I hate to sound wishy washy, but good home inspectors are worth it, and bad home inspectors are not.

O.K. thanks that was a lot of help!

We, my wife and I, purchased our first home years ago we were very green, and trusted the realtor to find us an inspector. Later we found out that we should have been present when the inspection was taking place. Well to make a long story short 6 months later we found some serious problems, that nobody would claim. We contacted the inspector to came back out to look at the problem only to say "that was not there, when I inspected the house." Yeah right! Major lesson learned.

On our new house we sought many references for a new inspector and found a good one. He inspected two houses. The first one, he basically told us, in his politically correct diction that he is required to use, that it was junk. And we ran! The second, I was there, and I persuaded and proded him to look at everything. He was with me for about 6 hours. I felt very comfortable about purchasing the house.

He was kind of expensive, but he came highly recommended. I spoke with others that were considerably cheaper but I just did not have a good feeling about them.

So is a home inspector worth it? I say a resounding "yes"! You are about to make one of the largest purchases of your life, have as much back up as possible. Do not - I will repeat - DO NOT leave it up to them. When you hand him a check and he leaves it is your solely responsibility, you are the homeowner. You look where he looks, you take your own flashlight. you own pictures. Ask tons of questions and ask some more. They are trained in this for their living, but they are human. They also have a sheet for you to sign stating that if they miss anything they are not held responsible. Don't let that scare you, it is standard proceedure (to cover their "humanness.") So you better come to the inspection prepared.

Denton Lesslie is the president of http://www.greathomeimprovements.com and a consultant for Department of Energy's Building America Division for the last 6 years. He is responsible for all the content and marketing for http://www.greathomeimprovements.com - Great Home Improvements Start Here