My husband and I recently purchased a home which has a handicap accessible shower which we have discovered is poorly designed. The floors are not sloped so the water runs everywhere, including down our walls to the bedroom below. On our inspection report the inspector marked N.I for not inspected. When my husband spoke to him on the phone he said all was good. No problems with the house, so we moved forward. My question is this. If in the standards of practice it specifically states that proper drainage of all tubs and showers will be check how can an inspector get away with simply checking N.I? I did notice in the pics that there was a shower chair with some towels placed over the drain. Surely any reasonable inspector would not consider this inaccessible.
There is no standard of practice that talks about drainage period what are you referring to?
Not all home inspectors can do a ADA inspections.
You should have made it clear when you schedule the inspection.
Residential standards of practice. #3. - 3.6. #1 F. The inspector shall check all sinks, tubs and showers for functional drainage. Being that the water goes nowhere near the drain I think it’s safe to say it is not functional. I certainly hope anyone that is certified knows the standards of practice!
I did not notice that Christopher beat me to the punch, but…
That’s the wonderful thing about checklist inspections, insufficient information!
If a component that is required to be inspected is not inspected (N.I.) most home inspection standards require that why it was not inspected must be included in the inspection report otherwise their responsible to inspect it.
Inspector is not required to remove personal property. If they write it up appropriately in the inspection report, they may not be required to move that property. However, seeing as they apparently did not explain why it was not inspected we cannot assume that. There may be more to this than meets the eye. And it’s the inspectors responsibility to address this.
Inspector may not be qualified to inspect ADA, but just like a septic system that is underground and not a responsibility, when it breaks out all over the yard (like the shower is to the house) it is obviously not functioning as intended.
At the conclusion of the home inspection, a home inspector shall submit a written report, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and shall:
C) Disclosure of any systems or components designated for inspection that were present at the time of the home inspection but were not inspected with a reason why they were not inspected.
On the surface, it would appear that your inspection, the inspection report or both may be deficient.
You would need to check to see if you are in a state which licenses home inspectors, whether your state has its own Standards Of Practice for home inspections and how the state standard addresses the relevant issue of scope and requirements for reporting reasons that systems or components were not inspected. A state SOP will supersede the interNACHI SOP.
We are in VA. The inspector actually has the link for NACHI standards on his website. Also, there is some brief statement in the report that the inspector is not required to move personal belongings in order to perform inspection, however he does not specifically state this as the reason for not inspecting the shower.