National Home Inspection Ltd

Richard Gaughan was punctual, knowledgeable, thorough and patient. He answered all our questions with utmost details and easy to understand explanations. When topics were out of his expertise or he didn't have enough visible information, he gave us his candid opinion (with strong caveats) and advice us on who to contact to obtain accurate responses.
Realtor mentioned inspectors from other interested parties weren't as knowledgable and thorough as Richaed and asked for his business card so he could recommend him to his other clients!
Highly recommend his work to anyone looking for a reliable, thorough home inspector.

Mark Goddard hands down is an amazing inspector - he actually works for the Buyer and not agents. He is an engineer and has been doing this work for 20 plus years. It also helps that Laurie at the house is also nice when making the booking - they call if they are late or need to cancel. I am sold on National and will never go anywhere else. The only thing/complaint is that the report came a wee late.

We were lucky enough to have Richard from National do our home inspection on short notice and we were very impressed with his thoroughness, attention to detail, patience and excellent communication skills. Our agent, who has worked with many inspectors, was equally impressed.

Based purchase of house on inspection. House had some obvious signs of water damage on ceilings, so roof was a priority for inspection. Richard Gaughan from National inspected house and gave all clear for water damage, except a small part of roof with old shingles(he estimated cost at $1500-2000), and specifically said water damage problem was not on-going. Renovated house, discovered severe roof problems, and had to replace entire roof as water leaked from roof into house constantly, even in light rain. Roofer showed me BARE PLYWOOD visible on roof and roof peak with no shingle capping and said "you'd have to blind to miss the roof problems". Interior reno delayed until roof was fixed, some joists had to be replaced as they were rotted by water. Cost of unanticipated roof repair - $7000+, other repair costs still being determined ($80000+). Spoke with Richard, who offered no solution/apology. Said he provided a "valuable service" and could only examine what was visible/accessible, despite our concern re: water damage and roof. Richard was very professional during inspection and offered suggestions, which really proved to be irrelevant. I'd like to know about the roof, not that the building code requires railings for my deck that was higher than 2 feet! Will never hire this company again!

Mark from National Home Inspection did a "mid-life" home inspection for us after we'd had the house for 13 years and were finally in the position of being able to deal with some of its little quirks.

Because we know the house pretty well we could appreciate all the things that Mark spotted - and all the things that we hadn't. (Keep your eavestroughs clean or terrible things will happen!)

We particularly appreciated the computer-generated report, along with the estimates for repairs necessary and the prioritization of how urgent things are. The report also comes with a guide to how much repairs of all kinds had cost in the previous year. It's really helpful to have a good sense of ballpark prices, especially when you're an obviously female and obviously kind of ignorant homeowner having to deal with tradespeople. The cost of the inspection is a really useful investment towards the future repairs that are inevitable.

Highly recommended!

I would recommend Scott Duncan from National. He's meticulous and thorough and identified a number of issues that we could consider prior to putting in an offer on the house. I spent 3 hours going around the house with Scott. He summarized his findings in a 20-page computer-generated report which has served to be an excellent reference document as we make decisions about renovations and repairs.