How to Choose a Home Inspector School

     All home inspector schools are not the same. Consider the following:

In-person vs. online - While an online class has the advantage of attending remotely and working at your own pace, sitting in front of a computer for 80 hours and trying to pay attention is difficult if not impossible for most. An in-person class gives you real time interaction with the instructor and fellow students. Need clarification or don't understand something? The classroom setting allows immediate additional discussion and instruction to enhance your learning. In-person training also allows hands on training. Touch, handle, and operate the house components you are learning about for reinforced learning. Home inspecting is not something that can be taught well just reading screen after screen. In-person training is essential.

National Home Inspector Exam textbooks included - Our 80 hour pre-licensing course includes the National Home Inspector Exam textbooks. This two volume set (a $259 value) is a great resource to help you pass the National Home Inspector Exam. They are are also an excellent reference to use throughout your career.

Course Fees - Many potential home inspecting clients want to pick the lowest priced home inspector. We teach our students to say something like this to these potential clients "Purchasing a home is one of the biggest financial decisions you will make. Are you sure you want the lowest priced home inspector checking out the home for you?" Choosing your home inspector training is similar. The training you choose can have a big impact on your success. Paying a little more upfront for a better chance of success is well worth it.

Instructor qualifications - All of our instructors are experienced active Ohio licensed home inspectors chosen for their ability to teach and willingness to share their knowledge. They incorporate their current real world experiences into the classes they teach. There are regional differences and changes over time to the home inspection industry. You don't want an instructor with only out of State experience or an instructor who has not performed a paid inspection in many many years.

Hands on training - Hands on training is an invaluable learning tool. Our classroom includes three furnaces, an air conditioning unit, three water heaters, two electrical panels and bins and bins of house components our students can touch, handle, and operate. This reinforces classroom learning and better prepares our students for real world home inspections.

Fieldwork done in actual occupied and vacant homes - Our inspection fieldwork is done with instructors in real world occupied and vacant homes. We feel this is the only way to gain practical experience. Some schools ask you to inspect your own home and report back, have training homes with staged issues, or take you through a video of a home inspection online.

Emphasis on report writing - Writing quality inspection reports is a huge part of being a successful home inspector. We emphasize report writing in our 80 hour classroom course and in our 40 hour experience class. In our 40 hour experience class we inspect real occupied and vacant homes, you write inspection reports for each of these homes, then we review the reports in a classroom setting. This gives you the full experience of performing home inspections to better prepare you for your first paid inspections. Other schools simply tour homes all week because they lack classroom facilities.

Tools Included - This may sound good, but we do not include any tools with our courses. Here is why. You are going to be using these tools every day. You want quality tools that you picked out. You don't want someone else picking out your tools usually based on what is cheapest. The basics are a flashlight, tool belt, screwdriver, and an outlet tester, but you are likely going to want much more. See our Recommended Inspector Tools page for a complete list including what you will use them for.