General Information

I am a new inspector in Southern California and am looking to find out what the going rates for: Mold, Radon and Infrared inspections are . also home energy audits.
Thanks

IMO… as a NEW inspector, your focus needs to be on honing your home inspection craft and not these ancillary services that may or may not hold value to your clients, and are only a distraction in most cases. Besides, once you are properly trained in these services, you will know what you SHOULD be charging.

Mold varies. The air is pretty dry in Southern California.

Radon: $0. No one asks for it. See: Radon testing in CA

IR: Varies, depending on the scope of the project.

home energy audits $0. The utility companies will do them for free.

Ian pretty much summed up my experience as well. I rarely encounter a client or real estate agent that even knows what IR is, so that typically turns into a half hour explanation.

As far as going rates, there’s guys out there that will pretty much give you “the works” (spend 1.5 hours at a 5000 sqft house, wave the IR camera around, swab shower door slider mold) for a flat fee of $199 and do 6 inspections per day. Then, there’s guys that will do top to bottom 3 day inspections for top dollar. Which kind do you want to be?

I really wanted to get into doing home energy audits. I think it’s a fascinating topic.

But my local department of water and power will do them for free.

And given the local summer weather we have near year around, few people even care enough to get an audit.