North Star Home Inspections

Terrible. A mold remediation company gave me the name of this mold inspector to call. Called the inspector and left a message on Saturday. The voicemail and website claim that I would get a call back by either noon or 5pm. Neither happened. Called again on Monday. Voicemail was full. Called a different inspector and got someone who showed up and did the inspection the next day. Submitted the second inspector's report to mold remediation company and never heard from them again. This inspector finally called after the second inspector was done and gone.

Joseph showed up on time and brought a ladder with him to inspect the attic for leaks.  He  did a cursory inspection and missed many problems which the house had; i.e. excessive humidity in basement, many broken window shades, banging of pipes against HVAC ducts, incorrect installation of deck flooring, leak around rim of kitchen sink (under-mount).  He did not remove the electrical panel cover which would have shown him overloaded circuits. He did not have a moisture meter to analyze staining in the shed or a device to measure relative humidity.
His report included misinformation about items which were present and he misidentified; such as a fire rated door between the house and garage, a house number prominently displayed on the side of the garage, CO detectors which were present.  He also permitted the current homeowner to shaddow his inspection.

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We had looked for recommendations for local inspectors from friends, but we were only able to get a list of names of people we should not use--folks who did a cursory inspection and missed items that became trouble down the road. We were looking for someone who could tell us everything. We contacted Joe via the web and he promptly returned our phone call. He sounded knowledgeable and easy to work with. He took time to talk through a few things on the phone and describe the process. I figured this would be our guy, but then negotiations on our home stalled. I actually didn't get back to Joe for weeks. When I did, he responded quickly again, no problem with the long delay. He was able to schedule with us within 2-3 days, coming out on a Sunday. He showed up right on time, checklist in hand, gave us a quick run-down and got to work. It was a cold day with snow on the ground, but Joe still crawled around under the deck and spent a good chunk of time outside taking photos and documenting various issues with drainage, ventilation, and even a major defect that brought us back to the negotiating table with our sellers. He crawled around in the attic space, spent a lot of time in the basement, and really looked over everything in between. He spent longer than he had originally said it would take, but didn't appear to be rushing or cutting any corners to finish faster. He spent some time with us to make sure we understood the major items before leaving the house and sent us our detailed report within 2-3 days. All in all Joe was great to learn from and a pleasure to work with. He worked hard and did a fantastically thorough job. We will absolutely be recommending him to our friends!