Forest Hills covers some of the most sought-after housing in Kent County, and the homes tend to be larger and more individually designed than the regional average. More square footage is not simply more of the same inspection; it is a different inspection.
Large houses have more roof, and complex roof lines have more valleys, more transitions and more flashing details, which is where leaks begin. They frequently have two or more furnaces and air conditioning systems, which means two of everything that can fail and twice as many places for condensate and combustion venting to be done wrong. Attics are bigger, so insulation gaps are easier to miss and more expensive to leave. Finished lower levels conceal foundation walls, which means we are reading indirect evidence rather than looking straight at the concrete, and we will say so rather than implying certainty we do not have.
Custom construction also means custom detailing, and detailing is where water gets in. A production builder repeats one correct detail across a subdivision. A custom home improvises, and the improvisation is sometimes brilliant and sometimes not.
Kent County falls in EPA Radon Zone 2, with a predicted average indoor screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L, and a finished lower level is precisely the space you would want tested.
We have conducted over 30 home inspections in Forest Hills, Michigan, and here are some of the things we have commonly found.
Roofs: On average, less than 10% of the homes we inspected in Forest Hills had gutters or chimney caps.
Plumbing: In Forest Hills, less than 10% of the homes we’ve inspected had galvanized plumbing. This is great!
Electrical: Less than 10% of the homes we inspected in Forest Hills had updated electrical boxes. Less than 10% of homes in Forest Hills had knob and tube wiring.
Foundation: Only 1 in 10 homes we’ve inspected in Forest Hills had structural concerns, or asbestos concerns.
