inspectors.

-Brad

[chicago]

I guess in the past words vs photos if you wish to refer to it that way would not even be a topic.

As you say Brad they work well together when done right.

I am just big on presentation as (one) of the ways to please a client.