Home Inspection Cambridge MA

My name is Thomas Herbst I am a Home inspector in Cambridge Ma area. I started Clayton Home Inspections in 1994 with the purpose of delivering a thorough home inspection in Cambridge Ma so, homebuyers can feel good about moving into their new home. Prior to that, I was in construction since 1979. I started from the ground up and have a Pest Certification License over many years and Certified Wood destroying certification for many years now and retained my pest license and Home inspector License ever since.

Knowledge and Experience

This knowledge and Experience is useful when inspecting the structure also electrical system, plumbing system, heating system and looking for signs of active insect or damage, as insects can cause significant damage to a house. It is highly unlikely that you will find another home inspector with that much experience in House construction and pest damage Identification, along with that much experience in home inspections. Now, I’m not just talking about having a Home Inspection license. I’m speaking about having the genuine experience as a Contractor who has overseen multi-million dollar house constructions. Anybody can get a Home improvement license.

If you want to find some of the best home inspectors near me in Cambridge Ma, you certainly need to do some research. There’s nothing worse than moving into a house and then recognizing that you need to drop $10,000-50K into it immediately, all because of an unskilled home inspector.

First, go to the State’s Board of Home Inspectors’ website and make certain the inspector’s license is still effective. Next, check the inspector out at the Better Business Bureau. Check for complaints and read any reviews that may be posted.

Don’t go for the inexpensive home adviser home inspector. In this industry, oftentimes you usually get what you pay for. Whatever you’re spending for that house, it’s a lot of money and searching for a home inspector with a “bargain-basement hunter’s” mentality is certainly not the right method. Hope to hear from you soon.

What is inspected at a Home Inspection by a Home Inspector in Cambridge MA ?

Water damage Home Inspection by a Home Inspector in Cambridge MA

This is a significant part of a home inspection, as water is a home’s “worst adversary”. I am additionally inspecting the gutters and downspouts to safeguard they are taking the water far enough away from the structure.

Exterior Inspection

I’m examining the walls/siding, fascia’s, rake boards, soffits, and windows. I’m also checking the structural integrity of the building. Inspecting for structural integrity and safety. Inspecting underside, as well (if possible). Examining the condition of the roofing material (ie: shingles, etc.). Also inspecting vent pipes, exhaust vents, and skylights.

Attic Inspection

Confirming fundamental reliability of the roof. Making sure the attic is appropriately vented and insulated. Examination support system and for signs of water infiltration. Inspecting chimney (if present) and making sure there is a sufficient amount of insulation.

Interior Inspection

Walls, Floors, Ceilings, Doors & Windows Inspection. The State regulations only require that we operate one door and window per room. I go well beyond that.

Kitchen Inspection

State regulations do not require us to inspect appliances. I do not inspect and operate dishwashers, ranges, microwaves and trash compactors.

Bathroom Inspection

Inspect plus operate all toilets, sinks, tubs, and showers, checking for leaks and proper functionality. Also, inspect any exhaust fans.

Basement Inspection Home Inspection by a Home Inspector in Cambridge MA

Ensuring structural integrity, looking for signs of water penetration and also inspecting bulkheads.

Heating System Inspection (Temperature Permitting)

Inspect and operate all boilers, furnaces and air handlers. Making sure each room has a heat source. Inspection of oil tanks is not mandated by the State but they are certainly included in my home inspection.

Cooling System Inspection (Temperature-permitting)

Inspect and operate all cooling systems in-season (ie: condensers, compressors, evaporator coils, heat pumps, etc.).

Plumbing System Inspection

Inspect plus operate all plumbing fixtures. Observing for leaks in supply and drainage pipes everywhere. Inspecting there are no clogged pipes (backups). Water heaters are inspected.

Electrical System Inspection Home Inspection by a Home Inspector in Cambridge MA

Extremely important part of a home inspection from a cost standpoint, as well as safety. Inspecting all electrical panels. Ensuring proper grounding of an electrical system. Inspecting all visible wiring throughout the building for loose and/or exposed wires. The State regulations only require us to check one outlet per room. I go way beyond that.

Termite Inspection

I am actually looking for any kind of insect damage (ie: carpenter ant, termite, etc.) My 15 years (previous) experience as a contractor along with my 24 years experience as a home inspector simply cannot be matched. If you or someone you know has more experience than me in each of these two fields (and can prove it) then I will gladly remove this claim.

