Buying a shack can be a great adventure, you may however only see the fantastic views, lifestyle and a place to call your own away from the pace of city life. 
During a house and shack inspection, I get to spend 90 minutes looking at every aspect of the building, from the roof downwards.
All these photos are from one shack on the Murray River, that I looked at last week. From the inside looking up at the freshly painted crisp white ceilings looked fantastic.
Using a thermal camera, no insulation can easily be seen, in either walls or ceiling space. This will be a hot environment for your family during daytime summer, even at night with the air conditioning struggling to cope.
Guttering, although new to look at from underneath, are so poorly attached, with only a few gutter clips installed, will undoubtedly cause issues once a heavy rain hits the roofing.
The roofing has been sleeved with a poorly attached skinny strip of sheeting, as it was too short to reach the guttering. Then rusted roofing holes were patched with any type of sheeting the last owner could find.
Rusted sheeting still not patched in other areas or silicone placed over anything that should have been replaced, to temporarily stop leaking.
The eaves, above the verandah, show the bulging from water and leaf ingress into the ceiling space.
Other obvious issues, such as the lack of barge flashing's and obviously leaking pipe penetrations all add up to an expensive repair that you were probably unaware of at the time of making your offer to the vendor.
This shack had many other issues, but this article was simply about showing the poor roofing maintenance or patching up to sell issues that are quite common. 

Paying for a house inspection, you are getting your house examined for issues that include termite damage. However it takes at least another 30 minutes on top of the 90 minutes allocated for the house inspection to be thorough and look for active termites. This is why there is an additional fee, for a pest inspection in addition to the normal charge. If two reports are to be written up, there will need to be that extra fee. It's only fair for the time spent and it is in your best interest to have it done. I like to be pro active but also up front with my clients, I will only charge out the additional fee once on site and if an issue has been discovered. If I see no need for the pest inspection, I will not call you and advise it should be done. The way I see it, if you want to have both services done, I am more than happy to spend 2 hours at the house and supply two reports. If you are happy to just know that damage was discovered, you then know that there is likely structural damage and not want to proceed with buying the house, that's fine too, why should you spend more at this point. 
Fees and charges are explained on the home tab above. Thanks for having a read and I hope I can assist you with your biggest purchase, your next rental property or with an inspection for your holiday home.

There are many benefits to a steel frame home, but also disadvantages that are not advertised to you.
Often advertised as termite proof, this sadly is not 100% correct as many timber components are still used in the house. A common termite entry point is from under the house slab, entering next to moisture areas, such as around pipes and drains. The kitchen cupboards and bathroom vanity units, located next to these wet areas are made of timber or timber components, as is the cellulose (paper) faced gyprock wall sheeting and cornices that the termites will attack.  
Timber is a natural insulator from heat, however steel transfers the heat from the roof sheeting, to the hot ceiling space, then down through the walls due to the steel trusses and steel wall framing. 
Electrical interference due to the steel wall framing is another possible factor, that may effect your WiFi and cell phone signals. You probably have experienced this in shopping centres.
Water leaking from pipework, leaking gutters or just salty air from your location near the ocean can rust and corrode the steel framework.
Timber framework can be modified on site to rectify issues that arise during construction, steel framework should not be modified as the framework is engineered with connection points that are critical for the overall strength of the house.
Timber framework burns, but steel frames houses can collapse, as the structural rigidity of steel is lost when steel is heated during a fire. Most house fires are not caused by the timber wall frames catching fire, but by electrical faults with appliances, curtains with candles, synthetic carpets and materials too close to heaters etc.
From a house inspectors point of view, I cannot inspect inside the ceiling of a steel framed house as it is not structurally stable to walk on the trusses or ceiling joists. I can inspect a timber framed roof. 
The advertising from steel frame house organisations, sounds too good to be true, so look into all the pros and cons yourself, with your next home investment. 

When looking at a home, certain things should give off a warning to a home buyer.
The first photo is of the gap between the pathway and the house, showing the pathway has moved 100mm away from the house. This is probably due to poor site preparation on reactive soil or a retainer wall not adequately supporting the soil around the house. As this house has been built on a strip footing, this is a problem.
The second photo is taken from the roof looking at the rear verandah that has had some very DIY roofing added. The roof sheeting is obviously not adequately supported or attached and is dangerous.
The roof restoration was so poorly done, that tile edges were not painted, sealant gaps not filled and cracked tiles just painted over. I would assume that they were not adequately cleaned either, so the roof paint is likely to blister and peel.
Newly replaced timbers in the under floor area and roof space can represent termite damaged timber has been replaced or in this case, the DIY effort was to assist in replacing broken timbers. The roof collar tie was not level, so definitely  DIY, the original ones may have been broken by some one in the ceiling space placing a load on it. The flooring timber beam shown has been inadequately strutted directly to the ground. This is making a bridge for termite attack directly to the flooring, so definitely a DIY effort. The support is just resting on a brick off cut, so not actually supporting anything. This is nothing a tradesman would do.
This house door frame have had the door re hung, but the hinges are poorly fitted and the striker plate missing from another door frame.This is a minor issue, but shows the amount of care given to the home renovation to sell.
The next photo is of the driveway sinking 120mm down from the carport concrete floor level. A  car could not drive over this step up. The cause is the failure of a retaining wall and subsequent sinking of the soil due to poor sub soil preparation for reactive soil. The soil has also been affected by storm water flow due to miss alignment of the storm water down pipe, allowing for water to enter the sub floor area and wash out the ground under the drive way causing the sinking.
This same house has leaking bathroom issues with drumming floor tiling caused by the movement of the sub floor area flexing the bathroom floors. Also salt damp issues as shown in the photos as well as minor cracking to the brick work mortar and weathering and fretting of the mortar between the bricks due to poor mortar mixing by the brick layer.
I can not show too many identifiable photos for legal reasons as this home is still on the market and the vendor will find a buyer eventually, so buyer beware.

​Converting a carport or garage can be an economical way of gaining extra room in your home. From my perspective however there are many issues this can create.
The concrete floor will not be moisture proof and damp issues will occur if another floor is not correctly installed.
You loose your car parking space, which can increase your car insurance premiums, as well as loose valuable storage areas.
The ceiling lining may now be an asbestos sheet, above where you have a bed positioned as any house built prior to 1985 would have asbestos sheeting used for the carport ceiling lining.
I do find a lot of wall moisture issues, mold issues etc in any converted carport wall. This then becomes a possible termite attractive zone, as the cladding is often over carport posts, that have inadequate or preventative pest treatment applied. The wall framework is often set down against the pathway or worse the driveway edge at ground level. This can enable moisture to wick up inside the framework providing the damp timber that attracts termites. 

​Winter and wet weather issues on a roof can be expensive to rectify especially if left not repaired.
Checking roof pipe penetrations and the lead flashing for cracking can often expose many areas of concern to be inspected inside the ceiling cavity. This roof for example, was be letting in enough water to cause serious damage wood rot of the ridge beam and rust out the nails it was supported to. The issue here was caused by cracked tiles.

Pipe penetration and lead flashing are the main cause of leaking into most roof cavities, closely followed by broken or damaged tiling and missing pointing