Home Inspection Diploma Program Outline
Module 1 – Introduction to Home Inspection
Introduction to Home Inspection
Your first lesson provides an overview of the home inspection business: why it came about, what kinds of people need home inspections, who pays for them, and how the Sonoran Desert Institute at-home training can help you take advantage of the growing demand for this service. Plus you’ll see how easy it is to get started fast in this money-making field…doing home inspections in the evenings or on weekends without having to give up your regular job!
Building Foundations
Bulging walls...cracked slabs...rotted posts...improper slope...water penetration...animal hollows...they’re all problems that can cause serious structural damage to a home if gone unnoticed. As a home inspector, it’s your job to spot them. From footings, foundation walls, piers, and grade beams all the way to concrete slabs, this lesson shows you step by step how to evaluate the physical soundness of a home from the ground up.
Building Materials
To comment on the condition of a home, you’ve got to know what it’s made of and how these materials can be affected by wear, tear, and time. Here you look at the most popular building materials – from different types of lumber and siding to concrete, brick, and stone plus fasteners such as nails, screws, bolts, and glue. You learn about the techniques builders use to work with these materials and about the load and environmental factors associated with each.
Construction Drawings
Here you learn the basics of reading blueprints and symbols for the many types of construction drawings you’re likely to encounter as a home inspector. You cover pictorial drawings, orthographic projections, diagrams, sectional views, engineer’s and architect’s scales, floor plans, mechanical drawings, electrical drawings, and more.
Construction Specifications
When used in conjunction with a thorough on-site visit, construction “specs” can save the home inspector a lot of time. By comparing written specs with actual installations in the home, you learn more about how the house was built and make yourself better prepared to inspect it properly. In this lesson, you examine a condensed set of sample construction specs, learning how they’re written and organized and how to interpret them.
Types of Buildings
Once you start inspecting homes you’ll find out very quickly that no two are alike. As a home inspector, it’s important to understand how homes differ from one another, not just in their looks but in the way they’re built and maintained. This lesson gives you important insight as you explore types of architectural styles for homes and small buildings, distinguishing characteristics of each, and how those features can affect the home’s condition.
Building Sites
You can’t perform a thorough home inspection without knowing something about the site the house is built on. This lesson introduces you to concepts of zoning, easements, and building setbacks. Plus you find out how soil conditions around a house as well as overall conditions in the entire neighborhood can impact your evaluation. You look at site plans, surveying equations, mapping symbols, and excavation. Finally – because it’s never too early to start investigating your professional opportunities – we introduce you to ASHI, the national trade association representing home inspectors.
Building Structures
Based on what you’ve already learned about building materials and foundations, you now examine design characteristics associated with types of buildings. You find out, for example, why a builder might have chosen steel beams over wood ones…why brick instead of stone, wood, or concrete...what can go wrong with prefabricated structures...and how having that knowledge will help you offer clients the kind of experienced observations they’re looking for.
Reading Plans and Drawings
This lab exercise provides the opportunity to test your knowledge as you master the ins and outs of reading surveyor's plot plans and architectural drawings. Using various tools, you practice reading and interpreting drawing symbols, measuring and drawing to scale, making your own sketches of housing components, and calculating square footage for things like heating and air conditioning requirements, roof pitch, and more. As you do, you begin building the skills you need to thoroughly inspect both existing homes and homes under construction.
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