The Home Inspection Book: A Guide for Professionals [Paperback]

Marcia Darvin Spada (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 032456063X | ISBN-13: 978-0324560633 | Publication Date: May 17, 2007 | Edition: 2

THE HOME INSPECTION BOOK is designed to serve as a learning tool as well as a reference guide. This professional guide is a comprehensive yet self-paced handbook covering both the practice and the business of home inspection addressing all the key areas associated with the business of home inspection in this rapidly growing profession. In addition, this handbook also takes you step-by-step through the entire process of home inspection following the most current guidelines established by the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI), the National Association of Home Inspectors (NAHI) and the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors (NACHI).

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: South-Western Educational Pub; 2 edition (May 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 032456063X
• ISBN-13: 978-0324560633
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Incredible Deal! This is Beyond Your Money worth..., March 13, 2008

By 

J. Armengod - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Home Inspection Book: A Guide for Professionals (Paperback)

Before I start my review, here is a bit of background and introduction so that readers may or may not relate.
I've been working in the real estate industry for over 8 years and now starting a Home Inspection Service company.

Being quite familiar with the administrative and financial side of creating your own business and having a fairly educated idea about the home inspection industry, my next step was to get proper training on performing Home Inspections and the components of a property.

So I spent days and days browsing and evaluating dozen of web sites offering all kind of Home Inspection training, ranging from $275 to over $4,000! (I settled with AHIT but that's another story)
And also started to check dozen of books on How to become a Home Inspector.

Among other things, I went to my local Barnes and Noble and stumbled upon this book...

To make a long story short, this is probably the BEST (mark my words) investment you WILL EVER make as far as being introduced to the Home Inspection process is concerned.

This book tells you everything about home components with dozens of detailled architectural type of drawings and illustrations; it shows you how to properly conduct a home inspection, starting from the exterior, going through all of the interiors and finishing with all the optional enviromental testings a Home Inspector could perform... and much more...

It's divided in chapters for each systems inside the house (roof, electrical, plumbing, etc.. etc.. each with dozen illustrations) it gives you relevants key words and each chapter ends with a small multi-choice type of exam.

The books itself ends with a study workbook, going through all the chapters, reviewing all relevants key terms, exam type true-false questions, How would you respond situations and other practical questions.

And finally it ends with a Final 50 questions Exam with multi-choice answers that puts you in a real life examination condition, a very nice preparation for states exams.

AND ALL THAT.. FOR...$25?!?

It's an unbelievable deal, trust me! If you plan on becoming a Home Inspector, do yourself a favor and get this book!

All in all it takes aprox. less than 3 weeks (reading and taking notes at a reasonnable pace, and also attending a full time job) to go through it and then you would have MORE THAN basic knowlegde on how to become a home inspector and how to perform a home inspection.

I would however strongly suggest that after you read it and feel comfortable with the key terms, learning objectives and final exams that you enroll into a more hands-on type of training so that you see in real life what it takes to become a Home Inspector and have real examples of the type of homes and components that you will encounter in the field, as this book with its 396 pages can't possibly cover all the details and it only scratches the surfaces of the multiples components inside a house.

As for the next step, I'd suggest you get your hands on more in-depth and detailled courses about home systems to truelly complete your training.


Good Luck future Home Inspectors!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diagrams and Pictures Galore, March 24, 2008

By 

E. Soden (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Home Inspection Book: A Guide for Professionals (Paperback)

This book is great.

The book is very well written and uses diagrams/pictures to drive the points home. Sadly there are other home inspection books out there with very few pictures and illustrations. This book however not only tells you what to look for it shows you...and after all a picture is worth 1,000 words.

If you are buying or selling real estate this book will help you understand how an inspector will inspect the house.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reference, August 27, 2010

By 

A Reader (NY,NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Home Inspection Book: A Guide for Professionals (Paperback)

If you plan to take either an on-line or in classroom home inspection course, this is an excellent tutorial and reference; comes with quizzes after each chapter and a workbook at the end.