Pristine Inspections & Testing

My wife and I recently bought house in Urbana, IL. We had Pristine Home Inspectors come and do our pre purchase inspection. They were very friendly and personable when they came out. After living in our house for about a month the kitchen plumbing became disconnected from our sink. As a result of this our crawl space was filled with 45 gallons of food waste disposal (consistency and smell of vomit). I had to ShopVac it out on a Wednesday morning because of time constraints and a Radon Installation. We had great plumbers come out and put in a temporary fix while we tried to sort things out. The plumbers explained what had happened and pointed to three things: first, one of the connections was put on backwards. Second, one of the connections had a couple of two inch pipes going into another two inch pipe (Imagine two sets of two lane traffic from two busy roads joining together onto a single two lane road). Lastly, the pipes had poor grade and were sometimes negative in grade (water can’t flow uphill). Our plumbers said these were major problems that weren’t up to code. These weren’t hidden pipes, they were in plain sight.
I contacted Pristine Home Inspections and they came out checked on the situation. During the visit the inspector was very nice, but disagreed with the plumbers on the grounds that the pipe was covered in dust in some areas. Which seemed reasonable. However, a few days later I noticed that our dryer exhaust/​ventilation was just emptying into our crawl space. This was also missed in the home inspection. This is why some of the pipes were dusty. All of this could be seen easily.
I called the plumbers and they came out and explained everything to me. They showed me what was wrong and it made sense. I knew I had to get the problems fixed. The total cost was $ 1200. As they did the work they showed me what they were doing and everything was exactly as they said it was. Because of the poor grade the pipes were filled with food debris which caused them to be weighed down and disconnect from the kitchen sink. We notified Pristine Home Inspections and they said that they were not code inspectors and refunded our $ 495 inspection fee on the condition that we release them from any financial liability. They didn’t seem like they were going to take any responsibility for anything they missed, so we took the $ 495 because the legal fees alone would probably not cover the cost of the plumbing.
I was not aware that home inspectors are not required make sure that things are up to code. Pristine Home Inspectors were very friendly and kind to work with, but in the end fell short of what I considered a «thorough examination». Ask your home inspector if they inspect to code. If they don’t find one that does OR pay a plumber, electrician and a roofer to come out and check things out. All the things they missed could have been negotiated in the sale of our house.

I have had a wonderful experience with Pristine both times I have used them. I have worked with John, and more recently, Mark. Both inspectors were incredibly knowledgable, thorough and professional. Mark went above and beyond answering questions and offering tips. He even helped me install some wheels on a piece of furniture I needed help with. I am not kidding! If I could give Pristine six stars, I would.