Rick is the owner of Highland Home Inspections Inc. He and each member of his staff inspect between ten to twelve houses every week, looking at everything from foundations and roofs to dishwashers and ovens. After graduating from college, Rick served in the US Navy as an Electrical Officer aboard a nuclear submarine and then went on to work for thirteen years at the world renowned Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. It wasn’t until he bought an old farmhouse that he fell in love with construction and home inspection. Rick eventually started Highland Home Inspections Inc and has been one of the most respected names in home inspection for the past 23 years!
Transcript
>> So my name is Rick Belliveau and I am the owner of Highland Home Inspections. I have been inspecting houses since 1989. This control joint, it looks like a big crack but it's just an intentional big large gap between the two -- well, any home inspector will look at pretty much the same things. You want to evaluate the structure of the house, the roof, the exterior, the major systems including the plumbing, the electrical, heating and cooling. And then we operate all the -- everything that can be operated, we operate. All the kitchen appliances, all the bathroom fixtures, we run all that, any ancillary things. And then we finish it up by giving a verbal report and then we provide a written report. So what happens after we write the report, the buyer will sit down with their agent and they will produce what's called an addendum which is usually a subset of what we find and the most important things to that buyer. And they'll go back to the seller and try to negotiate those repairs or get cash for that instead. So it becomes a negotiation tool which is sometime fairly grueling depending on the condition of the house and the issues. For example, if the roof needs to be replaced, that is a strong recommendation for us. We don't recommend just watching it; we recommend repairing it. If a furnace is not working, obviously that needs to be replaced. There are -- we categorize issues like that as major concerns that should be addressed by somebody, buyer or seller. You know, the buyer can accept the house with a bad roof but they should replace it. And that's your main water supply. And the water comes in through that. And this yellow handle here, that's where you can shut down the whole house. It's a 50 gallon -- right here is where you can adjust the temperature. Well, we can -- we typically do two inspections per day per person. We work 5 days a week, Monday through Friday. Some of us work on Saturdays too. So we can do 10 to 12 inspections a week. Since I own the company I do about half time -- half in the office, half out in the field. But typically we spend about 2 1/2 to 3 hours on a house, and then it takes about an hour to write the report. So it's about 4 hours, 4 1/2, including travel to get to and from the house and write the report. So it's a full day for two inspections. So very good. No monkey business inside. No complaints.
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