The Importance of A Home Inspection

Making regular checks around the house can reduce your maintenance costs.

No one will dispute the value of an inspection before making such a significant investment as a home. But ironically, the subject is seldom mentioned again—despite the fact that routine inspections should be a common practice for every homeowner. Performing periodic checks around your home (generally every season) is smart preventative maintenance, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

Here are a few key areas to pay attention to when conducting routine maintenance checks. Please keep in mind that these procedures will not provide the breadth of information you’ll receive from a professional home inspection. But they can help you identify certain potential problem areas and prevent them from becoming major safety or repair issues.

If you do identify an issue that needs further attention, you should contact a contractor or remodeler for a professional consultation.

Start from the top.
Because your roof system is an important line of defense against the elements, it’s always a good place to start. If your home is roofed with asphalt shingles, you’ll want to make sure that the shingles are still providing an adequate level of protection.

It’s natural for asphalt shingles to show signs of aging, and some physical changes are not reason for alarm. These changes include curling of the shingles’ edges, minor cracks in the surface of the shingles, algae stains and slight granule loss.

However, there are certain things to watch for that could indicate a potentially larger problem. Closed blisters on your shingles (small circular raised areas) could be an indication of underventilated attic space. If so, you may want to consider adding ridge ventilation to take the heat off. ARMA states that one of the best methods is a combination of continuous eaves and ridge vents that together provide uniform natural draft ventilation from the bottom to the top of the attic space.