Whole House Inspection

Today we had our whole house inspection.  This was the first time we were in the house since we decided to make an offer on it a week and a half ago.  We've driven by it a few times but this was our first chance to get in it again to talk about what we want to do to update the house.  My goal with the inspection was to stick with the inspector to ask questions about what he was looking at and also check out the house further.  

When we arrived we learned that the termite inspector had already stopped by and there were no signs of termites.  Yeah, first hurdle cleared!  

We had a long way to go though. Our inspector got to the house a bit before we did and he already had one big concern. The foundation, there is a crack in the garage that was repaired in the past, however, it looks as if it has opened up in the past few years.  He said it could be a settlement issue or we could have a foundation issue.  His recommendation was that we bring in a structural engineer to take a look so it could be assessed since the house is build on a hill (gotta love Cincy).  

After we talked about this we walked around the house and he was amazed at how well it was kept up. All of the mechanics of the house were so well maintained that they looked as if they'd been installed within the past five years.  He checked out everything imaginable in the house, the stove, the oven, flushed all the toilets, ran tons of water, turned on lights, tested the whole house fan, walked on the roof.  EVERYTHING. Overall, he said the house was in pretty good shape and aside from the foundation, the takeaways I had were as follows:

*  Replace the electrical box.  It is currently a fuse box, outdated technology.  

*  He recommended adding access to the attic into one of the closets.  He said generally to get access they have to remove the whole house fan (which is pretty darn cool - not sure how I missed that when we were walking through) and he doesn't do it because he doesn't want to break it.   

*  Roof is only one layer and looks about 10 years old.  

*  Add metal brackets to secure the railings out front and consider putting in a railing around the porch for safety reasons. 

* Furnace and A/C are in great shape for their age but we need to be prepared for a possible breakdown.  We negotiated a one year warranty into the sales price so we are covered for a year.