Jamie Schaefer, Professional Home Inspector Inc.

We hired Jamie about a year ago for a home purchase. We were satisfied initially but in hindsight are very disappointed with the lack of attention to detail provided by his services. This has costed us 10s OF THOUSANDS in repairs (nearing 100s of thousands at this point). Problem details below that were not flagged in the report. Most of this is inexcusable and could have been caught with basic tooling (thermal cams, pressure tests, moister meters etc). Instead, most of the house was flagged as "Satisfactory". 1: Leaky toilet. See images of toilet flange. Water was going underneath the tile a soaked the carpet in adjacent room. This costed THOUSANDS between the services calls, framing repair, drywall work, flange realignment, and new toilet. 2: leaky windows (marked SATISFACTORY in report). ALL!! windows were poorly siliconed on the outside resulting in sigificant water intrusion over the years. Screws were placed in the channel near the sill, resulting in another leak point. One exterior wall in particular (which has three windows in three different rooms) was showing signs of water intrusion visible through the squishy drywall near the baseboard by the floor (image attached) and broken grout in the shower of another room. Upon demo of the walls in each room AND SHOWER, a massive carpenter ant colony was identified, rotted 1 bys of varying sizes and BLACK MOLD. For the bathroom, Jamie simply said to re-grout the shower when it actually required a total gut job due the amount of water, mold and ants behind the walls. His report says "condition behind the tile are indeterminate". This has costed us 10S OF THOUSANDS in repairs between the bathroom gut job, window replacements, reframing, drywall work, and painting. We've begun repairing, but all rooms where there are windows will need to be quarantened for mold and redone.. 3: Well leak. Our main well had sprung a leak down in the well plumbing prior to purchase (see image of rusted pipe with large holes). This caused our pump pressure switch to hover at 58 psi (it shuts the pump off at 60 psi). Our pump wouldn't turn off so it gave out by the time we noticed. This costed us THOUSANDS in repairs and replacement. 4: Chimney Leak. There was staining near ceiling by the Chimney which was present during inspection. It got worse during a rain event. We had to have a section of the roof repaired and the chiminey reflashed. There was also mold and another large carpenter ant colony under the shingles near the chiminey. This costed us THOUSANDS in repairs! 5: Issues were identified in the attic via subsequent inspections. The major ones being air duct leaks and poor insulation. Most of the issues above (short of the Well and toilet) could have been identified and flagged had he gone through the attic. Jamie did take a peak up there but did not walk through the attic. Typical contractual jargon was placed in the report to release liability here. I do not recommend Jamie. The services provided to us costed us 5 figures worth of repairs (nearing 6 figures) and could have easily been identified with basic tooling and a keen eye. Be VERY careful folks!

Jaimie did an excellent on our first home inspection when we purchased our first home in 2006 while he was with another company that we chose to look him up again.  
In our first home inspection he found this that eventually saved us thousands by having the current owner fix or just fixed ourselves before they got worse.
In our new home it was more of the same.  He called out everything from tiny cracks in the sidewalk to missing window latches to the smallest leak under the sink I would have never noticed,  He was very thorough and very professinal.  He arrived before me even though I showed up early and he had close to a 60 mile drive to my 2 mile drive.  He took time away from a family dinner to explain something on the report that I did not understand.  I have recommended him to others and the people we purchased our house from even used him on their purchase based on their observation f him at work.

He is really professional, very thorough and he knows his stuffs. It was a simple job and he did it well.

We would have been better off not having a home inspection as we would then not have been surprised when the roof leaked and needed to be replaced within 24 hours of moving in. We would also not be surprised when every single person who enters the house for a repair (electrician, sprinkler guy, etc) asks us if we have any money still in escrow as every area of the house was poorly maintained, in a low budget, substandard fashion.
The inspection report was written with so much legalese that when we tried to submit a claim with the and quot;home warrantyand quot; company that was included with the inspection they denied all claims as they only cover and quot;repairsand quot; not and quot;replacementand quot; -- if that was the only necessary work I would have been grateful. As an example, he had a disclaimer about his ability to inspect the roof as there was snow cover missing that large portions of our roof are at eye level and was clearly installed with no tar paper. The fact that the roof was installed this way and that it was missed by the inspector was shocking to both roofers who came out for estimates, and pretty much everyone else who hears about our experience.
I have to say the worst part of my experience was the inspector's disposition when he came back to see what he had missed after our broker reported to the inspector how much trouble we were having. How dare you come on my property angry at me after I have had to pay over $20,000 in unexpected expenses a proper inspection would have prepared me to expect.