Hey everyone, welcome I’m Kim Fields, a REALTOR in Nashville, Tennessee with Keller Williams. I talk about all kinds of cool stuff real estate related and you don’t want to miss anything.

New construction home inspections – do you really need one if the house is brand spanking new and no one’s ever even lived in it before?

Well, I have a buyer who is buying a brand new home and they’ve chosen to do a home inspection.

James Hall, a Home Inspector here in Nashville is going to answer that question and show you exactly why a home inspection is necessary. So take it away, James.

Hi, I’m James Hall a local Nashville Home Inspector and today we will be talking about new construction. Why you should have a home inspection with new construction. Often time, the Builder may not necessarily know what his workers have been up to. So let’s go ahead and take a look. One of the common things on a home that’s been around for a little while is the door jambs. This is a good place for rot to start because a lot of rain comes in and it’s constantly hitting on the door facings. things and you’ll find very common all the way around most houses here in Nashville.

Another common thing that we have is leaks underneath the sink, as common as can be. The way I check it is I turn the water on, and I’ll put it on warm because it’s easier to check if it’s warm. Many times if there is a leak you make not be able to SEE it. This is what you have to do to make it easier to actually feel where the water is coming out.

One of the first things I do when I come into a home is to start the dishwasher the reason that I do that it usually takes the length of time we run the dishwasher to do the home inspection and it lets the dishwasher run a full cycle. Because I want to make sure all the appliances are operating.

The big thing for me is I have to make sure the windows work, all the outlets work, I check every single outlet I can get to. If you have a home inspector come in and they check one outlet and one window per room that is the bare minimum standard.

You want somebody that’s going to check everything they could possibly check. Another thing I do that many inspectors do not, is take pictures of the serial number and model number and do recall checks. Just a couple of weeks ago we had a leaky dishwasher. It turned out there is a product manufacturer recall on that model and they received a brand new dishwasher. That paid for your home inspection.

Checking the water pressure. . .

What we do is turn on all the faucets at the same time, the tub and the shower, we have it all running and then flush the toilet. I know you hate it when you’re at home and you’re in the shower and someone flushes the toilet and you get burned. Or you get all that sudden blast of hot water and then all of a sudden it goes all cold on you. Absolutely terrible. It’s my job to make sure that you know if that going to happen before you buy your home.

You’re probably wondering when the home inspector is looking in the electrical panel what exactly is he looking at? Well, we want to know what kind of wires coming into the home? This home has aluminum wire. The amperage for the wire should always be higher than the breakers because you want the breakers to kick before the wires burn. We’re also checking this to make sure that all the wires have these little fittings around the wires that are to protect the wires from getting cut.

That was really awesome James, thanks for all the information. Thank you for having me out here doing your home inspection today. This is a lovely home, the buyers are getting a great house. Yay, they’ll be very happy to hear that!

So now you know what the home inspector looks for.