Rot, failed framing, ruined insulation, corroded electrical, a foundation that moved. Follow almost any costly finding backwards and there is water at the start of it, usually arriving somewhere nobody looked for years.
This is core inspection work. Water intrusion, staining, rot and the drainage behind them are exactly what a New York home inspection covers, and Lou brings a moisture meter and a thermal camera to it. Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Westchester. The estimate costs nothing. Call 516-330-3870.
A tidemark on a cellar wall from a storm surge years ago. A ceiling ring under a bathroom that was repiped. These get photographed, described and put in the report as history.
They still matter, because they tell you what this house does under pressure. They are not usually a reason to walk.
The same stain, but the meter reads high and the thermal camera shows a cold plume spreading beyond the visible mark. Something is still feeding it.
This is the one that changes a purchase. It is also the one you cannot tell apart from the first by looking, which is the entire reason instruments come out.
On a Long Island slab house the story is usually grade, gutters and bathrooms. On a pre-war house or a Brooklyn brownstone it is more often the roof, the party wall and a cellar that was never meant to be dry. Levitt-era houses and brownstones fail in completely different places.
New York does not require a home inspector to carry a moisture meter or a thermal camera. Lou carries both, because the difference between a stain that is finished and a stain that is active is not something the eye can settle, and that difference is worth more to you than anything else in the report.
Neither instrument sees through walls. A thermal camera shows temperature at the surface, and a wet wall is usually a cold wall. It tells him where to put the meter, and the meter tells him whether to be worried.
New York draws this line, not Lou. The statute that defines a home inspection ends with the sentence “a home inspection shall not include an inspection for radon or pests”, and the standards of practice say an inspector is not required to determine the presence or absence of mold, wood destroying organisms or lead paint.
So what he gives you is the water and the conditions around it: where it is, whether it is active, what is feeding it and what it has already damaged. If you want mold itself assessed and sampled, that is a separately licensed job in New York and it belongs to a licensed mold assessor. Lou will tell you when he thinks you need one.
He takes nothing for that introduction. New York forbids a home inspector being paid for a referral made in connection with an inspection, and that rule is worth knowing about before you hire anybody, because not everyone follows it.
Radon is the other thing excluded by that sentence. It is arranged separately, and the State publishes county by county results that are worth a look before you decide whether you need one.
Yes, and it is a large part of the job. Intrusion, staining, rot and the drainage causing them are core scope. Lou uses a moisture meter and a thermal camera alongside the visual inspection.
No. New York excludes it, and the standards say an inspector is not required to determine whether mold is present. Lou reports the water and the damp. Mold assessment is separately licensed, and he takes no fee for pointing you to someone.
It turns on whether the source is still active. Old staining from a fixed leak is a note. An actively wet foundation wall is a negotiation, sometimes a five-figure one.
Tell Lou what you are seeing and where. He will tell you what it probably is before you book anything, and he will say so if he thinks you do not need him.
Or read how an inspection estimate is put together or see a real report.