Structural Inspection for house 9

This sounds like a bad idea to me. You will never make the seller and a buyer BOTH happy. That could mean trouble for you. If your report is too "comprehensive," the house may not sell and the seller will not be happy with you. If not comprehensive enough, the buyer may come back at you when un-documented, alleged "problems" are discovered after the sale. Let potential buyers get their own inspection report. Then, if anything bad is alleged, the seller can hire you to refute the buyer's inspection report.

See thread507-498336

So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

The intent should not be to make the seller or buyer happy based on the contents of the report. Now, they may be unhappy with your findings, but that should not dissuade you from providing honest, unbiased observations and documenting them. As for advice, avoid using absolute terms like "best", "worst", "only", etc. You may also want to state that your findings are based on visual observation (unless you use some sort of equipment to take readings), and that the conditions were those observed on the day of your visit (in case the conditions have changed since your visit)

PEinc said:

You will never make the seller and a buyer BOTH happy.

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That may be correct. But is it not appropriate just to report the results of the inspection and provide opinion on whether the cracks seem structural or non structural? If the floors and ceilings are level, the exterior of the house is in level with interior etc, that would mean the soil/foundation is fine and no settlement. The house is old enough that framing settlement or movement has probably happened already. These cracks could be because of seasonal moisture variation in the soil and not too much of structural concern? If I keep the report very limited in scope, just to the cracks for example and not have a blanket opinion on the entire structure of the building, wouldn't that limit any issues of contentious nature? I have to find what kind of language to use and if there is any guidance in that respect.

MotorCity said:

As for advice, avoid using absolute terms like "best", "worst", "only", etc.

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I totaly agree on the visual observation and specific time/day language, but I am not sure if I understand what you are getting at, by above. Any example?
I also have to figure out what kind of cracks are considered structural. I have seen cracks in drywall in my decades of practice (my house has some), but I have not seen any that I thought were caused by Structural issues.....

HD10 said:

I have seen cracks in drywall in my decades of practice (my house has some), but I have not seen any that I thought were caused by Structural issues.....

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HD10 said:

I would like to get thoughts on the issues that could come up during a house inspection project for interior drywall cracks...My projects typically consist of the design for new or alteration of existing structures. This project would be a new type for me and I will highly appreciate getting any tips, feedback.

I can go around the house checking if there is any settlement of soil compared to adjacent one. I can also check the doors and windows fit-up, do the corners inspection, check the exterior as well as other interior walls for cracks or other damage as well as check the exposed parts of the foundation to determine if there has been foundation settlement or something. I am wondering what other things to inspect.......is it a must to go under the crawl space or in the attic etc? And what other causes could be a reason for drywall cracks, if there is no foundation settlement?

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Sorry, I have to question your qualifications to carry out such an inspection unsupervised. Finding the right wording or formatting for a report is one thing, or even wondering about a certain crack, but to not know what to look for or where to look for it? And to not be able to identify if you did see it? There should be an engineer with experience in this looking over your shoulder and directing you - and then sealing the report him/herself.

phamENG said:

And to not be able to identify if you did see it?

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I agree it may have come out wrong. I believe I can recognize cracks from structural issues as I see those. I have "mostly" seen those that are non structural in nature. I shouldn't have implied "never" seeing those because I have, and those were gapping ones. The musing about where and what to look, was kind of thinking out loud, in which I think I actually did cover the things that would need to be looked at. Plus I was trying too to see if I missed anything because yes, this would be my first time for such inspection if I do it.
In this thread, the report language was more of what I was hoping to get some tips on.
Anyway, thanks for your comment to point out my that musing was misunderstood.

This is one of those cases where the owner really should stay out of the investigation. Caveat Emptor. Once they have such a report they must disclose the report in the future. If you write up a list of problems it will cause endless problems. It is best to stay out of it and let the purchasers to whatever investigations they want.

Writing an inspection report for a few hundred dollars doesn't seem worth the risk of potential problems. Let the buyer get the inspection report.

PEinc said:

doesn't seem worth the risk of potential problems

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I appreciate your hint. But can you elaborate on the potential problems? The way I see it, if I make the inspection, I will keep project scope narrow to the cracks in the interior walls and elements immediately adjacent. If these are small cracks isolated in one or two walls, they are less likely to have structural significance. Bigger or longer cracks could have structural origins. I will look at the curb/foundation in that area for any cracks, movement. I will also look around the exterior perimeter for signs of settlement. If there are no movements, foundation cracks, and the cracks are smaller, I can probably report those to be non structural in nature. On the other hand, if I see larger and longer cracks, any movements in foundations, any cracks there, I may report those to have structural origin. That would be it. If needed, any repair or further design will need to be addressed separately.

They will provide the report to the prospective buyers. The report will indicate that the opinion was based exclusively on the visual condition observed on the day of visit. If somethings were to change later, obviously those could not have been foreseen.

Am I wrong in this approach? What kind of problems could arise and what am I missing?

