Why a Home Physical is a good idea

Many home owners live in their home day by day giving no thought to the condition of the various systems until something needs service and by that time the problem usually cost thousands more than the cost involved to prevent the problem.  A perfect example comes from a recent home physical. A home owner called me in to check out his house since he was thinking of leaving it for a few months while he was going overseas and wife and children would be there alone.  The first thing I noticed while doing an exterior survey of the property was how the deck was starting to pull away from the house which he had never noticed.  I pointed out that this ledger board was only nailed in and should have special Ledger bolts attaching it to the house and this was an accident ready to happen.  He said he would take care of this right away. I then continued to the basement where I found his chimney clean out was over full and moisture had compacted it to become quite solid which is a fire hazard. I also noticed he had installed a new hot water heater and he did not have a drip pan and the overflow elbow was missing so it was already starting to rust on top and the bottom weaken the structure of the heater and shortening the life.  Next checking the waterlines I found a small leak that was up against a wall that was about to blow and become a large issue. If that wasn’t enough he had a handyman friend help wire in a few exterior outlets that were doubled tapped and Not GFCI compliant. In a total I found 23 issues that could all be corrected for a few hundred dollars but could have easily turned into thousands of dollars of repairs not to mention personal property damage or health risk. Anyways about 2 weeks later he called me. He said I was very right about the deck and he wished he had acted sooner. He had a graduation party for his daughter on the deck which collapsed and 5 of her friends were hurt as well as the deck being destroyed and a window smashed out. Luckily it was only a 5 foot drop but he was warned and could have avoided this thanks to a home physical. He told me he is now acting on the other issues, now that he understands how serious it is and booked me to come back next year.