marketplace, THE DAY, July 11, 2004
by RICHARD NORMAN MARKETPLACE STAFF WRITER

   The home inspector is a man of mystery. He pokes around in basements, shining his flashlight in dark places and rapping on walls. What exactly is he doing?
   He's trying to educate people, working from the rational that it's better to know about problems now than later.
   "For most people, buying a house is the biggest investment they'll ever make," says Tom Morgan, owner of Sound Home Inspections in New London. "This is big stuff."
   He bends to his work. He begins to circle the house, looking and tapping. He always begins a home inspection on the outside.
   "We look around, to get a sense of the neighborhood," he says."We look at the water table, at the topography."
   This could be an indication whether there might be flooding or water seepage in the basement, later; when we get there.
   We see already that Morgan will get a workout today. He's kneeling, crawling around. He peers under the porch, tapping with the ever-present rod he carries with him, as a general might carry a baton.
   "Got some dry rot in here," he says, indicating the wood frame of the house where it meets the stone foundation. "The house hasn't been properly flashed, so the water comes cascading down from the roof. The gutters aren't functioning. It affects the integrity of the whole house."
   On the back porch, he finds a wobbly rail and missing balustrades.
   "Somebody could fall here," he points out. "That's a serious liability issue."
   He finds power lines on the outside of the house that are frayed. Water coiuld get inside the fraying insulation and flow down into the meter, shorting the system out.
   Morgan, certified by the American Society of Home Inspectors and a former builder, will point out problems and also offer a range of costs of correcting

         call him        Sherlock

the problem. The problems with the electrical system, he tells us, will cost $800 to $1,200 to repair. That information is valuable to both the buyer and seller of a house because it tells them that the cost isn't so high as to become a deal-breaker. It is something they can handle through negotiation, and the deal can go forward.
   "I provide information and help to make the deal happen," says Morgan.
   One of the first things we encounter in the basement is an old boiler coated in a substance that looks a lot like asbestos. The presence of asbestos "would kick up the negotiations to a new level." The seller would have to bring in an asbestos abatement contractor.
   He finds another serious problem - a leaky valve on the boiler, a puddle on the floor. He continues to work his way around the room, tapping and scraping, peering everywhere; "We're like GSs - general practitioners," he says, involved with every part of a house.
   Morgan's compan
(see www.soundhome
inspections.com) provides one-stop shopping for homeowners. The firm can test for radon and asbestos, take water samples, check for termites and inspect septic tanks. A full-scale home inspection takes Morgan two and a half to three hours and usually costs about $300 (maybe a bit more for an old house or a house with special difficulties, such as crawl spaces). Eighty percent of Morgan's clients are buyers, interested in protecting their investment. Some are sellers, who want to discover problems in their house and correct them before selling. He also does some supervision of new construction.
   "The breadth of this business has expanded over the last 20 years," adds Morgan.
   Meanwhile, he has discovered a grounding problem in an electrical box. He has found corrosion on a water pipe. Next thing we know, he's tap-tapping on some beamrs.
   "There are four types of wood-destroying insects," he tells us, "Termites, carpenter ants, carpenter bees and powder post beetles." They need moisture,s o they stay low in a house, often coming

a good house
inspector can
save you money
and trouble
'Homes'

in from the soil outside. They will ream out a thick beam like the ones he is examining, often leaving only a veneer the thickness of a couple of sheets of paper.   Winding up his examination of the basement, Morgan will move on to the upper floors. He will look at how tightly the windows and doors close. He will look for loose toilets; he will check the waste drainage pipes. He will go into the attic every time, to look for a leaky chimney or other problems. He will go up on the roof.
   "Thirty percent of all insurance claims filed are roof-related issues," he says.
   He wants to give the homeowner the results of his inspection on the spot. He can input his findings into a laptop computer and print out a 15-page report.
   "The report has a one-page summary," adds Mike Russo of Elizabeth Athan Real Estate in New London, who has accompanied us. "We look at that summary and recommend that the owner get the problems repaired."
   Russo watches Morgan brush himself off after poling into the dark, dusty places in the house.
   "I never saw this guy when he didn't have cobwebs in his hair," laughs Russo.
   "If I'm not dirty," rejoins Morgan, "then I'm not making any money."
   The important thing to remember is that Morgan's search for problems in a house is for the good of everyone involved. Morgan's smartest clients are the ones who encourage him to be the most thorough. And it's rare that an inspection results in the collapse of a house sale - although it does sometimes happen. When it does, it can be a big disappointment to the person who was going to buy the place. As Morgan is well aware, home buying is an emotional process, especially for the buyer. However, it's better to learn about problems beforehand, rather than moving into your new house and, as Morgan says, having the boiler blow up and the roof fall in.
   In the words of one of Morgan's clients, "It's better to deal with a broken heart than a broken pocketbook."