Project 001 for my firm was doing exactly this. Fortunately it worked out well. The buyer had chosen to get a home inspection report before listing - honest people who didn't want their life-long home where they started and raised their family to be a burden on somebody else - and they found structural concerns. So they followed it through and had me look at them. I designed the necessary repairs, they were completed, and then the house was listed. I was able to limit my scope exclusively to the items identified in the comprehensive home inspection report. I made sure there was zero wiggle room in interpretation - per inspection report X I looked at a, b, and c - nothing else. But looking back, even that was risky.

Here's the thing - especially with cracks - everyone has an opinion. Everyone. And they're not always the same. And I can guarantee you that somewhere near you is a license engineer who will be more than willing to take a fee half of what you're charging to say that they are structural and the seller needs to fix them. So now what? The owner has a report from you saying it's okay, so they didn't fix it ahead of time, and the buyer with a contract has an engineer saying it has to be fixed or they're backing out. The market is cooling off in a lot of places, and some places are loosing value. If they lose this buyer, and the next one offers $20k less, who is responsible for that $20k loss? Many people might blame you - you failed to recognize it as a structural crack (they have the other engineer's report to "prove" it!). If you had, they would paid $3k to have it fixed and would have made an additional $17k on their house. But you didn't, so pay up.

That suit may not have much in the way of merit, but that doesn't matter. Maybe it does, and a lawyer takes it. Maybe it doesn't, but they find a hungry lawyer that just wants a few billable hours. Maybe it doesn't, they don't find a lawyer, and they file the paperwork themselves (not that hard, actually; following through on the litigation might be, but filing the suit and wrecking your month - and checking account as you try to defend yourself, even for an initial hearing to get it tossed out - is easy).

Sort of a doomsday scenario, sure, but these are the sorts of risks you deal with getting into that kind of a situation. Flip side, doing it for the buyer, if you misdiagnose the crack and it gets bigger...remember you're having to make a snap decision about a process that can literally take decades to play out...you could be buying them a new foundation.

HD10, see phamENG's response.

phamENG, point well taken.

This is some of the riskiest engineering work you can find and it pays crap. We used to do this eons ago. At that time we did not have home inspectors running around so our boss at the time felt we should provide the service. Both the owners and purchasers are clueless and think you can see thru a wall. Now I can only imagine how much worse it is with all the TV shows filling peoples brains with nonsense. Poorly informed clients that are underfunded is an engineers worst nightmare. I have never understood how people are willing to shell out a few hundred to have someone look at a used car before a purchase yet those same people think it is ridiculous to spend more than $500 for a large home purchase.

Good luck defining that scope like you mention. Did you walk by something on your path to the area of interest? Ought you have noticed something? Lawyers have the luxury of looking at things in a very different light from those before a problem occurs. Maybe the exclusions hold up, but you still get to wade thru the litigation process. If the dollars are small enough it is just small claims, but it is still a nuisance.

I agree with a lot of the above: this work sucks (for a lack of a better word) and generally has a ceiling of $500-$600. It's very hard to convince people to pay more than that AND meet their expectations of what they get in value (a sealed report?).

I also observe that a lot of us (engineers that have hung their own shingle at some point) have taken on this work because it is...there.

So, like giving a teenager life advice, do with that information what you will. If you do choose to write the report here are some good things to include:
1. Only structure that was exposed or accessible to observe was reviewed.
2. Spell out the exact scope of the review: list the areas you looked at and comment on. Any areas outside of the review, were not reviewed for conformance. Don't try to look at the whole house!
3. I wouldn't provide recommendations for repair, let someone else do that. Recommend that the repair have a structural engineer, etc. retained to provide drawings and construction support.

I agree that it's a bit backwards to have the seller get a structural engineer involved. My preferred sequence is home inspector --> client reviews report --> report suggests further consult with engineer --> engineer looks at really discrete parts of the structure (ie. a crack in a beam, cracks around drywall, etc.).

Like others, I steer away from this work currently and probably for the forseeable future.

Thanks all guys. All these warnings, tips have been very helpful understanding the risks involved as well as how to manage those if I take this job.

skeletron said:

I agree with a lot of the above: this work sucks (for a lack of a better word) and generally has a ceiling of $500-$600. It's very hard to convince people to pay more than that AND meet their expectations of what they get in value

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A few weeks ago I had a client call me and ask me to review an existing commercial structure before he bought it. The existing structure was previously used as a furniture store/gallery. The client was looking into turn it into a storage facility. He wanted me to evaluate the capacity of the floor.

I informed the client that was an enormous task, but I would be willing to run some quick numbers based upon field observations made during a set time limit (I set the limit at two hours). I gave the client a proposal of $900..... and never heard back from him. The $900 bill must have been too much money for him considering he was thinking about spending $2M on the property.

SteelPE said:

run some quick numbers based upon field observations made during a set time limit (I set the limit at two hours). I gave the client a proposal of $900

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It is probably better to firm with the proper service fee and let them go away if they don't like. That is the only way clients will really realize what it takes for engineering.

On the other hand, wasn't that a very risky proposal? For $900 it will be less than half a day's worth of calcs and report writing after you take out 3-4 hours for travel and commute. That is not enough to have a good idea of the gravity capacity of the structure.

3-4 hours for travel? Yikes. I thought I lived on the edge of what's practical for this kind of work. How far from your usual projects do you live, HD10?