Review of Ken Osborne Home Inspections, Inc, a Home Inspector Serving Southern Indiana and the Louisville Area

Many years ago my parents purchased a house. It was a beautiful house, with everything they wanted. At the time the purchased it, the idea of a home inspector was a relatively foreign concept. They relied on their own eyes and their faith in the seller that the house was a good one. A year or two later they began to realize they had made a mistake.

Rather than do a professional job of removing and repainting the exterior, the seller simply put latex over the original oil on the extensive trim work. The result was a huge amount of flaking and crumbling of paint within a couple of years. The seller had kept his cars and huge dogs in the garage to cover the fact that the foundation was settling several inches. To cover this settling on the outside he poured several inches more of concrete and even added a step where previously there had been none to cover the sinking. He painted over the gutters and made quick patches to cover the fact they were starting to rust through. The house had other major quirks that my parents had to address throughout the years as well. Had they hired a home inspector, they would have probably have had everyone one of these concerns identified and laid to rest.

Choosing a Bad Inspector

Choosing a home inspector in the Louisville area can be difficult. Having bought three homes and sold two, my wife and I can say from experience that a good home inspector can make all the difference in the world. When my wife and I were selling our last house, our buyers had a home inspector come out. For $500, two men in a fancy truck came out and looked at our house. They pulled out all sorts of expensive measuring equipment and started writing down all sorts of issues. By the time they got done, they'd found a lot of issues with our house that our buyers wanted addressed.

Major issue one was a gas furnace that was putting out an unacceptable level of natural gas. We had to pay $100 to have the furnace inspected by a reputable company in town who essentially said that the inspectors were wrong. The gas present inside the furnace was within acceptable limits and would only pose a problem for people if they were sitting inside the furnace for hours on end.

Issue two was asbestos tape on the duct work. The inspector indicated that the tape was a major health hazard and would have to be removed by a licensed professional. The same person that inspected our furnace said that there were thousands of houses throughout Louisville that had the same type of tape on their duct work. He said the tape was perfectly harmless as long as it was in good condition and intact. He said removal was not necessary.

There were many other minor issues like this, mostly small, but all of which required fixes before our buyer would buy the house. But there were many other small nit picking issues that would be found in any house. The inspector made each of them sound like they'd bring the house collapsing around the buyer. They did not run many of the essential tests that our home inspector, Ken Osborne, did when he originally inspected the house, such as testing tub and shower pans for structural integrity, running appliances full cycles, testing plumbing to washers, driers, and dishwashers, and examining doors, door frames, floorboards and other items that could easily become an issue for a buyer. Ken advised me that during one shower pan test (in which the inspector plugs up the shower drain and fills the shower with water, and then lets the water sit) the shower pan malfunctioned and caused water to leak throughout the ceiling of the house he was inspecting (much to the dismay of the owner). If Ken had not run the test, the buyer may have purchased a house with a leaky shower that eventually would have caused structural damage for them.

In short, by picking an inspector with lots of fancy equipment, but no real clue what they should be looking for, the buyer wasted their money and ours to be given misinformation.

A Good Inspector

We've used inspector Ken Osborne with Ken Osborne Home Inspection, Inc on three separate occasions. Ken Osborne is one of the founding members of the Kentuckiana Chapter of the American Society of Home Inspectors. As such, he was held to a much higher standard than the jokers that showed up to inspect our house. From the ASHI website: "To become an ASHI Member, an inspector must pass two written technical exams, have performed a minimum of 250 professional fee-paid home inspections, and maintained his or her candidate status for no less than six months. ASHI Members are required to follow the Society's Code of Ethics, and to obtain continuing education credits in order to keep current with the latest in building technology, materials, and professional skills."

Ken Osborne's does not inspect a house looking for "gotcha" issues, but instead consists of a comprehensive 20 page (at the time our last home was inspected) review of the exterior and interior of the house and the surrounding landscape.

In addition to the house above, Ken Osborne has done two other inspections for us of houses in the Louisville, Kentucky area.

The Money Pit

The second house Ken Osborne inspected was a nice 11 year old home that my wife and I fell in love with immediately after we looked at it. It had a nice finished basement, a beautiful open floor plan upstairs, a nice big yard, and a hot tub for relaxing. We put a contract in contingent on a home inspection and had Ken Osborne come in and do his handiwork. Ken immediately began finding issues with the house. He noted that the driveway was heaving in several sections, causing it to be potentially dangerous to people running or even walking in it. He examined the floor boards around the back of the house and found that the weather stripping was inadequate, and as a consequence he was able to jam a screwdriver right through rotten floorboards. In the roof line he found numerous inadequate support beams that were causing the roof to sag, which he pointed out both inside the attic and outside. He pointed out the poorly ventilated bathroom in the basement (where the fart fan just pushed air through it and not out of the room) created a high potential for mold and mildew. He also pointed out several safety issues that might arise with the house that we would need to remedy (such as an open staircase that a child could fall off of). In the end, we decided our dream house had too many issues, especially for a house so young. We asked that every item be fixed in the house by a professional contractor. The buyer angrily refused, and we were out of that contract. The realtor for the house swore that Ken Osbourne would never step foot in one of his houses again.

Our New New Home

We finally decided to try new construction. My wife and I looked all over and finally found a house we loved. Buying a new house with a warranty, I almost thought that the $275 cost of the home inspection was not worth it. I was wrong.

Ken Osborne found a lot to love about the house, but that didn't keep him from finding numerous faults in the construction. He found the need for joist hangers in our basement, something that could have proven a major issue over time. He identified that the sump pump drainage was piped outside down the length of the house and was a potential freeze hazard. He ran the dishwasher a full cycle and noted that it was leaking. He noted that the location of some of the plumbing posed a potential freeze hazard in winter. And he noted weather stripping issues throughout the house that would rob it of heating and cooling. Our builder agreed to fix all of these issues and was a little upset that Ken was the one to find them and not his company.

Inspectors Are Not Gods

It is important to note, and Ken Osborne will be the first to point out that home inspectors cannot predict the future, see through walls, or examine things that are not accessible to them. They can only report on what their five senses and experience tells them. It is quite possible that the home that seems fine upon inspection has issues not visible to the inspector and that the inspector might have no way of knowing. A good inspector will report out on the things they can see and test, advise you of what they cannot, and make positive recommendations for how you can get the most use out of your home and ensure that the home stays in good condition throughout your time there. I highly recommend Ken Osborne Home Inspections, Inc.. Ken is a first class individual who is friendly, knowledgeable, and has great attention to detail.