Directly hit the home inspector's "look and smell": no house is completely fine

Economic Observer special correspondent Chen Yueqin "Here again? Seven days, right? Which one are you looking at today? On December 17, Master Guo carried a one-meter-long black tool kit and walked into the Xiangyun Community in Jingxi, Fangshan District, which was in the process of handing over houses. Just after entering the community, the developer and the property staff greeted Master Guo with a smile.

Just a few days ago, Master Guo, who was specially dressed in civilian clothes, walked into this community for the first time under the leadership of the owner and was rejected by the property doorman. It turned out that the black kit revealed his identity — he was a home inspector.

At that time, the developer also invited a lot of people to block the door, and the owner almost fought with the developer, "I am the owner, my guests come to visit, why stop him?" ”

When a new home is delivered, responsible developers are vigilant and try to intercept people entering and leaving the community with detection tools. After some negotiations, the developer agreed to let Master Guo enter and exit the community under the guidance of the owner.

In the eyes of Master Guo, the home inspector is the doctor of the house, the house is the same as the human body, there are bones, skin, liver and other organs, a component is broken, the house will be "sick".

In the past two years, information on housing quality issues has been frequently reported on major media platforms, and some views have pointed out that this may be related to the neglect of quality by some developers in the context of the land transfer system of "limited house price and competitive land price". Home buyers are also increasingly suspicious of the homes they buy, and the role of home inspectors is gaining traction.

"Look and feel"

At 8:00 a.m., Master Guo, who lives in Daxing, Beijing, drove to Fangshan Jingxi Xiangyun Community, where he had been on a fixed "to work" route for a week.

Master Guo is a home inspector of a third-party home inspection agency, a few days ago, Jingxi Xiangyun pre-delivered, Master Guo was "dispatched" to here every day, an average of 3 to 4 houses a day. "We made an appointment at 1 p.m., and it's 2:30 p.m. now, and there's one more family to go by in the afternoon." At the door of the community, Master Guo waited anxiously while saying that he needed the owner to "personally" lead him to enter the community. After a while, the owner replied that the pre-acceptance procedures were delayed, and Master Guo began to make an appointment with the next customer.

At about 2:50 p.m., the owner picked up Master Guo. "In the first two years, I had to inspect 4 to 5 houses a day, working for more than ten hours from morning to night, and sometimes the owner waited for us." On the way to the community, Master Guo muttered.

Master Guo has been engaged in decoration for 15 years, and has been a home inspector for 2 years, he summed up a home inspection principle - from easy to difficult, that is, first detect the bump damage on the appearance, and then explore the potential hidden dangers with high difficulty, he laughed and said that this is "first look at surgery, then look at internal medicine".

When introducing the inspection process to the Economic Observer reporter, Master Guo unfolded five fingers: the acceptance of conventional hardcover houses is divided into five parts: water and electricity, bricklayer, oiler, carpentry, and the whole, and more subdividedly, including doors and windows, tiles, stone, wood, latex paint, wood paint, gypsum line, soft bags, wallpaper, flooring, water and electricity systems, cabinets, gas and other content.

The acceptance site on the same day is a common three-person combination, the owner, Master Guo and the developer's home inspector Wang Ge. Wang Ge is also a home inspector, and today he mainly explains the causes and effects of house defects to the owner on behalf of the developer, records the problems and specific locations found by the owner and Master Guo, and hands them over to the construction subcontracting company responsible for maintenance.

After the entrance door opened, the owner and Wang Ge quickly turned the living room and each room around, but Master Guo pushed and pulled at the entrance door, repeatedly listening to the friction of the door and the frame. "The hinge of the mother-of-child security door is loose, and there is a strange sound when it is opened and closed like this, and a maintenance master is needed to debug it." Speaking, Master Guo took out a sticky note sticker to mark it, and then used his mobile phone to take a photo to leave a certificate and upload it to the company's special home inspection app. "What is this? What went wrong? How can I change it? "During the inspection process, the owner often asks such questions." In the details of the detection of the outer surface, some owners look more carefully than we do, and we will explain the unnecessary repairs (details) to the owners. Master Guo said.

