With homeownership comes the responsibility of home maintenance.

   The components and working systems in a home require monitoring, maintenance, occasional repair, and/or replacement as they become antiquated, irreparable or unsafe.  Like scheduling checkups with your doctor and dentist, or oil and maintenance services for your vehicles, we recommend scheduling periodic home inspections to insure the continued comfort and safety of your home.  Home Safety and Maintenance  Inspections support the maintenance of your home’s electrical, plumbing and heating/air systems, investigate the basic structure, roof and drainage systems, and alert you to energy inefficiencies, potential problems and needed repairs.

Why not just call  a home repair contractor to take care of repairs as they come up?

    Home repair contractors do not perform whole house inspections- they are not trained to do so, and due to the dynamics of home repair procedures, they are usually called upon to repair items only after something has been discovered by the homeowner and has become a serious problem.

    From a preventive and proactive basis, a home inspection provides an overview of the whole house infrastructure and the ability to review, prioritize, and plan appropriately to maintain the physical structure and functional systems of the home.  This greater context is valuable to both the homeowner and the home repair contractor.  By taking care of needed and anticipated repairs in a timely manner, (1) the homeowner will be able avoid disruptive emergencies and more costly home repairs that result from a lack of awareness or unintentional neglect, and, (2) the contractor will be able to identify the true needs of the client, define a relevant scope of work, and schedule the appropriate time and manpower accordingly.

Geometra Home Inspections looks at the whole home, not just specific repairs, and does so proactively.

    Periodic maintenance and safety inspections will often identify areas of concern before they become serious and far more expensive to deal with.  A recent example, which we discovered during a routine home inspection, illustrates this point: 

    The home had had a new roof installed a few years ago.  While inspecting the roof and gutter system, we discovered that the gutters were clogged with leaf debris (quite common & simple to remedy) AND that the roofing contractor had failed to install roof edge flashing which protects the roof sheathing from rainwater migrating from filled gutters into the roof sheathing. Left unattended, this situation would eventually rot the sheathing and rafter tails.  The warranty on the roof had expired.  Short of a disruptive and expensive repair, the most effective solution was to simply clean the gutters on a frequent basis.

    Most likely this situation would not have been discovered until the roofing began to deteriorate and sag,    becoming visually obvious.  By that point in time the repairs would be substantial and the consequent roof repair quite disruptive and costly to the homeowner.