This question is often asked and not once has anyone asked why…
“Do you do free inspections?”
The answer is no, for numerous reasons, which I will touch upon below.
- As a business all we do is inspections, if they were free, we’d fail.
- Businesses that perform free inspections must make up the expenses somewhere else. This is done by hiding these charges elsewhere. For me to just show up all I have is gas expense and minimal truck expense with vehicle insurance already paid. As a company I have scheduling, gas charges, vehicle expenses, personal insurance, liability insurance, testing media and lab costs. Additionally there is back-end work (which is generated in direct proportion to time spent on site) for administration, billing and other paperwork. Do you really want a company to perform work when they have already lied to you by telling you the ‘inspection’ is free? This is a sales point to get their feet in the door and close the sale.
- It is a conflict of interest to conduct any of the following in combination:
A) Environmental inspection & testing
B) Home inspection
C) Remediation
D) Laboratory analysis
- Environmental inspections is a skilled and educated field. Performing this service for free tends to indicate one is not really a qualified specialist.
- You remove the checks and balances associated with having multiple companies come out. A contractor who performs a ‘free’ inspection has no checks to ensure there is actually mold or that the proper protocol has been followed for the remediation process. ‘There was mold but we cleaned it.’ How do you know for sure if there was and work was actually required or if the scope of work was accurate? Additionally, an inspection company has to be accurate due to the fact that a remediation company will be going over the report and lab results.
- Knowing what types of mold are present can tell you about the type of water intrusion and to an extent, exposure for medical or legal issues as well as help point out the cause and solution.
- Once remediation has been performed ‘clearance testing’ is required to ensure remediation efforts were successful. If there never was mold to begin with, or not enough to warrant remediation in the first place how do you know?
- As a seller of a house, you are required to disclose any water damage or fungal growth. Having proper documentation of findings and corrections makes the process much easier.