Between 2015 and 2026, Lou Rubino inspected 15 homes in Crown Heights. The neighbourhood mixes turn-of-the-century limestones and brick rows with a newer wave of infill construction — so on one block Lou may be dating hundred-year-old millwork, and on the next, checking how a building finished last decade is actually holding up.
Rated 5.0 on Google as of August 2026 · U.S. Army veteran owned · NY licence #16000039568 · 516-330-3870
In the old stock, original details are both the value and the work: plaster, millwork, glass-panelled doors and staircases that survive nowhere else. Lou marks what is damaged, what is worn and what is simply old — three different categories that a renovation quote will happily blur together.
New construction earns no free pass. Fresh brick facades develop hairline cracking above lintels within a few years when details were rushed, and a young building's warranty period is exactly when you want that found. The licence and the scope are the same for both; the eye has to change.
Related: How Lou inspects a brownstone · What an inspection costs · Schedule an inspection.
All three photographs are from Lou's own Crown Heights inspection reports, chosen because they show a building component and nothing that identifies a property or an owner.
A flat roof hides everything from the street: membrane seams, patches, drainage and parapet condition. Patching is normal maintenance — the question a report answers is whether the membrane still has a working life. How roofs are examined and reported.
A flat roof hides everything from the street: membrane seams, patches, drainage and parapet condition. Patching is normal maintenance — the question a report answers is whether the membrane still has a working life. How roofs are examined and reported.
Water heaters have a known service life, and their installation — clearance, venting, the gas connection, the pan — matters as much as their age. All of it is checked where it sits. What the write-up looks like.
Siding, trim, masonry and parged walls are the building's raincoat, and cracks or failed mortar can give water a way in. The report documents their location and pattern so the right contractor or specialist can evaluate them when warranted. Where water gets in, explained.
All photographs are from Lou's own inspection reports for jobs in this area, screened so nothing identifies a property or an owner.
Lou covers Long Island, the five boroughs and Westchester from his base in Wantagh, and the archive behind these pages shows where that work has actually concentrated.
Also nearby: Bedford-Stuyvesant · Prospect Heights · Prospect Lefferts Gardens · all 26 towns.
His Crown Heights file goes back to 2015. Yours would not be the first.
Not sure yet? Read what New York requires of your inspector or see a real report.