As winter is fast approaching our extreme weather conditions around the country are about to change and home inspectors will have to endure these sometimes extreme weather conditions that I personally would not perform.
As a southern California home inspector I was dreading the rainy conditions while performing a home inspection yesterday, but at the same time gave me the upmost respect for home inspectors that endure extreme weather conditions to perform a home inspection.
What extreme weather conditions have you endured to perform a home inspection?
Rainy days are the best days to do home inspections, at least from the standpoint of finding leaks.
Here in Ohio I endure temps from 0F to 100F with all kinds of weather extremes, fortunately for me weather extremes aren’t the norm here. As an inspector the best thing one can do is to stay in shape and dress appropriately.
I lived in So Cal for nearly 10 years, the only time I really miss the So Cal weather is during January & February, when we get most of our frigid temps here.
-20°F 30 plus winds per hour and 3 feet of snow .
I do not walk the roof with Snow on it do sweep a small section to see condition .
Write hard take pictures .
Do not like inspecting in Heavy Rain .
The worst conditions I have to deal with are these:
Summer, 4pm in crawlspace, bad t-storm comes, rains a few inches on soft soil around a brand new house, have to come out of crawlspace sometime, feet almost get stuck in deep mud with every step.
Winter mornings at predrywall inspections, spend 2-3 hours in below freezing temps with no where to warm up except getting back in the car a few times to warm up.
Hot days in vacant houses with broken A/C is not fun either.
We don’t have the winter road maintenance like you guy’s up north so its tough getting to some appointments. The worse days are when the roads are dry in places and solid ice in the shady areas. Ask any tow truck driver who they have to pull out of ditches the most and you will find that its not the people from here. Luckily, its only a few days a year that the roads are bad.
I know those
take the 90 + degree day with 100 % humidity and working next to a Reactor operating at 1800 Degrees F
Again
Home Inspection any day is better than the alternative…
Hi humidity and mid-90’s with afternoon t-storms in Port St. Lucie, SE FL make for a great time esp. when it is a bank-owned p.o.s. and the a/c system won’t work and the place has been closed up for months or years and looks like The Munster’s house inside and out with every possible type of ant, roach, spider, etc. all over the walls and ceilings. These are the houses where we use bolt cutters to get rid of the padlocks on the garage OHD rails so we can try to get some air flow up into the attic b4 putting on oxygen rig to go up.
The upside to this? Don’t have to clean your shoes going in and out.
This summer was simply too hot in Houston add on top of that the humidity… I inspected a house on 105 F day. When I poked my head through the attic scudle hole and had the air instantly sucked out of my lungs. There was no ventilation at all. The last time that happened to me was when I walked into a sauna heated 100 C in Finland. The AC unit was broken making for a very hot and sweaty 4 hours inspection.
