Pillar To Post The Home Of Home Inspection

On a friend’s recommendation, we employed Pillar-to-Post for our home inspection. On the positive side, the inspector arrived on time and was friendly and receptive to our questions throughout. He did advise us about some basic home maintenance tips which, as first-time homebuyers, we appreciated. But where the company lost major points was in the months following. Once we took possession of the house, we had someone come in to do some routine work on our furnace; the moment he looked at the furnace, he noticed that the vent had been installed incorrectly. He warned us that we could have a carbon monoxide problem, and that the fix (given the dimensions of our basement and the position of our home) could be complicated. He was incredulous that a home inspector could miss something like this – and when I looked for information about this online (thinking that perhaps the furnace guy was hoping to profit off our ignorance), the vent issue really seems to be part of homebuilding 101. I understand that the inspector can’t see behind walls, etc., but there were actually TWO photos of the faulty vent in his inspection report, so it was clearly in view during (and after) the inspection. I’ve several times now contacted the local owner, as well as their company's national training specialist, and have gotten nowhere. While the latter has even been quoted in magazine articles saying that their inspectors have Errors-and-Omissions Insurance, as I found, this means nothing. The owner, in his response, even argued that because the original installer of the vent thought that his work was satisfactory, the home inspector couldn’t be expected to correct the original judgment of an expert. How does that make sense? So if an incompetent worker installs the windows backwards, you just assume he knew what he was doing? I understand that everyone can make a mistake, miss a detail, etc., and so while I wish the inspector had noticed this during the inspection, it was the correspondence afterwards that disappointed me the most. They had a chance to make right by refunding the inspection fee (a fraction only of what the repair was going to cost us), or even a conciliatory couple hundred dollars, but all I got were lots of excuses and bad feelings about the whole experience.

The home inspectors at Pillar to Post are not the cheapest, but you are paying for a thorough inspection and some level of professionalism. Home inspection isn't currently regulated in Ontario, so it's a good idea to use a company affiliated with professional organizations.

I was totally dissatisfied with the home inspection. He did not go the extra mile to check behind boxes of the previous owner to see walls, in the attic etc. I was most concerned about the basement, being a victoria home. This was my first home so I didn't know what to expect. There was no sign (e.g. no wet walls) of damage, so I asked pointy what he thought. He said the house was sound. A few months later, the basement flooded. I called to let him know he said "A house your age you are almost guaranteed a leak". I said it would have helped if you mentioned that before I bought it. Stay away!

We had a complete home inspection. The rep failed to note that our exterior walls were out 8" from base to 2nd floor and our neighbors exterior was visably bowing - aproximatly 1.5'. We needed to have a structural engineer secure our house so the neighbors would not pull it down. In the basement our electrician asked why do you have comercial electrical in your home - this was never noted. We needed to completly rewire the house.

Our bathroom was in need of a 'face lift' we found extreme mosture - (i asked him to bring out the moisture tool and he said it was old) we could wring the moisure out of the sub-floor.

He called our house a 'gem'... Well we are 6 months into structural repairs and have yet to move in. 80K spent so far.. which is a far cry from the 15K he said would be needed for repairing the deck and sm roof over the kitchen.

Stay clear!

We hired pillar to post for a regular house inspection. Our greatest concern was the basement as there were white marks on the wall and we pointed that these marks specifically and asked should we be concerned. The house inspector totally downplayed the potential issue and noted that its probably "just condensation". Well, we was obviously wrong b/c the first weekend after moving in we saw water coming through the wall, through the insulation and saw active cracks that the inspector did not identify for us. We are extremely unhappy with the service we got and obviously, now we have to spend a significant amount of money after moving into the house just this past August. We do not recommend you use Pillar to Post for your home inspection!!!

We hired these guys to do a 2 hour inspection of a house we were interested in purchasing. Before the inspection, I mentioned that I was most interested in investigating any basement issues. In spite of that, he missed a serious and very obvious basement problem - water damage stains on the walls of the basement because he did not look in closets and did not look behind couches - really negligent job!