HouseMaster

Karl Mauthe - the inspector HouseMaster Nyack sent - missed asbestos in the attic during our inspection. It cost $10K to have it remediated - not covering the cost of new insulation (another $4K). Was able to get some money from the seller - even though we discovered the attic insulation was asbestos after contract signing (by someone else we brought in to take out asbestos tiles). Yani Tsakos, their claims manager, refused to own up to their omission or cover any of the cost and was completely rude and insulting on top of it. (Except their receptionist, who was lovely on the phone.) It also cost months of time and endless hours of aggravation. Don't make the same mistake I did!!!! Check the reviews, get references - and use anyone other than HouseMaster. I wish I did.

I thought it went well but after I moved in I noticed that house inspector missed many things. He did not check if the fireplace is working or not. He did not check the attic properly and claimed that attic light was not working. In fact, he just forgot about turn the switch on which is right below the attic entrance. Which also resulted in him not checking whether the attic fan is in good working condition or not. The condensate pump gave out within 1 month and the dishwasher's flow meter broke within 2 months. Overall left bad taste even though I was OK at the time of inspection.

The home inspection was great. We didn’t purchase the house because we discovered water in the basement was related to heavy snow on the roof.

He was very thorough and quick.

My advice to prospective home buyers is not to use the home inspection company referred to you by the broker. I feel that housemasters and quot;workedand quot; for the broker even though I, as the prospective home buyer, paid them to do the work. There were many issues with the house that were not communicated to me at the time. For example, Bob Horvath told me that the roof probably needed to be replaced in 7-10 years, but I had a major leak in the roof the winter of the year I moved into the home. Apparently, he only and quot;visuallyand quot; inspected the roof from the ground using binoculars instead of climbing up there to take a look. Had he done that, he would have found a large section of the roof sealed with tar instead of covered with shingles, like a normal roof should be. This fact was subsequently uncovered by roofers I hired. The cost of replacing the whole roof came out to $16,000.
There was a litany of problems with the home that were also not brought up by Bob at the time of the inspection or in his home inspection report. For example, the electric outlets in the basement bathroom were not GFI electrical outlets, which by itself is a violation of building codes, not to mention dangerous.
In summary, if you are broker at Julie B Fee/Sotheby's, and not too concerned about ethics, you should refer prospective homebuyers to housemasters, but if you are a home buyer who value your hard earned money, run away from housemasters.

We were happy with the initial inspect and felt that our inspector was helpful and knowledgeable during the visit to the house we purchased in Nassau. Far from giving our home an A+, they did the job we were paying them to do and identified issues for us and assured us that, should any problems be found after the closing that they missed, that they were responsible to make it right. It was part of their and quot;guarantee.and quot;
The reason we are giving the firm a C is that while the inspection was a smooth and easy process, that and quot;guaranteeand quot; has proven to be nothing more than puffery. Immediately after closing we brought in electricians for estimates on the issues identified by the inspectors. What we found, however, were major violations that were in plain sight in the house (example: not a single bedroom has a light switch) but were never flagged by the inspector. If these had been called out at the time we could have easily gone to the original homeowners and asked that they make a correction or adjust the purchase price to reflect at least a portion of the work we'd have to do. Instead we've now found out about electrical problems (again, in plain sight during the inspection) that we are covering ourselves. When we called HouseMasters to ask if their and quot;guaranteeand quot; covers this failure in the inspection, we were basically told, and quot;It's an old house so it's not our fault. Nothing we can do.and quot;
I can understand the inspectors miss things here and there. It happens. But if you're going to guarantee the quality of your inspectors work, you should stand by that promise, rather than blame the oversight on the age of the house you're inspecting. In my book, that's not a great way to win positive reviews.

Our inspector, Bob Horvath did a fantastic job inspecting a home we are
thinking of purchasing. He was extremely thorough, friendly and helpful
during the inspection. He answered any and all questions we had and
often pre-empted our questions by offering up pertinent information
before we had chance to ask. The price included the inspection and four
or five ancillary tests which we have not received the results for yet.
I would highly recommend these guys and as far as the price, I feel you get what you pay for.

Our technician Yoni was very knowledgeable and he walked us through the entire house and the report. He was also at the current home and walked through with us. In addition to looking for problems, he explained things to us. As new time buyers, he let us know what he would recommend as general maintenance that we should keep up annually or even more frequently than that. He showed us how to do it. It was like having our dads walk through the house and tell us what to take care of in our house. It is really nice to know that we now know how to care for our new home and keep it up to par in terms of maintenance. They also offer service where they register all the appliances and once a month they send a newsletter with basic home tips for the season as well as let one know if there are any recalls or any issues with any of their existing appliances like their fridge or stove or laundry and if they need to think about replacing any of them anytime soon. It's really nice to have that on a watch list where someone is looking out for those and there are recalls all the time. It's a real nice piece of mind service and even though we've heard that it's kind of a higher priced service, we don't know that the price is high for this area. We didn't have a problem with the price. We would highly recommend them.

He does the full home and he is very thorough. He explained every detail, I almost felt like I was attending a class! I had never purchased a home so I really appreciated all the information. I would absolutely use him again in the future.

My husband remembers him doing a mold test during the inspection, however on our inspection report he states a test was not done. The basement has 1.5 inches of water under the sub-floor. We just had a basement waterproofer look at it and there were visible signs of mold in the mud room which the inspector should have noticed. The waterproofer also said it should have been a red flag that there was plywood on the floor of the basement. If our inspector was looking out for visible signs of mold he could have found them. The foundation is taking in water and it is costing $13K to waterproof the basement.

He came on time. He pointed out problem areas, and made a report on the spot with his laptop. He made a lot of general recommendations. After moving into home, I noticed he made two big mistakes. At the inspection, he walked on the flat roof and commented it was new, and made no comment on the wood railing. This roof was leaking on the day we moved in. Roofing contractors came by and said roof was painted to look new and wood railing was rotting, causing the leak. Mr. Lasher failed to recognize this. He commented on the moisture in the basement, and said it can easily be remedied with a dehumidifier. But actually, the problem is bigger than that, and I'm now faced with expensive basement work.