Home Inspectors in Canada are up in arms again; this time over the recent release of a draft Standard for home inspections by the Canadian Standards Association. As a participant in the development of the Standard, I thought that I would shed some light on the process and the draft standard.

The Canadian Standards Association is recognized across the globe as a trusted developer of standards and certification. Many building codes, for example, either reference CSA standards, or outright adopt a CSA standard as the code itself. For example, the Ontario Gas Code is based on a CSA standard (CAN/CSA B149).  CSA standards are developed through a defensible and consistent process that is recognized by legislators and industry. That process involves the creation of a committee with a balanced matrix, meaning that the committee is made up of representatives of numerous stakeholder groups and that no stakeholder group can wield undue influence over the creation of a standard.

A couple of years ago, CSA started to put together a committee to develop a standard for the home inspection industry. The timing was right, in some ways. In other ways, the project may have commenced a little too late.  You see, the home inspection industry had recently been regulated in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and a consistent standard was desirable to regulators. It would have been nice to have a consistent standard earlier, before licensing of home inspectors, but the process was already underway. In Ontario, regulation was being discussed at the same time as the CSA committee was starting its work. The panel that provided recommendations to the Ontario government recommended a consistent standard and recommended that Ontario take a look at the CSA standard when it was completed. Unfortunately, this could not be a definitive and final recommendation, since the standard would not be published until more than a year after the panel’s report was presented.

The CSA committee that is developing the standard is definitely a balanced one. There are  members representing consumers, Realtors, regulators, technical experts and, of course, home inspectors (including representatives of regional and national home inspection associations). Over the course of five meetings, the draft standard was hammered out. There were times where it wasn’t easy at all, and many challenging issues were discussed. I think that one of the things that led to the desire for a standard was the very thing that makes defining a home inspection difficult: a home inspection is the provision of an opinion based on a brief visual examination of building that a home inspector can’t dismantle. Every house is different, and every system has been installed and maintained by different people at different points in time, and every client is different. It’s not like developing a standard for the installation for a furnace or an electrical system – those are both examples of a job that is being done from scratch, using new systems and components. It is not even like developing a standard for the inspection of a residential electrical system (another standard that I was on the committee for), since the very nature of the standard sets the scope. The committee developing the home inspection draft standard has had to not only outline what a home inspector does, but has had to grapple with the fundamental question of the scope of a home inspection. In the big picture, what is a home inspection? What should it include? This is a significant challenge.

I’ve often tried to define the scope of a home inspection based on three things:

•What is the skill set of the home inspectors in the industry?

•What are the conditions or “”defects” in a home that would influence the typical buyer’s decision to purchase that home?

•What are the operating conditions that limit the home inspector?

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At this point, we have a draft standard that includes a number of things that many (most?) home inspectors don’t consider to be part of their scope. And that’s a bit of a problem, because if the eventual standard is not embraced by home inspectors, it is much less likely to be adopted. Unfortunately, several groups of home inspectors have taken a adversarial approach to the draft standard. Dramatic press releases and other public (and private) statements have been circulated,  prophesying a terrible future for the home inspection industry and condemning the draft standard.

I think that this effort is all misdirected. CSA has moved the development of the process as far as it can go at the committee level. Now, it is time for the public (including every home inspector out there) to participate in the next step of the development of the protocol. In October, the draft standard was released for public review, so that everybody can have a say. Frankly, I suspect that other than a handful of interested bystanders, the vast majority of comments will be coming from home inspectors. That is really where everybody’s efforts should be directed – towards a thoughtful review of the draft standard, and the submission of constructive recommendations, including rationale. This will lead to a final standard that will consider the input of many people, perhaps even hundreds, rather than the two dozen people on the CSA committee.

Questioning the need for a CSA standard on home inspection isn’t really the issue at all. The standard is being developed, and the best chance for a quality standard that addresses the needs of the home inspection industry is for the inspection industry to stop trying to fight it and instead make its views known.

The draft standard on home inspection is open for public review until December 15, 2014 at http://publicreview.csa.ca/Home/Details/1368