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    Home Inspections in Vernon

    Vernon is home. We are based here, at 9730 Cameron Rd, and this is the housing stock we know better than any other.

    It is also, on the numbers, the oldest place we work. Buying here usually means buying a building with a history, and history leaves marks. Some of them are lovely. Some of them are expensive. Our job is to tell you which is which before you remove subjects.

    Three quarters of it was built before 2000

    The City’s own housing needs work puts roughly 12% of Vernon’s housing stock at pre-1960, another 32% at 1960 to 1979, and 74% of everything built before 2000 — with almost half of it more than forty years old. The rental stock is older again: 77% of purpose-built rental went up before 1979.

    That is not a criticism of Vernon. Older houses are frequently better built than new ones. But it changes what an inspection is looking for. In a 1965 house we are thinking about the panel and the branch wiring, the remaining life in the roof covering rather than whether it leaks today, the original windows if they are still in place, a furnace that has been replaced once and patched twice since, and whether three owners’ worth of renovations were ever permitted.

    East Hill, the Landing, and up the hill

    Vernon’s neighbourhoods wear their eras plainly, and each one asks for something different.

    East Hill

    This was the merchant and professional class's subdivision in the 1890s, and Victorian and Queen Anne houses from 1893 to 1895 still stand on Pleasant Valley Road. Genuine heritage buildings, and a genuinely specialised inspection — knob-and-tube era wiring, original structural timber, chimneys, and a century of well-meaning alterations.

    Okanagan Landing and the lakeshore

    A mix of old cottages that grew into houses, and new houses that replaced cottages. The seams show.

    The newer subdivisions climbing the hills east of downtown and out toward Predator Ridge

    Slope, retaining, drainage and fast-build finishing.

    Silver Star

    A different exercise entirely. Snow load, freeze protection, seasonal occupancy and whether anything was winterised properly the last time it sat empty.

    Three lakes and a creek

    Okanagan Lake at the Landing, Kalamalka to the south, Swan Lake to the north, and Vernon Creek running through the middle of it all. Near-water property brings the same short list every time: how the site drains, whether the crawlspace or basement has ever been wet, what the retaining and shoreline works are actually doing, and whether the dock or boathouse structure is engineered or somebody’s ambitious weekend. Away from the water, on the benches and out toward BX, it is slope and surface runoff again.

    The pre-1990 conversation

    WorkSafeBC requires a hazardous materials survey by a qualified person before renovation or demolition work that could disturb asbestos-containing materials, and pre-1990 construction is the usual trigger. In a city where most of the housing predates 1990, that comes up constantly.

    If opening walls is part of your plan, we identify suspect materials and arrange accredited laboratory analysis so you know what you are dealing with before a reno crew puts a saw through it. We do not do abatement — that is a separate trade with its own certification. What we can do is make sure you are not guessing. That is asbestos testing.

    While we are on the subject of what you cannot see: over 30% of homes in the Interior Health region test above Health Canada’s radon guideline of 200 Bq/m³. A valid measurement is a long-term test of at least 91 days run through the heating season with the windows closed, not something we can read off a meter in an afternoon. If you want to know, radon testing is how you find out properly.

    Planning a renovation? Ask us about testing before you open walls.

    What we get called for in Vernon

    Your inspector is Vin McConnachie, Consumer Protection BC Home Inspector Licence #78731, Qualified Home Inspector with Carson Dunlop Canada, with over 30 years of inspecting in the UK and Canada behind him. The full list is on the credentials page.

    Just outside the city limits the housing changes character quickly. If the property you are buying is over the boundary, start with Coldstream or Lumby instead — wells, septic, acreage and wood heat are a different conversation from a city lot.

    Book your Vernon inspection

    Send us the address and your dates. Call or text (250) 212-4025, or book online. We are in town, so Vernon bookings are the easiest ones for us to fit in — but subject-removal dates come around fast, so tell us early.

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