Interior

The interior of the home includes all the various rooms and related items, which are not covered in other aspects of your home inspection on the interior of the dwelling. Some items may overlap such as bathrooms and plumbing, rooms and electrical, and so on. The professional inspector will go through each and every room including all visible and accessible areas of your new home. This is a very important part of your home inspection because symptoms of larger problems are often visible in the various rooms of your home. Settling can be noticed in the floors and walls. Roof or plumbing leaks may be noticed on the ceilings. Poor quality workmanship on mechanical distributions such as outlets and heat convection may be visible. Your inspector will go through each room making notes of relevant defects. Although most cosmetic items, such as worn paint and old carpeting, are not important, they often indicate a general lack of maintenance in the home. Very few homeowners have badly worn carpet and peeling paint, but they have maintained the much more expensive mechanical and structural components. When a home is in need of a lot of cosmetic work your inspector has already seen a red flag. Recently performed cosmetic work is also carefully inspected to try to determine if it has been done to conceal deeper, more extensive problems. An older home with brand new carpet and paint throughout is often a home that was neglected until resale. Very often the sellers are advised or take it upon themselves to cosmetically repair and upgrade as much as possible to increase the value and curb appeal of the property. Usually these upgrades are done with cost effectiveness in mind and may also be an attempt to mask major problems.

Interior - Bathrooms

The bathrooms of the home can be one of the most expensive areas to replace or refurbish. With simple maintenance, such as caulking and grouting of tub and shower areas, expensive repairs can be avoided. Many future homeowners badly underestimate the cost of bathroom replacement because of the underlying defects, which require repairs. A well maintained, but outdated bathroom can often be updated at a reasonable cost by replacing wallpaper, shower doors, sink vanity and other minor items. An item as small as a dripping valve inside a wall left un-repaired can be the difference between a $500 upgrade and a $5,000 one! When bathroom replacement is undertaken, it is advisable to change the wallboard and carefully inspect the sub-floor, electric and the plumbing. The inspector will carefully check all areas including the tub and shower areas and around the toilet in particular. These areas are more prone to hidden water damage. The inspector will advise you of visible defects and alert you to potential hidden defects such as leaking shower pans, which can only be checked in a limited capacity by him/her. Bathrooms are a favorite place for homeowners to make cosmetic repairs, which mask underlying problems. The inspector is always very suspicious of recent cosmetic work performed in the bathroom area.

Interior - Walls, Ceilings, and Floors

The walls, ceilings, and floors of the home can be covered by a wide variety of materials and divide the home into individual rooms and areas. Many of the walls in a home can often support floors or other portions of the home above. Future homebuyers often ask if they can remove a wall or if it must stay. The inspector normally can tell what walls are load bearing and which are partition and removable. Your professional home inspector will be on alert to carefully check for areas where it appears load-bearing walls have been altered or removed. This must be done using good structural design and professional workmanship. Ceilings are inspected for leaks from plumbing or roofs as well as for safe installations. Heavy old plaster ceilings can be a hazard when cracked and worn. Floors are, of course, looked at carefully for sagging and unevenness. Uneven floors may indicate major problems in the home. The majority of the home's most important parts are between the floors, ceilings and walls, and they are not visible for inspection. This is why it is so important to inspect the condition of these areas for indications of larger potential problems in the dwelling.