One thing that I did when I started my own home inspection business was to get trained in many areas. Not only did this increase my knowledge base and supply me with continuing education hours that I needed, it also allowed me to offer additional services to my Clients. This in turn boosted my income. While I started out in the top 25% for price per square foot on inspection fees, many of my competitors simple didn’t believe in offering some of services I offered. So when a slow down came along, they were the first ones who felt it in their pockets.

Why You Should Offer Additional Home Inspection Services

Offering additional services to your Clients helps you in more ways than just income. Here are several advantages to offering multiple services.

  1. Offering additional services requires little, to no up front money. Some services may require specialized inspector tools, but you can get started in most for low cost.
  2. Increased income from the same Client. This means while you’re income increases, your expenditures on advertising, gas to get there, reporting and other expenses stay the same. Increasing the amount you make from each Client will exponentially grow your income like nothing else. You’re already at the home, you might as well take advantage of it!
  3. Offering additional services makes you and your company look professional. This gives Clients more trust in you which leads to them more likely calling you over your competition who doesn’t offer such services. Even if they don’t use your add-on services.
  4. Some of the skills you’ll gain by offering additional services may open up a whole line of other work for you. For example, I was doing ‘Energy Audits’ before they became popular. Then when the whole ‘Green Energy’ explosion came along, I was finding that the demand for an experienced Energy Inspector had some great financial benefits. Since my Energy Inspections were nearly as much as a normal home inspection, and the reporting was simpler, you can see why I loved doing Energy audits!
  5. Additional services may bring in Clients that you would otherwise not get. It was not uncommon to be doing one type of Inspection and the Client, or friends or family, would come ask me if I did other types of Inspections. I also made sure my business card told of all the Inspections that I performed. This was a real boom, especially with my Commercial Inspection clients because they usually knew other people who were buying homes or businesses that would need inspection. Or if they ever needed a specialized inspection, they knew who to call.

These are only four good reasons to offer specialized inspections and additional services. But before throwing out more shingles, make sure your Insurance company will cover you (if you’re required to have insurance). Also you’ll need to find out whether the additional services below require an additional license in your area. For example, in some places you must be certified before you can perform Carbon Monoxide inspections.

Additional Home Inspection Services You Can Offer To Increase Your Income

  • Construction Phase Inspections – Since I had a strong background in Construction and Building Codes, it was only natural that I became Code Certified and offered my Clients Construction Phase Inspections. Especially since I could show them how City Inspectors as well as the Builders Inspectors often missed serious flaws. I would typically have 3 to 4 Phase Inspections before the Builder finished the home. These included: Pre-Pour inspection (before the foundation was poured), Phase 1 (frame inspection just prior to the Roof being installed), Phase 2 (when home is dried and rough electrical and plumbing has been installed), and Final Inspection. There were times when the housing market for pre-owned homes tanked that these Phase Inspections kept me and my Inspectors busy.
  • Carbon Monoxide Testing – I highly recommend you get the proper training for carbon monoxide training whether you’re required too or not. There are quite a few Inspectors who offer this service and it’s a good boost to your bottom line if your charge enough for it.
  • Water Well Inspections – My Dad had his own drilling company while I was growing up. So it was only natural that I offered a service where I’d check out the equipment for my rural customers who had water wells. Your state may require you to have a special license, so again, check it out before jumping in. Also if your able to do it, you may want to offer to do water test for them…at an extra fee of course!
  • Outbuilding Inspections – Speaking of rural customers, many of mine had detached Garages, Shops and Barns. I always offered to check the structure and any electrical or plumbing that was present for an extra fee.
  • EIFS Inspections – Although from what I’m seeing these days, this isn’t as big as a market as it once was, it may be worth your time and effort to get certified in this field. Just check around your area and see what other EIFS inspectors are getting and how busy they are.
  • Mold Testing – Again, this one usually requires extra licensing and certification so check before jumping into it. This is another market that has cooled off but there are still plenty of Citizens worried about it who will pay good money to have it checked before buying a home.
  • Swimming Pools – These can be real big money makers if you have the training and expertise to do them. Of course, be sure that there’s a demand for them before getting trained. If you live in a place like Fairbanks Alaska, I don’t think you’d have much demand for them. See what I’m talkin’ about?
  • EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) Testing – This is one that I never took up because I just never found enough information about it for me to consider it credible. But over the years, I had plenty of people ask me about it.
  • Microwave Testing – This is one that I would do just for kicks and to get some “Oohs and Awess” from from my Clients. There is a microwave tester (I think it’s called Micro Chek) you put inside the Microwave and turned it one. It had three differnet lights that would light up if the microwave was operating properly. If the lights didn’t flash consistently, then you knew you had bad coverage. You could run this same tester around the door to see if there was any leakage of the microwaves from the unit itself. It was pretty cool, but I never charged for it and my tester “walked” away one day while training another inspector. But I’ve heard of others charging anywhere from $5 to $15 to do this.
  • Building Envelope Inspections – This could be teamed up with Energy Audits to make a heckuva potential income stream. It’s also seems to be the big thing these days as more and more home inspectors are using Thermal Imaging cameras. It should go without saying that you’ll need some good training. Don’t scrimp on the training here. You usually get what you pay for!
  • Wood Destroying Insect (Termite) Inspections – I’m not aware of any State that does not require you to be licensed to do these test. I’m not saying there isn’t a State out there that doesn’t, I’m saying that it’s a good chance that your State will require you to be licensed to do these. But this is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, additional service Inspectors offer to their Clients.

So there you have it. A lit of additional home inspection services you can offer to your Clients to bring in more income for you. Like I said earlier, the more you can do at a home, the less marketing and such you’ll have to pay for. It just makes good sense to be as efficient as you can in this business. If there is an additional service you’re offering to your Clients to make money but isn’t listed above, drop me a comment and let us know about it!

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