Brooklyn · New York City

Home inspection in Brooklyn, NY

Between 2013 and 2026, Lou Rubino inspected more than 150 homes in Brooklyn — Bedford-Stuyvesant and Park Slope most of all, then Crown Heights, Clinton Hill, Bushwick, Prospect Heights, Greenpoint and Prospect Lefferts Gardens, with Brooklyn Heights, Kensington and Sheepshead Bay in the archive as well. Every Brooklyn neighbourhood in his records has a page of its own below — 32 of them, each with the real count.

Rated 5.0 on Google as of August 2026 · U.S. Army veteran owned · NY licence #16000039568 · 516-330-3870

A 1900 row house fails differently from anything in the suburbs

The brownstone belt — Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights — is century-old attached housing, and Lou spent thirty years building and renovating before he started inspecting, which is where that matters most. Party walls share structure with the neighbours. Flat roofs pond and fail at the parapet. Brownstone facades spall where an earlier repair used the wrong material. Cast iron waste stacks look sound and are paper-thin at the joints; lead and galvanized supply lines are still in service; one-pipe steam is its own discipline. The brownstone page goes through each of these.

Behind the renovated kitchen, the wiring is often the original story. Knob-and-tube and cloth-sheathed cable turn up above drop ceilings and inside walls that were opened for something else, and a fuse box or an undersized panel can sit behind a very new-looking door. New York requires the panel covers off and the report to say how the roof was observed, and on a pre-war house those two rules are where the findings concentrate. Lou also reads settlement the way a builder does — cracking that has been stable for eighty years and cracking that started last winter do not look the same.

Not all of Brooklyn is a brownstone. Bushwick and Greenpoint carry frame row houses with later brick or siding over them; Sheepshead Bay and Kensington turn up in the archive as well; and a growing share of the borough is sold as condos in converted or new buildings, where the unit is only part of what you are buying into. Whatever the type, the cellar-versus-basement question and the legality of a lower-level unit come up often enough that Lou describes exactly what is there so your attorney can check it against the certificate of occupancy.

What the inspection can examine here

Party walls, flat roofs, parapets, internal drains and the facade on attached pre-war houses — the items a suburban checklist does not contain.
The panel, the wiring eras, cast iron stacks and supply lines — covers off, methods stated, as New York requires.
Settlement and movement, read against the age of the building rather than the age of the paint.
In a condo or co-op, exactly what could not be observed and why; in a house with a lower-level unit, what is actually there.

Hiring a home inspector in Brooklyn, NY

Brooklyn runs under the New York City Construction Codes, and permits and certificates of occupancy are held by the NYC Department of Buildings, searchable by address. A home inspection is not a records search. What Lou does is point out the work that usually needed a permit — a finished cellar, a lower-level kitchen, a rooftop addition, a moved panel, a rebuilt rear extension — so your attorney knows what to check against the DOB file before closing.

The visit works the same way across the borough. You call or text 516-330-3870, you are encouraged to be there, and Lou walks the house with you and explains what he finds as he goes. A thermal scan is part of the standard inspection, not an add-on. The written report, with photographs and organised by system, arrives the same day as a rule; a large or complex house can run to the next morning. On a brownstone, three hours is normal; one Brooklyn client on a tight contract clock had Lou there on very short notice and said so in his review.

Questions Brooklyn buyers ask

Do you cover all of Brooklyn or only the neighbourhoods listed here?

All of it. Every neighbourhood where Lou’s archive holds a report has a page of its own here; thirty-five more Brooklyn jobs are logged by borough alone. The whole borough is a routine weekday booking from Wantagh.

Will the home inspection tell me whether the lower-level unit is legal?

No. Legality is a records question, answered against the certificate of occupancy held by the NYC Department of Buildings, usually through your attorney. The inspection describes accurately what is there, so any mismatch is visible before closing.

How soon do I get the report?

The same day, as a rule. A large or complex property can run to the next morning. It is a full written report with photographs, organised by system.

Brooklyn, town by town

Every Brooklyn town and neighbourhood in Lou's own records, each with the real count and its years — one house or twenty. The photographs on each page come from his reports on homes in that town.

Photographs from Brooklyn reports

A bathtub surround with one ceramic tile removed, red arrow at the exposed wall cavity. — A red arrow marks the wall cavity behind a ceramic tile the owner authorized the inspector to remove from the tub wall. Mold was evident on the back of the tile and on the sheetrock and insulation behind it, and samples went to the lab.

Old wood cellar joists overhead with a drain pipe passing through a cut double joist, red arrow at the cut — The red arrow marks a double floor joist that plumbers cut to run a drain pipe under a first-floor bathroom. The report recommends bracing the cut joist, work for a licensed carpenter.

A white-painted glass-panelled interior door with red lines tracing panes where glass is missing. — Red lines trace panes where glass is missing from this glass-panelled French door. The report records the missing glass and recommends repair by a licensed door contractor.

All three photographs are from Lou's own Brooklyn inspection reports, chosen because they show a building component and nothing that identifies a property or an owner.

Where this sits in Lou's territory

Brooklyn is the borough where Lou's archive runs deepest outside Nassau, and the work clusters where the brownstones are. From Wantagh it is the Belt Parkway or the LIE, booked like any other weekday job; nothing in the borough is quoted as a trip.

Also: Queens · Manhattan co-ops and condos · What an inspection costs · all 250 towns.

Buying in Brooklyn?

32 Brooklyn neighbourhoods have their own page here, each with the real count. A century-old house fails differently, and Lou has built them as well as inspected them.

Schedule an inspection Call 516-330-3870

Not sure yet? Read what New York requires of your inspector or see a real report.

Common questions: can the seller be at the inspection? · what if Lou cannot see something? · can my agent pay the inspector a referral fee? Near the water? Lou also does wind mitigation inspections for your insurer.