B-Sure Home Inspection

We can't say enough about our experience with this company. Firstly they accommodated our needed inspection date and were very flexible with time slots, which allowed us to schedule a time that allowed for all parties to be present at the inspection. Michael Licari was on time, friendly, thorough and most importantly, honest! As first-time buyers every little thing felt like a huge deal. He calmly explained what was wrong, how to remedy it and approximately how much it would cost. He went into great detail on what HAD to be done and what could wait and provided cost effect alternatives for little projects that we could tackle ourselves. B-Sure Home Inspection INC provided us an amazing service. We had all the information we needed to make an informed decision regarding continuing through the purchase process on the prospective property. If we hadn't utilized such an amazing company, we could have ran into tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs that we hadn't previously anticipated. Word to the wise: DON'T waive your home inspection contingency unless you have tons of cash saved to tackle surprise/hidden issues. DO use B-Sure Home Inspection INC when you are considering purchasing your new home. You'll be glad you did!

I don't even know where to start with how horrible of a job this company did for my inspection. This was my first home purchase and B-Sure was recommended by my realtor. Two guys came (one of who identified himself as the owner's son) and went through the condo in ~1 hour (its a 1400 sq ft place) and essentially delivered a report after that said everything was in good working condition, with only a few small call outs (none of which I am listing below). I have been in my place now for ~1 month and here is what has already broken that the inspector said worked: - Dishwasher broken - Water shut off for dishwasher broken - Washer/Dryer shut off broken - Gas stove broken - Gas stove has improper hookup - multiple windows were not sealed (literally could see outside) - HVAC broken - extreme leaks at slider, window (an ongoing issue that created wood rot) - Fridge broken & leaks And this is just the list of what I've found so far!! No amount of good reviews would override what has happened to me here. As a first time home buyer the inspection was one of the most important things to me and they completely took advantage of me. I paid for this service and they did not do one bit of their job. You'd be better off skipping the inspection than to waste your money on B-Sure.

Lenny was prompt, thorough, and very welcoming of any questions & concerns through the inspection process. The service and value he provides far transcends the price of the inspection. He also offers free quote assessments for any future home renovations for any clients who did their home inspection with Lenny. I will be using Lenny for all home inspections in the future.

unknown

Very thorough & professional

The inspection was terrible. Very superficial, though purporting to be the opposite. The reason I am writing is this. This apartment (which i bought in part because of the inspection report) has 12' ceilings and so very tall windows. The 5 double such windows in the main part of the apartment--the living/dining area-- have many gaps to the street where the windows are not tight as they should be. This inspector did check other aspects of the windows; for instance, he told me that one window needed a clip. But, he failed to say anything about this major defect. in the cold weather, the windows leak a great deal of air making the part of the apartment at all near the windows too cold to be usable. I am replacing these windows, at considerable cost. Had the inspector done his job by telling me of this, I would have raised it with the seller and either gotten her to put in new windows or gotten a reduction in the price--or else i would not have bought the condo. I raised this with the inspector who loudly tried to tell me why he did fine job.

Lenny is a consummate professional.  He was knowledgeable, punctual, and thorough.  Not only was he extremely helpful during the course of the inspection, but he also hopped on the phone with us several times during the ensuing year, helping us check things that our renovation contractor was doing, giving advice on best practices, and keeping us calm throughout our renovation.  It was great knowing that expertise was only a phone call away.

Incredibly well. Lenny and Mike spent several hours going over every inch of this property and recommended that we accompany them so they may explain WHAT is WHAT along the way. We learned quite a bit. Everything was going quite well. However, Lenny recommended that we enlist a structural engineer to inspect the structural integrity of the barn. Thank goodness we followed his advice, as the barn turned out to be structurally unsound and in essence a tear down. As a result, we ended up not buying the property and probably saving ourselves well over $100K due to the fact that the property is historical and if we wanted to rebuild (which we would have because it was integral to the property's charm) we'd have to do it to the exact specs of the current structure.  Although it was disappointing that we did not buy the beautiful property, it was Lenny and Mike's sage advice that prevented us from potentially making an unsound investment. We're still on the hunt for a property and are happy to know that we have Lenny and Mike as our go-to inspectors for the next discovery. Thanks, guys!