The owner looked at the marble "crack" on the washstand for a long time, thinking that it was a stone fracture pattern, Wang Ge explained to the owner that this is a natural pattern, still can not lift the owner's suspicions, "Of course you will tell me that this is natural."

Master Guo rubbed it back and forth several times and told the owner that the natural stone pattern itself is irregular, and in this case, you can feel the seams of the grain, if it is smooth and smooth, it is a normal phenomenon; if the undulations are uneven, it may be that the transportation process is broken and spliced again.

Master Guo explained that the unified hardcover work method is more extensive, wooden floors and tiles are prone to problems, the appearance of the wooden floor can not have too obvious scratches or damage, with a ruler to detect flatness, if the error is greater than the national standard 3 mm, the subsequent placement of tables and chairs is easy to tilt or swing. Master Guo also stepped on the floor hard to observe whether there was any anti-dust on the surface.

From the living room to the kitchen, from the bedroom to the bathroom, Master Guo needs to repeatedly operate each subdivision step, see and listen, knock and beat, and touch and measure. A door, a window, a brick, a wall, each with its own melody.

Because the empty drum in the hardcover room is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, Master Guo uses the empty drum hammer to quickly hit every floor tile and wall. If there is a noticeable difference in the sound of the bang, it is an empty drum. "In general, tiles located above or at the top of the wall, as long as the empty drum rate of a brick is greater than 15%, or the empty drum rate of the entire wall is greater than 5%, there is a risk of falling off, in this case, we will recommend the owner to replace."

Water and electricity system is the difficulty and focus of the inspection, Master Guo particularly emphasized that some circuit systems, water pipes embedded in cement, can be used normally in a short period of time, but after two or three years is prone to problems, leakage, leakage phenomenon will cause great trouble to the owner, "maintenance is not difficult, it is difficult to find the leakage point." ”

In response to the "difficult and complicated disease" of water leakage, Master Guo sighed, "Sometimes it is difficult to find the cause of the leakage and the amount of work is too large to cut open the floor and destroy the waterproof layer of the entire bathroom. "When inspecting the bathroom, Master Guo is particularly careful, after the property confirms that the house has done a closed water test, Master Guo will also check whether the water outlet, valve water meter installation is appropriate, whether the wet environment socket has a cover, whether the drainage pipe welding port is tight, etc." It takes 20 minutes to inspect a bathroom, and it takes about 2 hours to inspect a suite.

Prescribing a "treatment plan"

When pre-inspecting the house or officially handing over the house, if the owner finds a home inspector to conduct a house inspection, the general developer will also ask the inspection team or the property to follow up together, and the problems will be resolved by the three parties through consultation.

Each time a problem is found, the home inspector will inform the owner and another house inspector, and the other party will explain the construction, record it on the house acceptance form, and then repair and rectify it. "This brick is a high brick, the empty drum rate of a brick is greater than 15% of the national standard requirements, which is unqualified, and I recommend that you replace it to prevent the tile from falling off and injuring people." Master Sun, who did pre-acceptance of the haidian co-ownership housing project, knocked on the brick above the kitchen window with an empty drum hammer and said, "Although the brick in the corner of the bathroom is also an empty drum, it is next to the toilet, if the demolition needs to move the toilet, the amount of work is too large, and the bottom brick will not hit people, it is recommended not to change." "It's still the original match." Master Sun explained that the hardcover room should maintain the original structure as much as possible, and if it can be repaired, it will try not to replace or demolish and overhaul. One is that the cost is higher, and the other is that the house is also a whole, involving the whole body. For serious problems that affect normal life use, Master Sun will recommend that owners and developers repair and rectify. "Grasping the big and letting go of the small" is a principle of Master Sun's house inspection. "In the acceptance process of about two hours, it is impossible to do everything, so that a house cannot be inspected in half a day." Therefore, Master Sun will first find out the potential quality hazards, the subtle bumps and scratches will be slowly found, and the auxiliary tools used will become smaller and smaller - from the ruler, the angle ruler, the empty drum hammer, the macro rangefinder, to the mobile phone with its own flashlight.

Master Sun introduced that the company has a special home inspection report app, and every problem found in the inspection process needs to be taken and uploaded, indicating the specific location of the defect. After all the steps are tested, the app will generate a house quality inspection report in real time and proofread it online to the owner and developer.

