Most home/property inspection businesses in Pennsylvania are one and occasionally two inspector operations. When someone suggests you use a certain inspection firm they are usually promoting a person. Even if that person is known or referred to by a company name, you are hiring a person for their experience, knowledge and their ability to relate to their clients. It is not like walking into a fast food restaurant and ordering the same hamburger no matter where you are in the country.
I am not a trained contractor or trades person that switched over to become a home/property inspector. I trained specifically to be an inspector through the ASHI sponsored Dearborn School of Home Inspection.
Like many first time home owners I lived in a typical fixer-upper, and fix it up I did. I hate to admit it, but I made the same amateurish mistakes I call out in many of the homes I now inspect. However, over time my skills improved and I became the person my friends came to for advice on home repair. I sold that first home in a few years with over thirty thousand dollars of sweat equity.
When I decided my present position was not
fulfilling, I decided to look for an alternative. Like any high
school student trying to decide what they wanted to do with their
life, I started at square one and looked around at what skills
I already possessed and what I liked to do.
I liked fixing up homes, but I didn't know how to turn that into a job. Then I remembered the two houses my wife and I had bought and how both were inspected. Both inspections were helpful to us in getting significant deficiencies repaired before purchase.
Both inspectors were helpful in explaining our houses and their interior and exterior components. I felt the profession of home inspection was an honorable one, and home inspectors prided themselves in helping others. That's when I decided I wanted to become a home inspector.
However, I knew enough about houses to know I didn't know enough to inspect them. I also knew I wanted to comply with any related laws that may affect home inspectors and there are some.
unfortunately, due to a lack of licensing for home inspectors in the state of Pennsylvania, not all inspectors are fully certified. There are many who do not belong to one of the three Pennsylvania recognized national home inspection associations. This is required by state law. New inspectors are also required to work with a previously certified home inspector before accepting paying customers on their own. Many newer inspectors have not done this.
I wanted to do this the right way. You can't build a Cadillac with cheap tin, and I want my business to be the cady. A spent a year in training with the Dearborn Home Inspection Training Program. The most comprehensive in the industry. I then spent another year working with A-Z tech - a home inspection company based in Greensburg - before becoming fully certified. Working with a fully certified inspector for my first 100 inspections is required by state law.
Additionally to be an ASHI inspector I had to pass the National Home Inspection Examination. I passed it the first time I took it. Finally, I did my radon measurement course work through radondetek in Harrisburg. This also included passing the DEP test. I received my certification to do Mold testing through ASA.
I have been working as a home inspector since 2004, and I am ready to help you. I love working with people, as I often see myself in their eyes. Young couples starting out with their first home, or maybe empty nesters downsizing. We all want that dream home, and its my mission and joy to help people better understand the biggest and most complicated assemblage of components and systems they will probably ever own. Their home.