One Hot Subject

Those of us that live and own homes here in the foothills and Sierra Mountains have at least one major concern that involves all of us to one degree or another. That is wildfires and the threat they pose to our homes and our well being. In recent years, many new regulations have been instituted by Cal Fire and local fire departments to try to reduce the threat of wildfires taking out homes that have been built in the rural areas. But, this has become a contentious subject in many cases due to the stringent requirements involving vegetation removal and thinning necessary in a 100’ radius around structures in order to meet the requirements. The whole thrust of the requirements is to eliminate “ladder fuels” (low growing brush and tree branches) that allow the flames of a fire to have an easy path to the tops of the trees where a “crown fire” can occur.

Crown fires are especially dangerous and destructive as they move quickly through a wooded area showering hot embers like a firestorm down wind, some times as much as a mile or so ahead of the actual flame front. This causes new spot fires and creates an inferno that is not only difficult for the Firefighters to stop, but becomes very dangerous to the firefighters themselves as they may find that they have been over run and trapped by the fire. The concept of “Defensible Space”, which is the term used to describe the 100’ radius of prepared area around a home or other structure, is a good one, but the “look” of it does not fit in with everyone’s idea of how they want their surroundings to look like. Those that support the thought of leaving natural habitat alone for the sake of resident wild animals, birds, etc. also have a difficult time embracing this defensible space practice.

The huge fires that have raged in both southern and now northern California over the past several years that have caused catastrophic losses in homes and personal property has created a new awareness of the vulnerability of homes being caught on fire by neighboring homes that are burning, and how a fire can sweep through whole neighborhoods almost unchecked. This new awareness has focused fire prevention officials and other experts on prevailing building practices and materials that seem to promote the possibility of these types of horrible fires. Today’s building codes and requirements are changing at a rapid pace as new methods and materials are found that minimize the chance for fires to get started in a home or spread to neighboring homes. Again, some of these building requirements and materials can become controversial due to their cost, esthetics or impact on other building construction concerns. This is where a Home Inspector today that is inspecting in this area is going to need to be fairly well versed on the subject in order to provide his/her client with pertinent information they need concerning the property they are involved with. This subject is far too complex and large to go into any further here at this time. However, thanks to technology, you can learn much more about this subject and even take a short quiz that will rate the fire worthiness of your home/property. Go to: http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/homeassessment/# to take this online quiz. If you want more information, just hold your mouse over each question for explanations and photos. After submitting your answers, you will immediately receive a summary that groups your answers into high, moderate and low categories, and gives possible solutions for each. This awesome resource was developed by the Center for Fire Research and Outreach in the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley.

WHAT IS A HOME INSPECTION & WHAT IS ITS’ VALUE?

If ever there was one thing that comes up time after time, I would have to say that it is the question(s) of just what is a Home Inspection, what is the inspection and report supposed to accomplish, and, what is it’s value as it pertains to a home purchase. Talk to any number of Home Inspectors, realtors, homeowners or purchasers and you will get just as many different explanations. Having been in the home building and repair field for well over 40 years, inspecting homes since 1968, and, being personally involved in the purchase and sale of numerous homes and properties, I feel that I have enough insight to try and give you a decent answer to that question, at least from a prospective home purchasers position.

First, though, I guess we ought to decide just what a true Home Inspector is if we want to understand what sort of inspection and report we are going to end up with. It would seem to me that the Home Inspector had better well have a very good understanding of how a home is “put together”. Not just the framing of the house, but all of the components that make up a house and how they all are installed and work with each other.

The Inspector also better have more than just simple knowledge of how the different systems work as well as how they are repaired. This sort of basic knowledge can’t be learned by reading books and taking classes only, there has to be a fair amount of hands-on construction and repair experience performed to really understand how the systems work and how they fail. But, one person can’t possibly know all about every system of a house. I guess I’m suggesting to you that a true Home Inspector is a person that has a ton of experience of hands-on repair and construction as well as many hours of actual continuing class education involving the various systems of a home. The Inspector will know enough to know when some thing is not looking right, but may not know exactly the proper fix for the issue at hand. So, let’s say that the Home Inspector you want to find is a “generalist” that has a lot of experience.
Now that we’ve decided what our Home Inspector is “made of”, we can determine what the inspection report will consist of and “do for us”. Well, we know our Inspector is a generalist so naturally the report will touch on all of the portions and systems in the house in a “general” way. I know what you are thinking, “Hey, I don’t want a glossed over inspection and report, I want to know exactly what I’m purchasing!”. That actually is what you will end up with if you hire the right Inspector, but with out spending a several thousands of dollars or more in hiring individual Contractors/experts in each and every system and aspect of the home you are looking to purchase. The true Home Inspection report will alert you to just the areas of concern so that you can then focus in on just those issues and get further information about them from the appropriate Contractors/experts. This will save you a bunch of money, time, effort and aggravation. So, now you have figured out just what a Home Inspection is and what its’ true value is.