Complete Book Of Home Inspection [Paperback]

Norman Becker (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Book Company (1980)
• ASIN: B002FQXD92
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars okay but not fantastic, January 5, 2002

By 

Justus Pendleton (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete Book of Home Inspection (Paperback)

Despite the flaws in this book I haven't seen a better book for home buyers and owners. (Although it might not be obvious that is who this book is targetted at, not professional inspectors.) So if you are in the market for a house I would recommend you at least browse through this book.

The good parts are that the author lays out a methodical approach to inspecting a house and usually includes good descriptions of how to investigate and evaluate the various components and systems of the house. The end of most chapters contains a checkpoint summary of that chapter.

The downsides are that the information in the book is almost a decade old now; this second version was published in 1993. Sometimes the author assumes knowledge that I didn't have. The book is targetted at a lay audience but doesn't really have enough illustrations and definitions and examples to really deliver on this promise. For instance, when inspecting a hot-water heating system he says, "A forced system will have a circulating pump in the return line near the boiler." It would be nice a picture was shown to illustrate the difference between having a circulating pump and not having one.

Also, the author gets something wrong in at least one place. When talking about tankless water heaters he says, "From an energy-conservation point of view, a tankless water heater is not desirable. It is inefficient and wasteful of energy." This is untrue today and I doubt whether it was true when the book was written. The US Department of Energy in their reference brief on tankless heaters acknowledges that tankless heaters are more efficient and less wasteful of energy; that is part of the reason they are used in Europe and Japan where energy prices are higher than here in America. They also tend to have longer life expectancies than conventional tank heaters.

I find the author's statements strange because they make little sense. It also makes me a little worried because now I wonder what else he got wrong that I don't know about. Despite this, I still think the book is very useful to potential home buyers.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superbly written and an informative companion., December 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Complete Book of Home Inspection (Paperback)

This book covers all the major components of home inspection. It is not so obvious by its content that it is intended primarily for the home buyer. I definitely recommend it to home inspectors as it is as good a reference as any of the books written for home inspectors. There are a lot of first-hand cases experienced by the author in lower New York that will give helpful inspection clues to buyers/inspectors. Unfortunately I do not consider the book the "bible" of home inspection. I have not yet come across such a book.. when I do I'll be sure to let you know (in its own review).

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very thorough and readable, May 2, 2000

By 

Doug L (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Book of Home Inspection (Paperback)

I found this book to be very readable even to a home repair novice like me. It contains a lot of information about what to look for when buying a house, and additional information about how houses are constructed which should be useful when maintaining one. I read 3 such books and this is by far the best.