It's been about two months since my inspection, I have since bought the house and began making repairs. Unfortunately, I have to say that I am quite disappointed with how Total Home Consultants presented and handled my inspections.
Multiple independent and licensed contractors and repairmen who have come to my house have noted that more should have been put in my report and expressed to me in terms of the severity of damages in my house -- which I will get to shortly.
I made it crystal clear with Total Home Consultants that I am a young, first-time home buyer, who was very paranoid at purchasing such an old house. And they absolutely assured me throughout the whole process that they would bring me their most experienced inspector to help me out.
Throughout my experience, they rescheduled inspections multiple times last minute -- or without even letting me know (which is a big deal considering most people have about a week to do all the inspections and some take days), and it took multiple phone calls to get a hold of my reports afterwards due to them being uploaded incorrectly.
My house has extensive floor and subfloor damaging throughout the home that is costing me thousands in repairs and restorations. My report simply states "There was water staining and / or damage on the sub-flooring and / or framing below one or more of the bathrooms noted. The wood framing and / or sheathing has been damaged by the past or present water and will require repairs by a licensed contractor." -- as you can see there is a lot of "and / or" verbiage which I guess is to cover their liability, but when I was presented verbally the report by the inspector he assured me and repeated how great condition my home was for its age and that I shouldn't worry about the floors as long as I eventually get better, more permanent support. Support, however, is not even remotely the issue.
I had extensive water damage in the kitchen subfloor, bathroom subfloor (which was the only one slightly mentioned), and dining room sub floor. In the report the floors are described as follows "General wear and tear and weathering was noted to the surface of the floors in this room." and "There is a considerable sloping / sag in the floor of this room that needs to have a determination of the cause and course of action. Repairs are needed." -- but, again, I was verbally assured of it not being a big deal.
Lastly, due to my air conditioning being older and coming out of the floor, water condensates onto the back of the air conditioning grill and has been rotting the subfloor throughout the whole house wherever there is a A/C coming out which should have been an easy find according to licensed contractors and repairmen.
Essentially, there was a massive disconnect between what I was told by the inspector vs the true extent of damages that is ending up costing my thousands in immediate repairs, and am being told it will also cost thousands more over the next decade.
I would not recommend this company to people who rely on experts to clearly and accurately communicate the extent of damages. Nor do I recommend them for places with a crawl space, as many of these damages would have been clearly seen if he actually did a thorough inspection of the crawl space. Which I have since done myself and so have larger men than my inspector -- so putting "Limited visibilty and / or access due to ductwork" is simply untrue (and, yes, they misspelled visibility in my report as you can see in the quote -- which goes to show their...
   Read moreI recently bought a brand new home from a nation wide reputed builder in North Fulton county of Georgia. Most of my neighbors in this neighborhood opted to not do a private home inspection as they thought that the builder and the city will catch issues if any before closing their homes. Since this was a very big investment for me, I felt I would feel more comfortable if I could get an unbiased professional opinion from a very experienced home inspector about my new home before closing. While doing my research I came across Yelp page of Total Home Consultants and their superb 5 star reviews immediately caught my attention. Before contacting Total Home Consultants, I came across several other home inspectors who were either single person shop OR they quoted a very high amount to do the inspection OR they had no or very less reviews online. Thus finding Total Home Consultants Yelp page was like a breath of fresh relief. I immediately called their office and not only I was surprised how professionally their office answered all my questions and booked my appointment but their quotes were very reasonable as compared to several other quotes I had from other inspectors.
On the day of my appointment, Mike with Total Home Consultants showed up sharp at meeting time and spent about hour and half reviewing the exterior of my home, roof, sprinklers etc. Then he spent another 3+ hours for interior of my home. I was with him all the time and not only he helped me find some issues which builder had not fixed yet or some issues which needed to be corrected but he also very patiently gave me a very detailed tour of all the electricals, plumbing, appliances etc of my home and what to look for, how frequently to look for and how to take really good care of my home. That tutorial itself was worth atleast twice of what I paid them for the inspection fees. At the end of the inspection Mike showed me all the detailed pics and walked me through of all the issues he found with the home including but not limited to an outlet not working, a light switch not wired correctly, a rain gutter which was loose, few windows which were not working, drainage issues in the backyard etc. These issues though were overall minor but I feel that if I had not hired Total Home Consultants, neither I or builder might have caught them before closing and could have potentially costed me lot more in the long run.
I also had Total Home Consultants do the Radon testing of my home and it was very relieving to see that Radon level in my home were almost negligible.
Overall I was very satisfied with the quality of service, promptness of communication, attention to detail of Total Home Consultants and out three homes I have purchased so far, I feel this was the best and most thorough home inspection company I have ever dealt with. I already have told about Total Home Consultants to my entire neighborhood and I would be very happy to refer Total Home Consultants in future to my family...
   Read moreI called the Total Home Consultants to setup the home inspection. Hannah was extremely courteous and patient on the phone. She was very helpful and she provided all the information in a professional and timely manner.
On the day of the inspection, by the time I arrived at the site, the home inspector, Sean was already there. He was already inspecting the exterior of the home, making notes, taking pictures and drawing some preliminary conclusions. Once I was introduced myself, he then explained to me what he was doing and the outcome of what he might find. Sean used drone to get the full pictorial view of the roof. Sean was very meticulous in his approach and he worked on the inspection as if he was working on his own home. He is very knowledgeable about things such as the model of the furnace and how long this model would typically last and how well it would perform. During the inspection, he explained the issues in a way that was easy to understand and provided recommendations on how I should go about fixing those issues.
Sean is knowledgeable, genuine and a trustworthy advisor. There wasn't a question he didn't answer or consider too overbearing. And as first-time home buyer, I was a nervous wreck and I asked him tons of questions.
Sean has probably been doing this for a long time. However, he maintained his passion for the job. He kept me informed throughout the entire process. He prepared and sent me a very detailed report with pictures within a couple of hours after the inspection. In addition to receiving the inspection report, I learned a lot from him. He is very patient and compassionate about his work and I would highly recommend him. His firm deserves high marks as well. I have used them twice already. What I have learned from this firm is that all their Inspectors are handpicked and we cannot go wrong by picking any Inspector...
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