Home Inspection Services
Portland Home Inspection Services You will receive an unbiased, visual home inspection. The home will be assessed from roof to foundation to identify safety issues and describe the current conditions on the property. This includes: Roof Gutters Chimney Siding...
Electrical Home Inspection: A Brief History & Key Takeaways
The interior electrical system is an ongoing portion of the general inspection. As the inspector moves around the interior (as well as the exterior) they are checking outlets and light fixtures throughout. It’s a simple process of using an outlet tester to check for...
Your Important Bathroom Inspection Checklist
All homes have at least one of these rooms. Many have two or more. The fixtures in these rooms are rather standard. A sink, a shower, a toilet. Some homes may have a variation on these items, but at the end of the day, the bathroom is a standard area with certain...
Downspouts and Gutter Inspection
Rain gutters are placed at the eves of a roof. The eves are the lowest point on a roof and where rainwater runoff flows gravitationally. The gutters have a simple, yet important job. This system is intended to collect roof water runoff and guide the water toward a...
Deck Inspection: What’s Important
Wood-framed decks are rather common anywhere you go. These structures provide an outdoor entertainment space that is very popular, especially here in the pacific northwest where we certainly love our exterior activities rain or shine. Unfortunately, one of our...
A Guide to Electrical Inspection Services
Electrical inspection services begin at the site of the electrical panels. The inspector should not only inspect the panel but also make observations about the location where this panel has been installed. Most of the time, there are no concerns at the location, but...
Plumbing Inspection & Types of Piping
A plumbing home inspection takes into account the water pipes in the structure as well as the waste pipe system that leaves the structure. Plumbing Inspection: Metal Pipes The main factor that determines the types of pipes in your home is the era in which your home...
The Importance of an Insulation Inspection
In modern construction, all interior surfaces that are exposed to outdoor, unconditioned air, are insulated to deter heat transfer from indoors to outdoors. These surfaces include the ceilings that border the attic, the exterior walls, the floors that are adjacent to...
Home Appliance Inspection: What’s Mandatory?
The home has a small handful of major appliances that are checked for operation. Some of these major appliances are mandatory, while others are a normal installation, but would not negatively affect your health if you did not have them installed. During a home...
The Importance of a Home Window Inspection (Including Doors!)
Through the course of a home window inspection, the interior windows and doors are operated while doing an area by area, room by room inspection of the structure. We find it to be a better use of time to test the windows and doors throughout the course of the...
Soil Grading and Surface Drainage
A soil grading and surface drainage survey or inspection is also commonly referred to as surface slope and drainage. The slope of the lot will greatly influence the surface water flow. If you live on a sloped lot, the surface water will be pulled gravitationally...
Your Guide to an Electrical Inspection
Your Guide to an Electrical Inspection The electrical service to the house consists of the main electric panel and the feeder wires coming into the house from the electric utility provider. Electrical Inspection: Visual Inspection The visual inspection considers the...
Understanding a Structural Inspection
The structural portion of the home inspection is ongoing vigilance. These observations are happening in the background during the entire duration of the physical and visual inspection of the property and structure. Reasons for a Structural Inspection Structural...
Your Guide to a Roof Inspection
A roof inspection is best done visually while atop the roof covering. Walking a roof covering is discouraged by the roof manufacturers, but the infrequent traffic of an inspection is necessary to ensure the quality of the materials and to gain an idea of the age of...
The Importance of a Heating Inspection
Here in the Pacific Northwest, an operating heating system is required for a home to be considered livable. In new construction, a heating system is on the checklist of requirements for that space to earn its COE or Certificate of Occupancy. A properly operating and...
Your AC Inspection Guide
We live in the Pacific Northwest, so cooling our homes in the warmer months has not been too large a topic until the last 10-20 years as global climate change has been occurring in noticeable intervals. A cooling system is not mandatory for homes in our climate zone,...
7 Questions To Ask A Home Inspector In Portland Before You Hire Them
Getting ready to buy a new home in the great state of Oregon? Do you need a reliable home inspector in Portland? Whether you're buying a new home, considering a purchase or have another reason for getting a home inspection, it's important to find the right person for...
