A home inspection is a crucial step in the home purchasing process. It can uncover important-to-fix damage, ranging from something as obvious as broken bricks to more obscure, surprising defects, such as blistering roof shingles, and everything in between.
Home inspections can save buyers from purchasing a house or condo with issues they’re not equipped to fix, and it also lets sellers know of potential repairs they need to make in order to sell the property, be that a simple power washing of the home’s exterior, or something more essential.
But while the importance of home inspection has always existed, the tools which home inspectors can use have definitely evolved over time. Here are five high-tech tools home inspectors are using in 2020.
Infrared Temperature Guns
Infrared temperature guns can be crucial to the home inspection process, and definitely are responsible for discovering issues that home inspectors in the past would be unable to.
By determining the various temperatures of walls, ceilings, and flooring, a home inspector can find leaks, water damage, mold growth, hot spots and areas lacking insulation. Quite simply, the infrared temperature gun can see what the human eye can’t, and is a crucial tool for the modern home inspector.
Sewer Scope Cameras
You’ve probably seen scope video cameras in some of your favorite spy movies—you know, when the hero must observe a room in secret, so he snakes a thin camera through an air vent and watches what’s going on.
Well those cameras do exist, but they’re not just for James Bond or Ethan Hunt. They’re also great tools for home inspectors, looking to peer into crevices and tight spaces they otherwise would not be able to observe, potentially finding issues that would have taken months or years to finally manifest.
In most cases, home inspectors use sewer scope cameras to find damage, bellies, and back ups in your plumbing drain lines that can lead to costly repairs.
Moisture Meters
Outside of your sinks and showers, moisture should never play a prominent role in your home. Water damage is a real threat to a homeowner, so any potential buyers will want to be made aware of any potential wet spots hiding in their home’s walls and insulation.
Using electronic pin-probe moisture readers, home inspectors can spot any moisture levels throughout a home, and immediately spot any hidden damage. This tool can also determine if moisture levels are standard and safe, or something that can be addressed to help prevent water damage in the future.
In short, these take the guesswork out when it comes to determining a home’s risk for water intrusion and moisture detention, which is important for both buyer and seller.
Crawl Bots
Here’s where home inspectors get to have a little fun. When trying to examine small crawl spaces or other narrow, cramped areas, if a scope camera can’t get the whole picture, crawl bots can get the job done.
Think of them like little toy racing cars with a camera on them—an inspector will take the rover and have it drive around to inspect the scene, documented with digital video footage. This can find potential issues in a home’s foundation, or verify that everything is in tip-top shape. Plus, we’d have to imagine the inspectors get a kick out of driving the things around.
Drones
If crawl bots were cool, drones are definitely even cooler. But in the right weather conditions, many inspectors get to fly around a drone to complete their inspections. It’s a great way to document footage of the condition of a home or building’s roof, without putting anyone at risk by having to climb onto the roof themselves.
With HD footage, these drones can gather images and video so refined that they can spot possible issues that they might have missed in person. Plus, the inspector gets to fly a small drone around, which is always a treat.
Summing Up
Of course, no matter what high-tech tools they’re using, you’ll want to make sure that your home inspection is run by best, like the professionals at Waypoint Property Inspection East. If you are curious at what home inspectors look for, read this post from Atkinson Inspection.
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