Ray Wilson's Blog

I performed an inspection on City Island in Bronx NY last Sunday, and the client showed up 15 minutes after I arrived. Within 15 minutes I found enough to make most buyers run the other way, but this buyer was so in love with this house he did not hear me initially. The seller showed up before th...

I performed a home inspection in Huntington NY recently, and this home is built on a steep hill overlooking Cold Spring Harbor. The roof of this garage doubles as a deck/patio, and a second patio in front of this house is adjacent to this area, and provides a lot of area to view the surrounding b...

My termite guy, Jim Harrington from Harrintgton's Pest Control, does most of my woood destroying insect inspections when I do a home inspection. He's been in business for over 32 years, and he is essential when it comes to finding termites and other wood destroying insects such as carpenter ants ...

I am often asked things I cannot answer at a home inspection, and sometimes look to the seller for a receipt or other proof of work performed on a house that I am inspecting for a prospective buyer. Major, expensive things like a roof, oil tank abandonment, a new cesspool, a new paving stone stoo...

It is somewhat easy to install siding, and yet many do things that are counter-productive to the siding installation. Bending aluminum trim covering that will prevent rain from contacting painted wwood trim is a bit of an art, but once you master it, it is not a difficult task. One of the most ba...

I do many inspections of older homes from the 1920' through the 80's, and the real old houses sometimes have low water pressure at the sinks. I am often asked why this happens, and most times I have the answer, but sometimes I do not. The house I inspected in Freeport, NY yesterday was built in t...

Many older homes in the Long Island and New York area had underground oil tanks when the house was built, or had coal fired boilers that were converted to oil. Many also had underground oil tanks for these boilers, and are now seeing the light of day after a home inspection is performed. Home Ins...

I am never surprised at the work I see regularly at home inspections in Queens NY, but you may be if you are not from this area. Many of these balloon framed houses from the 1920's and 1930's are renovated and sold to people who typically have no clue what they are buying. The contractor/flipper ...

I am never surprised at the work I see regularly at home inspections in Queens NY, but you may be if you are not from this area. Many of these balloon framed houses from the 1920's and 1930's are renovated and sold to people who typically have no clue what they are buying. The contractor/flipper ...

Being from Farmingdale, I spend many days in nearby Levittown, N.Y. when I was young. William Levitt and his brother and father built over 17000 homes in the late forties to 1951 for returninng GI's who were in desperate need of housing at war's end. Levittown houses were affordable to most, and ...