Master Sun opened the mobile phone, and the house that had just been inspected was clearly marked: "1, the door is loosely framed, and the sub-hinge switch has a different sound; 2, the wall is injured by mistake, and the tile has an empty drum; 3, the flatness error of the living room floor is greater than 5 mm, it is recommended to level the treatment; 4, the kitchen door suction cannot be used, and the skirting board is not fixed...

By looking at the drainage speed of the bathroom, Master Sun found that the bathroom floor was tilted too small, there was no glyph slope, and it was easy to accumulate water. "In the subsequent use of the bathroom, people are prone to slip, and the water is soaked on the bottom of the wooden door, which also affects the life of the door." "Do you need to remove the floor and resurface it?" The owner raised a question, and the pen in his hand paused after the developer's home inspector who was recording next to him heard it. "Resurfacing floor tiles is not realistic, the workload is too large, and if the waterproof layer is destroyed, the impact is even greater." In accordance with the principle of economy and practicality, Master Guo suggested that the property install a shower curtain in the bathroom to block the overflow of water, and the bottom of the wooden door was re-coated with waterproof glue to play a protective role; the owner also paid attention to cleaning up the accumulated water in time when using it. This solution was eventually recognized by the owner and the property.

Master Sun frankly said that the problems and solutions to the house are not an either-or relationship, and the home inspector not only finds the problem, but also provides the best solution suggestions for the owner.

In Master Sun's view, fine decoration of such projects, bulk purchase of materials, unified decoration, in the basic construction environment, each worker will have large and small errors, "this is understandable and foreseeable."

"Room" afflicts relationship

Home inspectors like Master Sun and Master Guo, who help owners enter the community, often encounter obstacles from developers or property companies. In this regard, Master Guo said that if the inspection is stopped, let the owner communicate with the developer, and it is really not possible to test. "It's just a job, there's no need to take this risk."

According to Master Guo, under normal circumstances, developers rarely appear to be rude to the home inspector, once they encounter similar situations, try to communicate and resolve, "when encountering such occasions, you can't be tough, and you are also responsible for fighting." ”

For obstructing the home inspectors from entering the community, the Jingxi Xiangyun doorman told the Economic Observer reporter about their concerns. "A few days ago, some owners came to complain angrily that there were home inspectors who came to the door to sell solicitors and bring them trouble. Everyone followed the procedure and let the owner lead in and out of the community, and we also had to explain. ”

"Our company originally had special uniforms, but they were all put in the trunk of the car by me." Master Guo rummaged for a while and pulled out a red vest covered with folds, with the company logo and the words of the home inspector printed on the back. "It's too eye-catching, the first time I went to the real estate, how dare I wear it like this?"

"It can be felt that developers have become less and less confident in the quality of their products in recent years." Master Guo summed up the nearly twenty houses that were accepted in the past week, and the quality of the houses was quite good, the difference was that all the buildings were subcontracted to four decoration companies. Some buildings do have a lot of flaws, which may be a subcontracting company or a technical problem that is refined to a certain worker. But these problems are not enough to stop the home inspector and prevent them from entering.

Master Sun said that even if it is the same building, because the subcontracting company is different, the problems encountered by different buildings are very different. "The bricklayers in the two buildings of Fengjin Court are generally more meticulous, but the oil workers are somewhat 'confused' considering that the average price of co-ownership houses is cheaper, and the fine decoration is donated by the developer, and the buyers must also be mentally prepared."

"No house is completely without a problem." Master Sun said, "Our job is to tell the owner what problems there are in the house, how to repair it, and if necessary, ask the developer to replace and restructure." ”

Master Guo said that in the past two years, the profession of home inspector has gradually attracted attention, and home inspection is much easier than decoration. "On the basis of years of renovation experience, you know which improper construction processes will cause problems, and it is easy to prescribe the right medicine."

After the inspection, Master Guo seemed much more relaxed, "Although the home inspector is boring and has been repeating, these processes can be quantified." Each house is different, the size of the empty drum can hear whether the mortar underneath is too thin, or the reason for the pipe, step by step, like a doctor to find the 'cause', sometimes there is a sense of accomplishment. ”