Carson Dunlop & Associates

We recently purchased our first home in downtown Toronto and were advised to get a home inspection with Carson Dunlop. Our Home Inspector was very nice, and very good at assuring us that he knew what he was talking about and explained in a clear way common things that can go wrong with a house. However, he was apparently not able to detect that our house still had knob and tube wiring, multiple plumbing issues and black mold in every wall. We were able to detect these problems in the the first week of living there. You would think someone that is constantly looking at houses would have noticed them right away.
There might be situations where this can be valuable, but for the 400 – 500 we paid for the inspection plus the amount we have had to pay in oversights (over 10 000 so far), it was totally not worth our time or money. I feel from our experience with home inspections that it is a service based on fear mongering. If you look at a roof and it looks old, you’ll probably have to get a new roof soon. If there is a drip under a sink, you probably have to get it fixed. You do not need to pay someone with a fancy ladder and a fleece jacket to do the same thing for you.