Well water test

This test is highly recommended for any house with Well water. I can test for up to 26 items in the water (ie: bacteria, lead, iron, VOC’s etc.).

Radon Testing (add’l fee)

Radon

If there is a finished basement or if you plan on finishing it, then this test is highly recommended. There are also other situations that would constitute performing a radon test.

Any Questions?

Call Today (978) 793-1346

Introduction to Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Introduction to Cambridge, Massachusetts

BRIEF HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

The natural landscape of Massachusetts Bay was shaped by glacial action and the gradually rising sea. Human occupation in Cambridge dates back some eleven to thirteen thousand years to the melting of the last continental ice sheets. The first Europeans to document the area encountered a landscape of steep hills and islands, vast salt marshes, and shallow tidal streams meandering deep into the hinterland. This well-watered region also supported a seasonal population of Algonquians who harvested shellfish and game, cultivated crops, and established footpaths connecting river crossings, settlements, and hunting grounds.

In 1630

In 1630, a fleet of 11 ships carrying 700 passengers, set sail from England, bound for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This dedicated band of Puritans hoped to build their community around a purer, more Biblical church. The newcomers settled several villages around Massachusetts Bay, but could not agree on a capital. Also Seeking a protected site, John Winthrop and his assistants chose a small hill on the north bank of the Charles River, at the entrance to a small creek, 5 miles upstream from Boston. The Charles was deep enough to accommodate the era’s large ships, yet the passage was treacherous for those unfamiliar with the narrow channel. Later, a “pallysadoe,” a series of stockade fences and a trench, was built around the town.

Secure a deed

Disease and tribal warfare had decimated the native population before the colonists arrived. The few remaining Algonquians did not contest the preemption of their lands, but the colonists nevertheless were careful to secure a deed from Squaw Sachem, the widow of Nanepashemet, chief of the Massachusett tribe, who was living near the confluence of Alewife Brook and the Mystic River. In 1640 the General Court ordered that she be paid about £23 for the land occupied by Cambridge and Watertown and given a coat every winter during her lifetime.

Newtowne

Newtowne, as Cambridge was called by the colonists until 1638, was laid out in an orderly grid of streets, bounded today by Eliot Square and Linden Street, Massachusetts Avenue and the River. Each family owned a house lot in the village, planting fields outside, and a share in the common land. Boston was eight long miles away: a ferry at the foot of JFK Street carried passengers over the river to a path — now North Harvard Street — that led through Brookline and Roxbury, eventually traversing the spit of land that is now Washington Street. Until the Great Bridge was built in 1660-62, this was the only way to Boston, except via the ferry from Charlestown.

Soon, Newtowne had a meetinghouse, a school, and a marketplace (site of today’s Winthrop Square). Harvard College, Also one of the first colleges in America, was founded in 1636 to train young men for the ministry and positions of leadership within the godly community.

American Revolution

By the time of the American Revolution, Cambridge was a quiet New England farming village clustered near the Common and the College. The majority of residents also descendants of the original Puritans — farmers, artisans, and tradesmen, whose lives focused on Cambridge. Distinctly different were a small group of Anglicans — barely a dozen households — Also lived apart from village affairs, relied on outside incomes, and entertained lavishly in grand homes along Tory Row (now Brattle Street). The Tories’ houses and their church, Christ Church, still survive.

William Dawes rode out Massachusetts Avenue on his way to Concord on April 18, 1775. The following afternoon, four Cambridge Patriots died in a skirmish with retreating British regulars at the corner of Massachusetts and Rindge Avenues. The provisional government confiscated many Loyalist estates — George Washington used the Vassal-Craigie-Longfellow House as his headquarters for nine months in 1775-6. During the Siege of Boston, the General supervised the construction of three earthenwork forts along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. The remains of one, Fort Washington, can still be seen in Cambridgeport.

Cambridge became a city in 1846, uniting three rival villages — Old Cambridge, Cambridgeport and East Cambridge.

Old Cambridge

Old Cambridge had grown slowly and still retained its charming rural character. Small shops catered to the community and to students. Drawn by Harvard, and later Radcliffe College, brilliant men and women imparted an intellectual luster to the village. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz (founder of Radcliffe), William Dean Howells — all were seen on the streets of the village.

