There are many good reasons to have a professional inspection performed on the brand new home you are buying.

We can help the most if you contact us BEFORE you agree to the plans and BEFORE you sign the contract with the builder. We work with you on a plan review. We are not architects, but we can guide you in selecting energy efficient, and low maintenance features of the home, while avoiding designs that are problematic in this climate, or are difficult to maintain.  Building codes and municipal inspections do NOT guarantee that good building practices or materials suitable to our climate will be used.  Vapor barriers are a good example.  Code requires and air and vapor barrier in the wall, but polyethylene vapor barriers used for the past 25 years have become a major contributing factor in water damaged and moldy houses.  New materials are available which permit walls to dry to the interior.  Will your building be smart enough to use these materials? 

After plan review, we check the property at least twice, and often more often, depending on your needs. The basic inspections are Pre-Drywall, where we examine the systems that will be hidden behind the walls, and Final, where we look at all aspects of the house for completion, operation, and workmanship.

Buying a new house is likely one of, if not the largest purchase decision youll ever make. The whole process is fraught with emotion and stress. A professional home inspection will substantially reduce the risk for your large investment in a new home. It just makes sense to learn as much as you can about the quality of your new home, before signing off on everything.

Building a new home is a tremendously complex endeavor. It involves many people, usually split up into sub-contractor groups, each working on different parts and systems of the house. Even for the best builders, its nearly impossible to complete this process without missing something. Maybe its a plumbing fixture that didn't get tested for leaks, maybe its an electrical box that isn't working, or any one of dozens of minor problems that can easily be overlooked in such a major undertaking. We will find such problems while it is still early enough for you to bring them up with the builder and have them corrected before you sign-off and start moving in.

For the relatively small cost, a professional inspection of your new dream home can pay big dividends in peace of mind and getting any problems identified and corrected before they can become an unpleasant surprise.

If you wish, a 48 hour radon test using a continuous monitor can be performed as a part of the final inspection.

First Anniversary Warranty Inspections

We offer a first anniversary inspection service, typically done in the eleventh month of occupancy, to identify any warranty items that need to be corrected.

We also offer an end of structural warranty inspection, typically conducted in the ninth year of occupancy to identify any structural concerns prior to the end of the ten year structural warranty.  Typically, the emphasis in these inspections will be to look for moisture damage.  This inspection may lead to a recommendation of a home performance test: Blower door & Infrared scan, to identify significant air leaks or missing insulation.

Sample finding from a pre-purchase inspection of an new (1 year old) house in Woodbury, Minnesota.

For details on this see out Troubled Houses page.