Advantage Home Inspections – Dan Perrin

I had the same experience as Robert R.
The guy inspects our house and reports that GFCI outlets need to be installed in each wet location. They already existed. I’m not sure he even looked around other than the pictures he took. Roof? At the end of it’s life span. How does he know? He looked at it from the outside on the ground. He also said there is no evidence of a heat pump. Even though it says on the heating system when it was installed, and the operating voltage indicates that is it, in fact, a heat pump.
He even wrote that we had a buried fuel tank for the heating system. I guess he may get partial credit for that since we have natural gas from a buried gas main.
Basically it looks like we received the same report that Robert R. did with a different address and date change.

Note: There are several home inspectors named Advantage Home Inspections in Kalamazoo and West Michigan. This review is ONLY for the Advantage Home Inspections owned and operated by Advantage Companies; Dan Perrin.
We recently used Advantage Home Inspections at the recommendation from our realtor; this was an unfortunate mistake. While the final report and disk full of photos were a good addition to the service, the thoroughness and breadth of the inspection was lacking. The inspection itself was for the most part, purely visual and missed several key components important to making a home buying decision.
When describing the roof condition to us, I asked if the inspector had actually went on the roof. He said he doesn’t go on roofs that he can see from the ground, but then later in his report remarked that he couldn’t see ½ of the roof, and assumed it to be good based on visual inspection of the garage portion. His estimate was the roof was at it’s half life and had 6 years left on it. As well, there was an attic in the finished garage that was not inspected and was ‘expected to be good’ since the house attic was.
Feeling uncomfortable, we hired a roof inspector –not a roofing company trying to sell something– to come check out the roof. They found missing shingles, warped wood and said this roof has run its life and needed to be replaced as soon as possible. Videos and pictures proved this was true. This should have all been covered in the initial inspection –as mentioned on Advantages website-;so this was another expensive fee out of our pocket.
When reviewing the AC unit, we were told by Advantage this unit was probably at the end of it’s useful life and we would want to get it replaced ASAP, if we bought the house. He admitted he didn’t open it up or check it, this was purely visual and that he would suggest hiring an Heating/​Cooling company to inspect it before purchase. Any other inspector we have used in the past has been qualified to do this inspection and testing themselves.
We hired a professional heating/​cooling company to come check out the AC unit. Not only did they tell us that the AC unit looked like it had been well maintained and was operating perfectly, they had found several items wrong with the furnace that we feel any good inspector should have caught. Again, another $ 200 out of our pocket.
Our inspector also told us the house had well water –even though it was listed as city water-​, to the best of his knowledge. Towards the end of our inspection –his second time through the house– he found the water meter and let us know it was in-​fact city water. This seemed like a ridiculous fact to not be sure of after your first time inspecting the house.
Items that were properly attended to were: Making sure all the faucets worked and sinks drained, making sure all the windows opened and shut correctly, suggesting that we put bath fan timers in the bathrooms, Suggesting GFCI outlets where appropriate –Did not test all outlets for proper grounding as would be expected-​, making sure we knew that garage door openers won’t shut sometimes because of in proper alignment of the detection beam and to not panic if it won’t go down.
After almost double the cost of the initial inspection, we finally had enough information to make a decision to not purchase a house. I would suggest not using Advantage for your home inspection unless you are okay with not knowing the condition of your roof, and only knowing basic knowledge that can be acquired via visual inspection.
Using Advantage Home Inspections ended up costing us double the price, and having only half the assurance we would want when buying a house.