Home Inspection and Consultation

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Home Inspector - Decker Home Services, LLC - IL Lic # 450.002240
This is a blog that will deal with Real Estate transactions with regards to home inspections, both Buyer's inspections and Seller's Pre-listing inspections. I hope to educate buyers, sellers, Realtors and the general public.
RECENT BLOG POSTS
Chicago's brick buildings in peril Chicago is, mainly, a brick city.  Oh, sure, there thousands of wood frame and brick veneer houses and buildings throughout our city, but travel the neighborhoods (Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods, from Lincoln Park to Beverly).  Most of this city was bui...
01/05/2010
As a state licensed home inspector, as well as a mold inspector and thermographer, I constantly get calls from people who have "flooded" basements. Let's get a couple of definitions clear: - Flooded basement:  This is what happens when the ground around the house is a flood plain.  Basements floo...
12/14/2009
Kansas will, in the next 30 days, begin "registration" of home inspectors.  This is very contenciuos, given that about 90% of the counties in Kansas have no local or state building codes, that builders and most sub-contractors have no training, qualification, testing or licensing standards and th...
12/05/2009
With all the forclosed and never sold large houses on the market, and with many of them having been built by, shall we say, less that experienced builders (who use the least expensive sub-contractors they can find), a trend is developing in the houseing market.  As sad trend. I was called by a Re...
11/06/2009
As a State Licensed home inspector, I also do phased construction inspections.  This is when a person is having a house built for them and they hire a home inspector to look at the house, as it is being built, and make sure that the work is being done correctly.  It is MUCH easier to fix problems...
11/02/2009
We have been seeing more and more problems with newer condominium buildings in the Chicago area.  I have inspected many of these buildings, working for the condominium associations, and have documented the causes.  I am, currently, involved in litigation against the builders and in 3 cases, the b...
07/12/2009
Given the recent rains we have been having in our area, I have been doing a large number of water intrusion inspections. Wet building syndrome: When a masonry type building (house, townhouse, rowhouse) is not properly constructed and water intrudes through the masonry exterior walls.  This causes...
11/15/2008
One of the most confusing aspects of a home inspection deals with electrical safety.Houses have (or should have) two special electrical devices installed in the home.  GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) and AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter) devices.  While small, and usually not found in ...
03/28/2008
Recently, the Illinois Appealate Court has ruled that local municipal building code departments have no liability for personal injury of property damage when a house is not compliant with local building codes.  This flys in the face of the publics perception of what a building code inspection is....
11/04/2007
In our area (northeastern Illinois) there have been some heavy rains, recently.  I have been flooded (no pub intended) with phone calls from my former clients, as well as other people looking for some advice on how to handle the wet basement problem.  I thought that I would share these ideas with...
08/28/2007
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William Decker

local_phone(847) 676-8393
smartphone(847) 609-2345
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This is a blog that will deal with Real Estate transactions with regards to home inspections, both Buyer's inspections and Seller's Pre-listing inspections. I hope to educate buyers, sellers, Realtors and the general public. See our video: www.deckerhomeservices.com/Decker%20Home%20Services.wmv