Bob came very highly recommended to me through my Realtor and was touted as the most thorough in the business. Indeed, he was very pleasant and detailed when I met him at my house right after he'd done the inspection and he walked me through what he checked and what he discovered. Fast forward two months later when I actually started moving into the house. To my shock, I found that 5 out of the 6 power outlets in the living room were dead (discovered when I tried to plug in a lamp) and found that 3 out of 7 in the kitchen were dead. My father in law, a retired electrician, was visiting the week for Thanksgiving so we took one of his testers through every outlet in the house, which took less than 10 minutes, and photographed the results. I contacted Bob to have him come back to the house and discuss with us, since other things were also uncovered during my final walkthrough and right after I took possession of the house. I personally did not notice them earlier because he did not point them out, but they included a warped screen door on the back porch, two window panes in the living room that do not remain shut all the way and cause air to leak in underneath, and a misalignment of the front deadbolt and doorknob on the front door that made it nearly impossible to lock the deadbolt from the outside. I didn't catch the deadbolt issue until after closing when I had my keys in hand. The home seller was kind enough to fix it for me a few days after closing, but even they were surprised that this wasn't noted in the home inspection.
Bob offered to meet us between 1 and 2 yesterday to discuss the oversights, and my FIL and I arrived at the home around 1:05. We waited and waited on Bob who did not respond to texts or calls during the time window to let us know his whereabouts. We eventually opened the front door so we could go to the crawlspace and continue inspecting the electric ourselves, and when we opened the front door, Bob's business card fell out. (We had originally entered the home from the garage, not through the front door, which is why we didn't see it earlier.) So, he had stopped by, but when? After the time window expired and we were leaving, he returned my call and let us know that he got there right at 1, saw we weren't there, and left. No call or text. Said he left because he just didn't have time to wait. Well, I had to take an hour and a half out of my work day to meet him as well, and given a time window of 1 to 2, it's just not my experience that any service professional arrives on the dot at the beginning of a window and just turns around and leaves with no notice. If his actual window was between 1 and 1:05, that would have been different. Yes, we should have left a little earlier, knowing how traffic is, but since I was driving I was unable to call or text him for the heads up. Regardless, I feel that he had no serious intention of meeting us. On the same call, after we left, Bob advised that the outlets that he tested worked when he was there, but had no explanation for why they would have just stopped working between then and now. This very well could be true, as it's really just my word against his at this point. However, in previous texts and on the call, he admitted that he only tested a "representative sample" of the outlets, i.e. not all of them. As the house was still vacant at the time, all of the outlets were readily accessible, so why an extra 5 - 10 minutes weren't spent testing them all, I do not know. Maybe he was just too busy? It's not a very large house, and this seems like a strange corner to cut, but after a readthrough of the ASHI code of ethics, which says inspectors only have to test a "representative sample," he technically didn't do anything wrong. So, again, I have no real leg to stand on. But, I'm writing this review because he did not offer to return a second time to speak with us in person and I was extremely frustrated that he did not contact me the first time to tell me he turned around and left.
I will say that it was kind of him to offer to meet us and actually make some attempt, since he technically didn't have to, as Georgia has no regulatory board or laws regarding home inspectors and it's my word against his. I was hesitant to write this review, since it's never my intention to besmirch someone's reputation, but if you hire him (or really any inspector in the state of Georgia), make sure you either insist that he check every outlet in the house, or bring your own outlet tester, just to make extra sure that nothing was missed, since inspectors are not required to test all outlets, and apparently do not do so even if they have a reputation for extreme thoroughness. The state of Georgia really should provide a legal definition for "representative sample" but, since they do not, inspectors can just test one outlet per room if they want to (though Bob said that he tested "most" of them), leaving us consumers with no recourse if we later find issues. read more