Why You Need a Professional Home Inspection Before Buying
Can you attempt your own home inspection? Sure you can. In fact, if you Google home inspection tips, you'll no doubt find tons of articles listing what to look for and what to check. But the question you should be asking yourself is not whether a DIY home...
What Does a Quality Home Inspector Look For?
3 Things That Make a Quality Home Inspector Often I am asked what exactly is a quality home inspector looking for during a home inspection. I usually go down the list in bullet point fashion, but the top three things that are most important to any home buyer are...
How Much Does a Home Inspection Cost?
Determining Home Inspection Cost When I opened this business, one of the many responsibilities I had was to come to a pricing schedule for my inspection services. One of the first things I did was research how other inspectors were determining home inspection cost, as...
Roof Flashing
Roof flashing comes in multiple sizes for every different purpose. The most common of which are "drip-edge", "L", "W", "Kick-out" and "Counter". As I go through the different, more common, types of flashing you should expect on your home, remember, just because they...
Why Octopus?
[su_row class="mw"][su_column size="1/2"] People often ask me "...so why Octopus?" I named my company Octopus Home Inspections because I have always been enamored with the species. My admiration and fascination started as a child and still grabs my attention without...
Hazardous Scenarios- Water and Electrical
I was inspecting a house recently, and I came across a potential deadly combination: water and electrical. When I saw this it took a few moments for my brain to register what I was looking at. At the time I was on the search for the washing machine faucets, both hot...
Ice Buildup at Eves and Rain Gutters
Here in Portland OR, we rarely see snow that sticks. Snow usually flurries in from the easterly winds flying down the Columbia River Gorge, initiating in colder inland climates. A few years back, we had what was referred to by many as the 80 year storm, and that...
Chris Barry and Ben Gromicko @ Inspection Universe in Las Vegas
I attended the Inspection Universe home inspector conference in Las Vegas in October. I was optimistic that this would be my first chance to see what home inspection offerings there were with the intent to successfully advance my company and really diversify myself...
Upper Roof Downspout Terminations
With new construction today, it is common to have multiple levels of roofing that don't sit square on top of one another, like the days of old when a lot of homes looked as if they had been designed by a manufactured home architect, where foundation, main level and...
Enlarged Crawlspace
To the left you can see that a house that originally had a typical crawlspace when it was constructed, had been dug deeper to offer a larger area below the structure. Some of the things an inspector has to take into consideration are; Q: Have the foundation walls...
Rooftop Safety
This is a harness anchor attached near the apex of the roof. This addition makes navigating the roof much safer should the person have proper harness and repelling gear. I even inspected the fasteners (nails) to make sure they wouldn't offer a roof leak, and, as you...
V Shaped Cracks In Wall
Have you ever seen this example on the walls in your house? If you answered yes, then I would advise you to call a structural engineer. Cracks in walls may be a typical thing an a lot of homes, but when they are in a V shape (wider on one end than the other), this...
Home Had Foundation Damage
We had Octopus Home Inspections out to do an inspection for a 1941 Craftsman home we were interested in purchasing. My wife was dead set on buying this house from the first time she saw it… so all that was left was just to have it inspected for additional piece of...
Easy To Read Inspection Report
I’ve never had such a thorough report so easy to read. Chris did a great job! My husband is very skeptical of services for hire of anyone, and in fact, gave Chris a hard time with an aspect of the report he did not understand. Chris kept his professionalism and was...
Home Inspector Finds Extensive Dry Rot
My partner and I just had a home inspection by Chris at Octopus Home Inspections. Chris took his time and even crawled into a small crawlspace access he found in the floor of an old addition on the front of the house. It was so tight he had to take his watch off to...
The Top Choice For Your Portland Home Inspection
Buying A Home - Sound Investment or Big Financial Mistake? You are about to make one of the largest investments of your life by buying a home. It’s exciting and at the same time stressful. The excitement and emotion of buying a new home sometimes can cloud our...
Client Reviews
We had Octopus Home Inspections out to do an inspection for a 1941 Craftsman home we were interested in purchasing. My wife was dead set on buying this house from the first time she saw it… so all that was left was just to have it inspected for additional piece of...
View Sample Report
A sample report home inspection report can help you evaluate the services of a prospective home inspector. We are happy to share a sample report for you to review: Click To View Sample Report