HOUSEMASTER ALPHARETTA, GA Mark Thompson Alpharetta Georgia

I hate to have to write this review but I feel it's necessary to warn others about how this company is doing business.

I picked this company for my pre-purchase home inspection based on a recommendation from my realtor. She told me that they are a little more expensive but if they miss something they will take care of it. I think it was around $100 more then the competition but with the guarantee I thought it would be money well spent. So we got the inspection done and it came back pretty quickly. I was initially impressed with the level of detail included in the report. There was a breakdown of all categories, a rating for each and comments and pictures to explain why a category was rated as such. The garage door section was rated as poor. Comments on that section justifying the rating talked only about the lack of photoelectric sensors on the garage door and that it may not have been a requirement when the opener was installed but it is a requirement now. This being the case I should contact a service professional to inquire about sensors being added.

So day one after closing on the house I got some professionals to start addressing some of the items on the report. I brought an electrician out to address some other items on the report and I figured he was more than qualified to add the photoelectric sensors so I discussed it with him. It turns out the opener was so old that you couldn't even add the sensors so I figured my only option would be to replace the openers. Not ideal but I figured that was all I needed to do to address the poor rating in the report. This past Saturday I was walking through the garage and noticed something very concerning. The garage door has the old style coil springs to pull up the weight of the heavy wood door. I was shocked when I noticed the cable that goes around the pulley wheel was significantly frayed and was holding on by only a few strands. If I could include a picture I would so you can judge for yourself on whether you think this should have been caught.

So today I called out a service professional to look at the spring and he recommended total replacement and told me not to use the door at all because it was dangerous. He was completely shocked that the stressed coils and frayed cable wasn't noted on the home inspection. I then took the opportunity to respond to an email from Mark Thompson about what I had found and included a photo. I told him I was curious as to why it wasn't included on the report and asked him to give me a call to discuss. Instead of calling me Mark thought it would be better to email me back a response about how they rated the category poor and instructed me to seek a service professional.

That being the case, it was not eligible for repair. I responded by asking him why this specific item was not noted and that I had brought a professional out to discuss the sensors since that was the only item noted in the garage section therefore it was the only reason I thought the category was rated as poor. I told him I was not surprised by his response to deny and I was skeptical on whether Housemaster would ever honor their guarantee and now I had my answer. I also told him they missed other inspection items that I was on the hook for and I would take the opportunity to inform my realtor that they Housemaster was not honoring the guarantee. I also warned Mark that I would hit the internet with some reviews to warn others about this experience. Mark again responded in email regurgitating what he had already said about rating it poor. He failed to inquire about any other items missed in the report. I wasn't going to play this email game anymore so I picked up the phone to discuss this like men. Mark took my call and I explained to him the category was rated poor based on the sensors and there was nothing about the coils. I asked him if the comments on the coils should have been included with pictures in the report and he refused to answer the question. He stated we told you to bring out a service professional and you brought out an electrician. I told him I brought out a professional to address only the items in the report that justified the poor rating. I pressed him on why it was not included and said it's way more dangerous than the missing sensors.

This is where Mark became rather unprofessional and condescending. He asked me where are my facts about how coils are more dangerous than missing sensors. He began to raise his voice to me. At this point I had to stop him and ask him why he was raising his voice and to please keep it professional. We went round and round a bit and it was apparent that he was not going to answer my question on why it was omitted and he was not going to honor the repair guarantee that justified the higher inspection cost. He flat out told me that he thought I was just trying to get him to pay for repairs I needed to make anyway. I corrected him by telling him that if these repairs were specially included in the report I would have been able to negotiate this from the seller to be fixed before I moved in or at the very least negotiated differently and budgeted the money to repair them first thing. I also would not have put the safety of my family at risk. In the end I could see this was going nowhere so I simply told him this should have been noted and it's pointless to discuss it any further.

So why take all the time to write this? Well simply to warn folks that Mark Thompson will be completely professional with you until there is a point of disagreement at which time he will give every excuse in the book as to why it's not covered and might even start to yell at you in the process. If Mark would have just admitted it should have been noted in the report but not covered it based on his category rating I might have just moved on without writing this. But his attitude and condescending tone have me here. You decide if my opinion matters but don't count on them honoring their so called guarantee if you choose them for your home inspection.