Before the opening of the West Boston (now Longfellow) Bridge in 1793, only three families lived east of Quincy Street. The bridge offered the first direct route from Cambridge to Boston and cut the distance between the two from 8 to 3 miles. Cambridgeport grew up along the roads leading to the bridge. Pleasant residential neighborhoods spread out from Massachusetts Avenue, while Central Square became the city’s true downtown. Margaret Fuller, writer and editor — and the first woman allowed to use the Harvard library — grew up in Cambridgeport, as did Richard Henry Dana, author of Two Years Before the Mast. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was a resident.

East Cambridge

East Cambridge opened for development in 1809, when the Canal Bridge, adjacent to the present Museum of Science, completed. The area was the city’s major industrial center until the 1880s. In addition Furniture and glass factories among the industries attracted to East Cambridge by cheap land, water transportation, and close proximity to Boston. Andrew Craigie, Also leading Cambridge speculator, lured the Middlesex County courthouse and jail to East Cambridge by offering to donate new buildings in 1813. Also 1841, social activist Dorothea Dix outraged by conditions in the jail and began her pioneering work in prison reform (For more information about Cambridge women’s history, visit the Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project website).

The devastating potato blight that struck Ireland in 1845 also caused many of that country’s rural population to flee. Thousands landed in Boston and Cambridge, destitute and without resources. In addition Many Irish immigrants worked in the clay pits and brickyards of North Cambridge, housed in crowded workers’ cottages. The majority of the city’s Irish lived in East Cambridge, laboring at unskilled jobs in the glass works and furniture factories. They developed a close-knit community, centered on and supported by the Catholic church. By 1855, twenty-two percent of the adults in East Cambridge were Irish-born.

Turn of the twentieth century

Around the turn of the twentieth century, immigrants from Italy, Poland, and Portugal began to arrive in the city, settling primarily in Cambridgeport and East Cambridge. French Canadians and Russian Jews came at this time, as well, settling in North Cambridge and Cambridgeport, respectively.

A small population of African Americans had lived in Cambridge from the earliest Colonial days, and in the early nineteenth century Cambridge’s integrated schools attracted many families from Boston. Harriet Jacobs, born a slave in North Carolina, ran a boarding house in Cambridge in the 1870s. She had lived in hiding for 7 years before escaping to the North and later wrote an account of her years in bondage, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Educator Maria Baldwin, a native Cantabrigian, held home study classes for Harvard’s black students, including W.E.B. DuBois. In 1889, she appointed headmaster of the Agassiz School, the first African American to hold such a position in the North. Twenty markers commemorating prominent Cambridge African Americans erected throughout the city.

Today, Cambridge also home to a culturally diverse population of over 100,000. College students from around the world study at Harvard, Radcliffe, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Lesley University. The heavy industries of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries replaced by technology-based enterprises, including software and biotechnology research.

–Cambridge Historical Commission

Further Reading:

• Books on Cambridge history
• Citizen Opposition to the Inner Belt, by Stephen H. Kaiser
• The Long-ago Squadrons of Cambridge, by Michael Kenney
• Cambridgeport and Its 1812 Streets
• Historic Site Markers
• FAQ
• Little Known Facts
• MassMoments article, “Site for Cambridge Selected, December 28, 1630.”

The Complete Home Inspection Cambridge MA

• Exterior home inspection (walls, trim, siding, grading)
• Porch, patio, balcony and deck home inspection
• Roof, flashing, and chimney, vents home inspection
• Structural integrity home inspection
• Interior (walls, floors, ceilings, windows)
• Attic home inspection (including rafters, ceiling joists, insulation, ventilation)
• Basement home inspection (water seepage)
• Heating system home inspection (Force Hot Air, Forced Hot Water, Heat Pumps, and distributions)
• Cooling system home inspection (Compressor, evaporator coil, service lines, drains, disconnects)
• Plumbing system home inspection (waste drains, venting, supply pipes, fixtures)
• Electrical system home inspection (Electrical outlets, wires, service panel(s), breakers, fuses, lighting)
• Termite (VA) home inspection (Included Termites, Carpenter ants, Rodents)
• Radon testing (add’l fee)
• Water analysis (add’l fee)
• Home Inspection near me in Cambridge MA