Home Inspection in Brantford and Brant County

Brantford has grown quickly, and buyers moving in from the Hamilton and Toronto areas are often seeing the city's houses for the first time. A home inspection in Brantford gives you an independent look before you commit. Jim Ward, an InterNACHI Certified Master inspector working since 2009, covers the city and the County of Brant around it, from Paris and St. George to Burford and the farms near Scotland and Oakland.

A city of older brick houses

Brantford was an industrial city on the Grand River for well over a century, and its central and east-end neighbourhoods are full of the brick houses built for the people who worked here. Many are well over a hundred years old. Solid as they look, they come with a familiar set of issues. Mortar wears out long before brick does, so chimneys lose bricks and mortar at the top where the weather hits hardest. Front steps and stoops settle, which is how bricks end up cracked at the front door, another photo from Jim's own inspections. Inside, galvanized water supply lines are still found in houses of this age, and they narrow as they corrode.

Wiring in these houses has usually been updated in pieces. An inspector looks at the main panel, how circuits leave it and whether anything has been left loose or unprotected; Jim's photos include unsecured wiring from a main panel.

When the listing says "renovated"

A busy market brings plenty of homes that have been bought, updated and put back on the market. Many are done well. Some are cosmetic: new flooring, paint and fixtures over a structure that hasn't changed. One of the photos on Jim's site was taken in a property listed as professionally renovated, and it is the reason he looks past the finishes to the basement, the attic, the roof and the mechanical systems. A renovation that skipped the plumbing or the electrical tends to show up there, and your report will show it too, with images.

Newer subdivisions

Brantford's newer neighbourhoods, along with growing parts of Paris, are mostly houses less than twenty years old. Jim's experience is that buyers of newer homes rarely check the foundation or the attic, and his photos of a 4-year-old home with a foundation crack, and another with R-12 attic insulation where R-40 was expected, show why it's worth it.

Paris and rural Brant

Paris sits where the Nith River meets the Grand and is known for its cobblestone buildings, a building style that, like any stone work, deserves a careful look at the mortar and foundation. Out in the county, around Burford, Scotland and Mount Pleasant, many homes are on private wells. Jim offers a water sample and flow test on request.

Selling instead of buying? With so many buyers in the Brantford market getting their own inspection, a pre-listing inspection lets you find out first. Jim investigates every structural component before the house is listed, so you can deal with problems, get repair estimates and avoid last-minute negotiations. Call for pricing.

Booking a Brantford inspection

Jim's home inspection is $500 including HST for homes up to 1,800 sq ft; larger homes are priced by size, so call 519-550-4998. He follows the InterNACHI Code of Ethics, which means no commissions or referral payments from anyone with a stake in the sale. If you're preparing questions, our guide to questions to ask a home inspector is a good start, then request a quote.