From the moment I called them, they were very nice and professional. They were able to work with my schedule. The inspector that came, Mike, was very knowledgeable and friendly. He even arrived ahead of schedule.

Although Mike did an adequate job there were some very obvious things he overlooked. There was obvious water damage around the window sills and ceiling in the living room which he dismissed as probably a one time accident. Now only a few months later we have an ice dam in that same location that's caused by a lack of ventilation in the attic. That should've been a fairly obvious thing for an experienced home inspector to spot. He also told us that we didn't have to worry about water damage in the basement, and that the markings you could see on the cement walls were caused by mineral deposits. Now, a few months later we are indeed getting water in the basement, streaming through the walls in the exact locations where those marks are. Overall during the experience he didn't seem to care a lot about inspecting our home and preferred just to chat up our real estate agent. I wouldn't recommend B-Sure's services to anyone else.

Lenny and Mike were very professional and with their combined knowledge of home building and heating systems, they did a very thorough job.  They informed us of things that needed fixing in a manner that we could understand and mentioned that they would be available to confer with us when we got quotes (for fairness of pricing).  Overall we were very satisfied - they are both very pleasant people and easy to work with.

Once we got going, he seemed to know what he was doing but I found his manner very distracting. Mike would be a great guy to hang out with at the pub but while doing a home inspection, I would prefer someone who's more focused and less interested in telling jokes. I used him twice. At the first home inspection, which had a radon remediation system already installed, he was saying how important it is to test for radon. At the second house I was considering buying, which was about 1/4 mile away from the first house, he said that there isn't a radon problem in this part of Boston and thought it would be a waste to test for it.

The inspector from B-Sure Home Inspection was very thorough but didn't mess anything up. Nothing was broken during his look. It was all about him feeling things and putting it into a report. He found things that we never would have found on our own. He found that the house had knob and tube wiring which is old wiring. Its's one of the things that's fine with code but it's not fine according to home insurance companies so he pointed out where this knob and tube wiring was so we called the insurance company which they wouldn't insure the home so we had it removed. We never would have know so we would have been screwed when we looked for home owners insurance and couldn't have it. We were definitely happy with the inspection. We went back to the seller and told them they needed to fix those things the inspector found. We had the inspector back to check their work. We had a second inspection because we wanted to make sure we had a professional check the work of the seller before we finally signed off on buying the house. We felt really comfortable with his professional opinion and his ability to find things that were wrong. 

None.

Wonderful experience. Very professional in all respects. He arrived on time, was thorough in his inspection, took time to explain each detail along the way and provided some humor throughout. Highly recommended.

Fantastic - Mike was very thorough, he explained everything and had a great sense of humor. I feel much more comfortable with the purchase as a result of the inspection.

The inspector who came to our house, Larry, is a really nice guy, as is his wife who works in the office.  As first-time home buyers, we were at his mercy.  However, I got the sense that he (a) was a little lazy, and (b) was mainly focused on covering his you-know-what.  Unfortunately, there were many things that he didn't check, and which ultimately were problematic, including:  our built-in A/C units (no cold air pumping - it was a cold day and the A/C was overlooked... by all), the heat on our bedroom floor (battery corroded wall unit to the point that it does not send the message to the furnace to turn on), exterior hoses (leak between the wall of our kitched and exterior wall that we noticed once we turned on the water source to the hose.  In addition, when looking under the kitchen sink he noted something like "looks like there was a leak here once," and went to get up until I told him that I could see the sink actually leaking before my very eyes...  At which point he told me he was about to note that in his report.  With respect to specific questions we had about the house, his standard response was to direct us to some other professional - be it a structural engineer, plumber, roofer, etc.  I understand that there is only so much that the inspector can do, but reading through an inspection report that says, throughout, "consult _____ (name your specialist)" was less than helpful and seemed, as noted above, that B-Sure aims to pass the buck to evade liability.  Rather than a complete report that takes time to prepare, B-Sure gives you a handwritten report at the end of the inspection that takes about 5 minutes to put together.  For the price, a whopping $700 - which includes about $100 for the radon test - one would be justified in expecting more.  Actually, for that price, one should expect more across the board.  We had read mixed reviews on Angie's List about B-Sure, but we had our backs against the wall because the more highly recommended inspectors were all booked when we needed the servcies performed, so we hoped for the best.  Ultimately, it cost us upwards of probably $1K-2K in repairs that we have had to make, for which we could otherwise have sought a closing credit from sellers.  I hate to give these people a bad review because they were very pleasant to work with, but our experience left a lot to be desired.

