YOU'D BE CRAZY TO BUY a house without first hiring a qualified inspector to give it a good once-over. It'll only cost you $250 to $500 and, assuming you pick a good inspector, you'll close the deal confident that you're not buying a lemon. Although billed by real estate agents as a home buyer's ultimate protection, home inspection is neither a science nor, in most cases, an art. To become an inspector you need only call yourself one, without going through any training at all. And home inspectors never guarantee their work. In fact, almost all will require you to sign a preinspection disclaimer that limits their liability to the amount of their fee. How likely is it that a home inspector will miss something? Consider the test a Philadelphia news show conducted a couple of years ago. Four certified inspectors who advertise their experience were hired, separately, to check out a house known to have five major flaws: structural termite damage, a leaky boiler, a decaying roof, a disconnected main electrical ground and a wobbly detached garage.

Only two of the inspectors uncovered the problems; the third missed four defects while the last so-called expert missed them all. So, whether you get the name of an inspector from a trusted broker, a friend or the Yellow Pages, you've got to probe to be sure that you will get all the information you need to answer the question yourself. While the idea of interviewing inspectors may seem obvious, the most important clues to their competence are often overlooked. Here are the three most important areas for you to probe. "What Are Your Qualifications?" "Inspector" is quite an official-sounding title, but you don't need a license to use it, and the few states that regulate the home-inspection industry at all do so only minimally. That doesn't stop home inspectors from touting their professional "certification," though. There are trade groups out there that provide inspectors with credentials. And what must you do to get certified by, say, the National Association for Home Inspectors? Just send in a report and a copy of a bill from one home inspection -- and your $325 check, of course. The American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) is more thorough. It issues the only credential

you should accept: Members must pass two in-class exams and perform 250 supervised inspections to be certified. While candidates had to pass only an open-book, take-home exam to be certified prior to 1990, every two years inspectors young and old must complete 40 hours of refresher courses. You can check with ASHI at 800-743-2744 to confirm if an inspector has taken the refresher courses and is a member in good standing; the organization will also mail or fax you a list of ASHI-certified inspectors in your area, free of charge. "What's Your Experience?" You should look for someone who's done at least five home inspections a week for two to three years. Some inspection companies will send out a novice, rather than the expert who has the ASHI certificate. And forget the builders, architects and engineers who do a little inspecting on the side. They don't have the well-rounded expertise you are looking for. Besides, the industry is riddled with off-and-on practitioners who use inspections as a business-development tool for their contracting or renovation work. "What Exactly Will You Inspect For Me?" The industry standards among home inspectors are lax, to say the least. Even ASHI's guidelines do not require its members to check the "strength, adequacy or efficiency" of any "system" in a house, which includes plumbing, heating, air conditioning, electricity -- in other words, practically everything you care

about. The most telling sign of an inspector's competence is the report he puts together after scrounging through a house. Before you hire, ask for copies of a few old ones. Many inspectors work from standardized reports that, while long, don't get specific about the property. Other reports are basically checklists -- a signal that you've got a lazy inspector who treats every house the same way. A good report is chock-full of details, indicating that the inspector looks over everything. A report should read like a narrative guide to the house, recalling every step of the actual inspection and offering concrete advice on maintenance and repair. If something doesn't work right, the report should say that explicitly and explain the consequences of the fault. It should also say how soon repairs should be made, what they are likely to cost, and what repair alternatives should be considered.

For example, a report by Pennsylvania inspector Andrew Kleeman (who was a consultant for the Philadelphia news test) mentions even a few displaced tiles above a bathtub spout. "Use of the fixture will allow water seepage behind the tiles," wrote Kleeman, who recommended that the tiles be repaired. "The estimated cost to reset the affected tiles onto the existing backerboard is $100. If tile removal reveals currently unanticipated backerboard damage, full retiling of this section of the bathing enclosure will be warranted -- total costs would probably range from $250 to $500."

Now that's a good report. Of course, few home inspectors write with the clarity of Hemingway. Many will describe the condition of something imprecisely -- "damaged," "faulty," "unsatisfactory," "poor" -- rather than saying outright: "Fix this now." When Vera Hollander, a spokesperson for ASHI, had her home inspected the report said the water heater was "near the end of its lifespan." She took that as a cautionary note, but not a prescription for action -- what happens when a heater reaches the absolute end of its life, anyway? It stops heating? Three years later she found out: The heater burst, spilling 50 gallons of water into her newly refinished basement.