Had an inspector miss a leaky pipe that flooded my basement 3 days after closing

Bought a house in Portland last month, paid $450 for a home inspection. Guy spent 4 hours poking around, gave me a clean report. Three days after I moved in, I went downstairs to do laundry and stepped in an inch of water. Turns out there was a slow leak behind the drywall that had been going for months. The inspector never checked the basement ceiling panels or ran the utility sink. I ended up having to rip out a section of drywall and replace a section of copper pipe myself. Cost me about $200 in materials and a whole Saturday. Has anyone else had an inspector miss something obvious like that? What did you do about it?

2 comments

2 Comments

foster.wade3d ago

Take a step back and look at how many services we pay for that are basically just guessing games with a fancy title. Home inspectors, mechanics, even those "certified" appliance repair guys, they all operate on a "good enough" standard that protects them, not you. Nobody wants to crawl around in a damp crawlspace or pull down ceiling panels, so they don't, and we're left holding the bag when their laziness costs us time and money.

ray_webb62d ago

The real question is whether this inspector actually pulled his liability insurance and bond information before you paid him. Most states don't require home inspectors to carry either, which means you have no recourse when they miss things. You should check Oregon's licensing requirements because some places have started cracking down on this stuff. Also, that four-hour inspection seems like a red flag in itself, especially if he didn't pop any ceiling panels or run obvious fixtures like sinks.