Environmental Testing for Home Inspectors

Home Inspection Firms Can Benefit from Offering Environmental Testing Services

Home inspectors play an important role in helping buyers, sellers, property owners, and real estate professionals understand the condition of a home. While a traditional home inspection evaluates visible components and systems, many potentially significant environmental concerns cannot be identified by sight alone.

Adding environmental testing services—including water quality, mold, radon, asbestos, lead, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and combustion by-products—allows home inspection firms to provide clients with a more comprehensive assessment while creating valuable additional revenue opportunities.

Expand the Value of Every Home Inspection

Homebuyers are increasingly interested in more than the structural and mechanical condition of a property. They also want to know whether environmental conditions could affect their families, particularly when purchasing an older home, a property with a private well, or a building with evidence of moisture, renovations, fire damage, or indoor air quality concerns.

Home inspectors are in an excellent position to offer these additional services because they are already on-site and have established a relationship of trust with the client.

Instead of simply recommending that the customer contact another company for environmental testing, inspectors can incorporate sample collection into their existing inspection services and send the samples to a qualified environmental laboratory for analysis.

This creates a convenient one-stop inspection service for the customer.

Water Quality Testing

Water testing can be particularly valuable for homes supplied by private wells. Depending on the property, location, and client's needs, laboratory testing may include:

• Total coliform and E. coli
• Lead and other metals
• Nitrate and nitrite
• Arsenic
• pH and other water quality parameters
• Bacteria
• VOCs and other chemical contaminants

Water testing may also be requested in connection with certain real estate transactions or mortgage requirements.

For home inspection companies, collecting a water sample can be a relatively simple addition to an existing inspection while providing significant additional value to the client.

Mold Testing

Moisture problems are among the most common issues discovered during home inspections. Roof leaks, plumbing failures, basement moisture, flooding, condensation, and HVAC problems can all contribute to conditions favorable for mold growth.

However, not every mold problem is obvious.

Air samples, surface samples, swabs, tape lifts, and bulk samples can be submitted to a laboratory to help identify and quantify mold and other fungal material.

Offering mold testing allows inspectors to provide additional information when clients have concerns about visible growth, musty odors, previous water damage, or indoor air quality.

Radon Testing

Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can enter buildings from the soil beneath them. Because radon cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted, testing is the only practical way to determine a home's radon concentration.

Real estate transactions provide an ideal opportunity for radon testing because inspectors are already coordinating access to the property.

Adding radon measurement services can therefore be a natural extension of a home inspection company's existing business.

Asbestos Testing

Older homes may contain asbestos-containing materials in numerous building products, including certain:

• Floor tiles and mastics
• Pipe and boiler insulation
• Roofing materials
• Siding
• Ceiling materials
• Textured coatings
• Plaster and joint compounds
• HVAC components and insulation

A standard visual inspection cannot determine whether a suspect material contains asbestos.

When renovation, remodeling, demolition, or repair work is anticipated, laboratory analysis of suspect materials can provide critical information before those materials are disturbed.

Home inspection firms that appropriately incorporate asbestos sampling services can help clients identify potential concerns before purchasing or renovating a property.

Lead Testing

Lead-based paint and lead-contaminated dust remain important concerns, particularly in older housing.

Laboratory testing can be used to evaluate paint chips, dust wipes, soil, and water for lead. Depending on the situation, inspectors may also identify opportunities for additional testing when deteriorated paint, renovation activity, older plumbing components, or other potential sources are present.

Offering lead-related testing can be particularly valuable when inspecting older homes.

VOC Testing

Volatile organic compounds, commonly called VOCs, can originate from paints, coatings, adhesives, solvents, fuels, cleaning products, furnishings, building materials, and numerous other sources.

Clients may request VOC testing because of unusual odors, recent renovations, new construction, chemical spills, or general indoor air quality concerns.

Laboratory analysis can help identify and quantify VOCs that would otherwise be impossible for a home inspector to characterize through a visual inspection.