Overall the service provider missed a few issues.

Worked with Michael Heneghan, who I'd recommend.   He was very thorough, with helpful comments and good advice on how to fix small things (for example, one of the ceiling fans whirred very loudly -- he immediately knew it was wired to a light switch, instead of a fan switch.)

Through all of this, they let me know who I should contact for repairs. Everyone they referred me to was honest and quoted me just what I was expecting. I hired them again to look at another house. In the next home, they worked for 4 hours. The biggest problem that they found was that the plumbing to the upstairs bathroom wasn't set up right after a kitchen remodel, and Lenny discovered it when he turned on the water upstairs and it started pouring out into the basement! There was a rewire job that needed to be done as well. Lenny is a star and Micheal really knows what he is doing. I ended up buying the 2nd home that they inspected for me. Everything seems to be great now that we are in the home!

I hired B-Sure for a standard, thorough home inspection.  He said they couldn't test the air conditioning system completely because it was a cool day, but, as far as they could test, it was working fine although it was old and might need replacement in the near future.  Much later I noticed a problem and had an air conditioning specialist come out.  He said one unit had burned out years earlier, as he could tell by the condition around it, and that in fact it had burned out in a way that damaged things around it.  The unit had to be completely replaced at a cost over $7000. 
The air conditioning unit in the attic had no primary drain(!)  The inspector didn't notice.  Cost: $1600
The inspector noted that a couple tiles were loose in the marble foyer and left me with the impression that they just had to be cemented in place more firmly.  As soon as I moved in, a contractor working on another part of the house let me know that the loose tiles almost certainly meant that the floor underneath was substandard and that the whole (large) marble floor would have to be replaced.  A second opinion from a specialist confirmed this diagnosis.  Cost to repair: $14,000. 
In these cases, it should have been easy to flag that there was a possibility of an expensive problem.  If the AC had cooled a little less than it should, then it would have been understandable that the inspector could have missed the problem. But if the motor had completely burned out years before, obviously he should have noticed. 

The inspection was performed by Michael, who arrived on time and was very courteous. He began by explaining exactly what he planned to do, set reasonable expectations and explained the purpose of a home inspection. He started by inspecting the exterior, including drainage and the roof. He then moved inside and inspected the systems, plumbing, electrical and even made an extra effort to inspect an essentially non-accessible attic. He was friendly throughout the inspection and took the time to explain what he was doing and to answer my numerous questions. Michael's knowledge was considerable, and he even figured out an extremely complex heating system by tracing all of the pipes and wiring and explaining the purpose of the values, pumps, and other fixtures. He pointed out areas where the house was not up to building codes (stairs, double-tapped electrical breakers) and suggested fixes.The report was quite thorough but did not include any pictures. Also some offhand comments made verbally during the inspection were not noted in the formal report but I do not consider any of these issues to be serious shortcomings. Everything I needed to see was pointed out to me during his routine.The whole inspection took almost 4 hours. Overall I have a high degree of confidence in this company's work.

Lenny and staff were very responsive to take our call and schedule our inspection. They were flexible and pleasant even when we had to reschedule a few times due to the seller's schedule. Michael was terrific - he was on time - even early, very personable, took the time to explain things to us, and very thorough. We actually did not buy the first home because he uncovered some major concerns during the inspection. We called him right back with the next home. Would definitely use B Sure again.

Michael arrived on time and was very professional.  He examined both the condo and the building for all possible problem areas.  He took the time to explain everything to me.  He found a problem with the heat and agreed to come back and re-inspect after the repair was made     AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE.

B-Sure used to be a contractor. He is really personable. He thinks of ideas you will do to the house you are going to purchase and he can provide answers. He looks and thinks for you and lets you know what you can do. Any ideas or concerns we had he was able to talk through with us through his perspective of his contracotr experience. We were blown away by how good he was. This is our 3rd house and 4th home insoectiona and we have never had someone so thorough and educated in the ways of home building. He saw the house as a series of clues and he tore apart the way the house was constructed and rebuilt and built the story of the house so we could better understand what we had and what we could do moving forward. I think I hugged him I liked him so much! It is nice to have someone that is excited for you and your new purchase.