Nature has a knack for throwing a monkey wrench into the best-laid plans. With a home inspection, bad weather can make the job more challenging and defects more difficult to spot.
More often than not, home inspectors don’t cancel appointments just because Mother Nature is a bit cranky. As House Exam Inspection and Consulting explain, customers “deserve to know” the inspector’s best opinion, even when the weather won’t cooperate.
When there’s no getting around the rain, snow or heat, how to stay safe and deliver a thorough report.
It’s a hazard, but rain can also reveal hidden defects.
#1: Rain Makes Almost Everything Precarious
If there’s a shower or a deluge, you might walk through puddles to reach the house and face a sketchy situation with scaling the roof. Rain creates hazards as well as a mess of the outdoors. If the sky opens up when you arrive or before you’re finished, here’s the best plan of action.
First things first: stay safe. The roof might be a dangerous place when it’s pouring outside. However, if you use a waterproof drone, the roof inspection can go off without a hitch.
Secondly, use rainy weather to your advantage. Water makes certain defects prominent when they would otherwise be difficult or impossible to find. If the weather up to the inspection has been dry, you might never spot a basement leak without a downpour. The same goes for a new roof leak, poorly sealed windows and doors with an improper threshold that lets in water.
#2: Extreme Heat Requires Extreme Caution
Certain weather conditions should never be toyed with. Formidable heat is one of them. For example, if the roof is metal and it’s 110 degrees, scaling it could put you at risk of melted shoe soles, burned fingers, and even heat exhaustion. This is another time when drones make a lot of roof inspection sense.
Heat can also threaten an attic inspection, as even with excellent ventilation, they’re still hot during the warmest months of summer.
Layered clothing helps you control your temperature. Sunscreen and a good hat protect against intense sun rays. A chilled neck wrap, such as the kind marketed for landscaping work, makes hot weather more bearable. And don’t forget insect protection. Elite InspectInsure reminds that hot weather is wasp weather, so stay alert.
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You wouldn’t have nearly as much fun as an accountant.
#3: Cold Weather Chills the Heartiest Home Inspector’s Courage
When winter comes around, at least in certain parts of the country, home inspections take on a whole new set of issues. As with other weather extremes, ice and snow can make roofs inaccessible. ASHI Reporter suggests that winter is another great season to use a drone. Either way, explain in the home inspection report if, when and why you can’t scale a rooftop.
As in hot weather, layers are a healthier way to regulate body temperature. Instead of a couple of bulky layers, several light layers let you add or remove what you need to stay warm without overheating.
As for the home, winter is actually an ally. The same biting winds that chill your bones also expose air leaks, poor insulation, faulty HVAC systems and other issues that can go unnoticed during milder seasons.
Weather can be friend or foe to the home inspector. Rain, snow and summer’s intense heat make home inspecting interesting, but a little bad weather hardly ever keeps a good inspector down. Just like the old saying insists, the show must go on.
A great home inspection reporting app lets you focus on risk mitigation instead of fumbling with awkward technology. If you’re ready to make the upgrade to an intuitive reporting system that lets you work on the fly, download our home inspection app for Android or find us at the Apple App Store.