Combustion By-Product Testing

Fireplaces, furnaces, boilers, water heaters, cooking appliances, attached garages, and previous fire or smoke events can introduce combustion-related contaminants into a home.

Environmental testing can help investigate materials such as:

• Soot
• Char
• Ash
• Combustion particles
• Smoke residues
• Other particulate contamination

These services can be especially useful when evaluating properties with a history of fire or smoke damage or suspected combustion-related indoor air quality problems.

Turn One Inspection Into Multiple Services

Environmental testing also represents an important business opportunity for home inspection companies.

A traditional inspection generates revenue from one primary service. Adding environmental testing allows an inspector to offer several complementary services during the same appointment.

For example, a homebuyer could order:

Home Inspection + Mold Testing + Radon Testing + Water Quality Testing

Another client purchasing an older property might request:

Home Inspection + Asbestos Testing + Lead Testing

The inspector is already traveling to the property, communicating with the customer, and performing the inspection. Adding appropriate sample collection can increase the value of the appointment without requiring the company to acquire another customer.

Increase Revenue Per Inspection

For many inspection companies, one of the most attractive aspects of environmental testing is the potential to increase average revenue per customer.

Instead of competing solely on the price of a standard home inspection, firms can build service packages and optional environmental testing upgrades.

This creates opportunities for additional revenue from existing customers while helping differentiate the inspection company from competitors that only provide conventional inspections.

It can also generate future business. A customer who discovers a moisture problem, renovates an older property, experiences a water-loss event, or develops an indoor air quality concern may return for additional testing.

Become a More Complete Resource for Clients and Realtors

Real estate professionals appreciate service providers who make transactions easier.

A home inspection company capable of coordinating multiple inspection and environmental testing services can reduce the number of contractors a buyer or agent needs to contact.

Instead of telling a client:

"You may want to have that tested."

The inspection company may be able to say:

"We can collect the appropriate sample and have it analyzed by an environmental laboratory."

That additional capability can strengthen relationships with real estate agents, property managers, mortgage professionals, homeowners, and other referral sources.

Environmental Testing Can Be a Natural Extension of Home Inspection Services

Home inspectors already possess many of the skills needed to successfully expand into environmental sampling. They understand buildings, recognize moisture and ventilation problems, identify suspect building materials, document property conditions, communicate findings, and follow established inspection procedures.

With proper training, sampling equipment, laboratory support, and an understanding of applicable state and local licensing or certification requirements, environmental testing can become a logical extension of a home inspection business.

Not every inspector will perform every type of sampling, and certain services—particularly asbestos, lead, mold, and radon services—may be regulated differently depending on the jurisdiction. Inspection firms can verify applicable requirements before offering these services.

Partner With an Experienced Environmental Laboratory

A qualified laboratory can be an important partner for home inspection companies expanding their environmental services.

EMSL Analytical, Inc. provides laboratory testing services for home inspectors, environmental professionals, property owners, and other professionals across North America.

EMSL's laboratory capabilities include testing for mold, asbestos, lead, water quality parameters, VOCs, combustion by-products, bacteria, and numerous other environmental contaminants.

EMSL also provides access to sampling supplies and technical resources that can help inspection professionals properly collect and submit samples for laboratory analysis.

More Services. More Value. More Revenue.

Environmental testing allows home inspection companies to expand beyond the traditional visual inspection and provide clients with additional information about the properties they are considering purchasing or already own.

By offering water quality, mold, radon, asbestos, lead, VOC, and combustion by-product testing, home inspection firms can provide a more comprehensive service, differentiate themselves from competitors, strengthen relationships with real estate professionals, and create new revenue from customers they are already serving.

For home inspection companies looking for ways to grow, environmental testing isn't simply another service—it can become an important new revenue stream and a valuable extension of the home inspection business.

Let EMSL help you setup your account today by contacting Kim McDonough at 1.843.628.3134 or KMcDonough@EMSL.com and expand your service offerings today!