The most common style of report in the industry is called a checklist report. It usually contains a series of checkboxes per building component with captions like “Appears Serviceable”, “Functional”, or “Poor/Average/Good”. These are not descriptive terms and often mean different things to different people. Most of these reports have minimal space to expand in a narrative fashion on the problem identified and the client can often be left unsure of the meaning of a specific reported item. This style of report is popular because it is a one size fits all solution to house inspecting. They often come in carbon copies and can allow the inspector to rush through an inspection, ticking off items without really providing substantive information on the current condition of the dwelling.
At SENWI, we do not use a pre-printed checklist-style report. Instead, we create a custom narrative report supported with photos to explain the found defects. Our reports will only have information on the inspected dwelling and you will not have to wade through piles of boilerplate text to get to the relevant data. And because we custom write every report we are able to take as much room as is required to adequately explain the found defect.
We are proud that we exceed the industry average. We will not compromise our standards or the ability to provide you with a detailed and accurate report that you deserve and have paid for—a report that you need to make an informed purchase decision.
1 comment:
One further note on checklist style reports.
In my view a check-list style reports often “guides” the inspector through the dwelling based on the order of checklist items and can often cause the inspector to not “see the whole picture”. This does not mean that it is not a good idea to have some process for how you to follow while inspecting a dwelling, what components or rooms you look at, and in what order. But I have observed that an inspector, using a checklist format report is often spending more time looking at what is the next check list item and less time inspecting the room they are walking through. This style of inspector, in my view, is not going to see the whole storey and will often miss identifying defects.
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