As you may have heard, Texas has adopted new rules as to the reporting of AFCI and GFCI. Here in El Paso we as a city are just adopting the 2006 IRC.
Every home built will require a recommendation for additional GFCI and or AFCI?
GFCI or AFCI needing to be present in all circuits (living rooms, hallways, etc.) is going to drive buyers and agents selling NEW homes to think the home is “Deficient”.
Any ideas to report this?
Lack of GFCI & AFCI in appropriate locations is deficient per the TREC SOP and should be written up as such. I use:
and
Awesome! Thanks Mike.
Seems every house will have a “D” for the electrical section.
I was hoping to have some way out since the city is only adopting the 2006 IRC this year.
I am going to mark it appropriately and call it out and am still tweeking my comment to say, basically, no house even new complies with this new standard. Trying to find a good way to make it educational and like suggesting an upgrade, rather than calling it a problem. I hate the fact that sellers/builders will call out an electrician and the contractor will shrug and say “Don’t know what is wrong with that idiot inspector. Nothing wrong here. This is to code for when it was built.” Then the seller/builder extrapolates that comment (and the other ridiculous ones now required into, “that inspector called out all kinds of things that are not wrong. He is making stuff up. We are not doing any of these things he called out.” And now the real issues in the report are overlooked and discounted.
Here is what I use for new Homes built in 2008 or later. The language is tweaked a bit for homes built before 2002 and homes built from 2002 to 2008.
Feel free to use, modify, whatever.
This addition to the standard IMO actually harms the client rather than helps. Since these comments are / will be routinely ignored, the houses built between 2002 & 2008 that don’t have AFCI in bedrooms will now also be ignored, even though they were not built to standard. Prior to the new SOP, a comment that these were improper would stand out as a real defect. Now no one will even notice.
Such is the problem with trying to over regulate inspection. TREC’s SoP will be by passed faster than a business route next to the freeway.
Simply report the item as deficient according to TREC and to contact the City if there is a question. The City is free for the consumer. I would waste few words on the subject.
I do not verbally discuss the topic. I focus on major performance related defects and put the rest in writing. But then I oppose inspecting homes to code.
Home inspection is about to undergo a revolutionary change nationwide. It will blow your socks off and cannot be stopped. More on that later. :shock:
Well that’s fairly profound John. I look forward to your elaboration. 
Please elaborate
EL PASO? Where is that? 
Jesuit / Eastwood 1970.
Read a bit on Milton Freidman
Then think about the affect of over regulation. What alternatives will develop? I can speak of several but will discuss one.
People will use inspection to sell supplemental services. I have served ASHI Ethics and Chaired Texas Ethics. Like Mr. Friedman my philosophies changed with experience. I am now convinced you cannot regulate Ethics or for that matter home inspection. I can legally circumnavigate every Rule TREC has written on that topic.
I personally have no problem if an inspector says “I’ll inspect your home for free if you sign a 12 month lawn services ($650) and pest services ($650) contract. I’ll even throw in the first pest treatment for free.” The magnificence of it all is a residual business!
In these slow times I had an inspector call me to express his fear of going broke. I told him "Would you do an inspection and then return to clean the windows when the home is vacant for $300 or sit at home and go broke? He thought about it and actually snagged a job with it. He emailed me to say “John, cleaning the windows was no big deal. To my surprise the client asked me if I would return next year for $125 to clean them again. I have started a new business and my liability is minimal.”
While some might yell and shout “Ethics” let me explain the only people hurt by ethics are overly ethical people who have no marketing common sense. They cannot compete without creating rules to protect the public. They yell and ***** all the way to the poor house. I know of ethical people who do a great home inspection and a decent job shining glass. It the old lawyer analogy. All lawyers are not bad; thank God for the good ones. You cannot regulate ethics or quality.
Other profound changes are coming and I may discuss them one day. I continue to endorse objecting to regulation but in the same breath be very creative (and legal) about skirting it. The public would benefit by some ethical people working around idealist rule.
Thomas Jefferson quotes:
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
I get what you are saying John. My business has been evolving in this way without being aware of Friedman or his ideals. It would seem that many inspectors may fall into the pool of the “natural rate of unemployment” unless they can create additional revenue streams by thinking outside of the box.
When being innovative in a regulated invironment, it is necessary to stay within, but push against, the boundaries of ethics and the law in order to succeed at providing goods and services that customers both want and need.
Good post John!
While I may not be capable of thinking to the extremes that the Johns above do, I have to agree that being creative in these times may be a requirement rather than a luxury. Isn’t that what many, including iNACHI, have been proposing for years? Ancillary services, ancillary services, IR, www.overseeit.com , illicit drug inspections, air filters, alarm company kickbacks, the list goes on & on. The only thing that has kept food on my table & kept me in business since Nov is keeping my name in front of Realtors and prospective clients and getting a few inspection jobs (as compared to a year ago), my fledgling inspection test equipment business and a project oversight job for a CA client with deep pockets. That $80/hr project oversight job even included meeting delivery men at the home to accept delivery & oversee the setup of furnishings. Hey, whatever it takes guys.
Mike,
Can you describe the extreme thoughts with which you may not be capable of thinking about? :D:D:D
…or is that impossible because they simply cannot co-exist with the clutter crammed into your grey matter as a result of attending one too many TREC meetings? 
If I were able to describe those thoughts then that would result in a circular argument that defy my logic. See…I told I couldn’t do it. But you may be on to somethere there with the TREC thing John…