Everything I Wanted to Hear

Today was the day: home inspection. I've kind of fallen in love with this place, so I was dreading hearing bad news about an 80-year-old house. It looks great, inside and out, but I don't have the eyes or the experience of a home inspector. I know some of what to look for, but not everything. And I certainly can't spot things that become potential problems in the winter.

I arranged for the inspection last week. I was told the inspector would arrive at 9:30, and that I was to arrive at 11 a.m. I fully expected a few terse comments, an overview of his findings, really, and then a request for a check. What I got was very different.

When I went into the house, Dale (the inspector) was downstairs. I was deftly measuring spaces in the kitchen when he hollered "hello?" up from the basement. We met halfway and he started talking about the house. At first, I wanted to get the stuff I wanted to get done done, but he kept moving from one bit of minutia to another. 

After a minute or so, he had me hooked. He was pointing out quirky things, things you don't find in new houses, things particular to this home's design, things that wouldn't be code today, but were 80 years ago. Most of these things weren't good or bad, plusses or minuses, but just small points of fascination. And then I got it.

This guy loves houses, especially old houses, and he knows what he's talking about. As we walked through the home, it was clear that there were small fixes the should be taken care of, and one or two things that absolutely needed to be done, but on the whole, it was Dale having a love affair with a house he really liked.

So I need shut-off valves for the gas fireplace and the gas range. I need to replace the smoke detectors (he suggested a linked set, since it would be impossible to hear the one in the basement from the second floor). The fan in the upstairs bathroom needs to be removed or replaced. There are two outlets upstairs that are not grounded, which means they are probably remnants of the old knob-and-tube wiring. He suggested getting an electrician out to review several items, but said the wiring seemed sound.

He spent just as much time admiring the details of the main stairs and the extensive dampering system built into the original HVAC ducting, where you can control the amount of air reaching each and every vent in the house. He pointed out the overbuilt floor joists and admired the floorboards built on the bias.  He also pointed out that the original laundry shoot from the second floor now comes out directly over the toilet in the basement bathroom.

I almost felt embarrassed to watch his love affair with architecture actualize itself in this wonderful old house. And even though we couldn't get into the garage (no keys and no garage door opener), he took me on a tour of the exterior, from the roof in need of replacement to the questionable craftsmanship of the added-on workshop section of the structure.

So I'll be awaiting the report, anticipating a to-do list that will probably stretch out a year or more. But the house itself is solid and a piece of work that Dale truly admired. And so do I. Again, I didn't take any pictures, but I wasn't so interested in that. I was having too much fun seeing my new home through the eyes or someone who's seen them all, and really liked what he saw in my place.