I Spent Over 20 Years Building Homes. Now I Inspect Them.

Why My Background Makes Me More Useful as a Home Inspector

I owned and ran a general contracting business for more than two decades, and that business is still active today. That’s not a background detail — it’s the thing that makes the inspection different.

That means I managed bids, hired and oversaw all the other trades, dealt with building officials, and watched what happens when work is done right and when it isn’t. And because the business is still running, my knowledge of current materials, methods, and building science isn’t frozen in the past. The tools an inspector carries — the moisture meter, the thermal camera, the gas detector — are useful, but they are not where the value is. The value is judgment: knowing what you’re looking at, why it’s there, whether it’s a real problem or just the way a house from that era was built, and what it’s going to take to deal with it. Two inspectors can stand in the same basement looking at the same crack. What separates them is what they understand about it.

That judgment only means something if it’s independent. I do not perform contracting work on homes I inspect for at least 12 months after the inspection — no repair pitch, no conflict of interest, no incentive to shade a finding in either direction. It’s worth being honest about how the rest of a real estate transaction is structured: your agent is paid when the sale closes, your lender is paid when the loan funds, and the contractors who give you repair estimates have an interest in the size of the job. None of that makes those people dishonest, but it does mean almost everyone else in the deal has a financial stake in it moving forward. I’m paid a flat fee whether you buy the house or walk away from it, and my only job is to look hard, tell you the truth about what I find, and put it in writing so you can make your own decision.

Inspecting Homes in Londonderry, Vermont

Londonderry sits where Route 100 climbs into the eastern flank of the Green Mountains, and the town has a genuinely unusual claim to fame for its size: this is where Jake Burton Carpenter built the first Burton snowboards, working out of a barn on Main Street starting in 1977. He bartended nights at the Birkenhaus Inn and spent his days shaping prototypes he tested on the back hills around town, years before anyone thought snowboarding was a real sport. The state put up a historic marker at Williams Park a few years back to make it official. Ross Powers, the Olympic snowboarder, grew up here too — Jake sponsored him as a fifth grader. It’s a strange bit of history for a town this size, and it says something about the place: people show up here with an idea nobody else believes in yet, and some of the time it works out.

The town itself is really two villages. Londonderry village sits up on Route 100, and South Londonderry, the more established civic center, sits where the West River crosses the road — the 1860 Londonderry Town House still stands there, still used for town meetings, and it’s on the National Register of Historic Places. The West River once had a rail line running through South Londonderry, the terminus of a line locals nicknamed “36 miles of trouble” for how often it flooded or washed out; that line is long gone, but the mill history along the river shaped how the village grew, tight along both banks with steep hillsides hemming in the development.

Londonderry is also right in the middle of a dense cluster of ski country. Magic Mountain is in town, and Stratton and Bromley are close enough that a lot of what gets bought and sold here isn’t a full-time residence — it’s a ski house, a rental property, or a place somebody’s been coming to for twenty years and finally decided to buy instead of rent. That mix, working town and vacation destination layered on top of each other, changes what actually matters during an inspection here.

Who is Buying in Londonderry

Londonderry draws an eclectic mix of buyers, and the reasons vary more here than in a lot of the towns I cover.

Some are buying a ski house — a second home used mainly in winter, sometimes rented out the rest of the year, sometimes just sitting empty between visits. Some are full-time residents who work locally or remotely and want a real year-round home rather than a seasonal one. Some are longtime renters or weekend regulars who’ve decided to finally buy in a town they already know well. And some are investors looking at short-term rental income given how close Londonderry sits to Magic, Stratton, and Bromley.

For a ski-house buyer, I pay particular attention to how a property handles being unoccupied for stretches — frozen pipe risk, whether the heating system was set up with that pattern in mind, and how the property has been maintained by a caretaker or property manager versus an owner living there day to day. For first-time buyers or people newer to Vermont winters, I try to explain what’s normal wear for this climate and what actually needs attention, without turning the inspection into a lecture. If you’ve done this before and just want the findings, I can do that too.

For sellers, a pre-listing inspection can help you deal with issues before a buyer’s inspector turns them into a negotiation problem.

For investors evaluating short-term rental potential, I focus hard on the systems that take the brunt of frequent turnover and seasonal vacancy. See the Investor Inspections page for more on how I approach that work.

For agents working within tight contingency windows, my job is to be clear and quick without glossing over anything. See the Realtor Inspection Support page for what to expect, and more on how I work inside transaction timelines.

Radon & Water Testing

Vermont’s granite and schist bedrock means radon is a real consideration here, and levels vary quite a bit from property to property even within the same town. I offer radon testing as an add-on to any inspection — here’s a post I wrote about it if you want more detail.

Many homes around Londonderry, especially out toward the hillsides and away from the village centers, rely on private wells, and water testing is worth adding for buyers. I offer water testing covering bacteria, nitrates, and other relevant parameters. Bundling radon and water testing with your inspection saves $100 off the combined total.

I don’t inspect septic systems or wells directly — those are separate licenses I don’t hold — so I refer that work out to specialists I trust. Let me know if you’d like a referral.

A Practical Inspection Report

After the inspection, you receive a digital report with photos, clear explanations, and notes that distinguish significant concerns from routine maintenance.

The report is written to be useful after the appointment is over. Something you can share with a contractor, bring to a negotiation, or refer back to months later and still understand.

I’m available to you to answer questions, both before and following the inspection.

Safety concerns are called out clearly. When something warrants further evaluation by a specialist — a structural engineer, electrician, plumber, chimney inspector, or septic evaluator — I will say so directly in the report.

Schedule Your Londonderry, VT Home Inspection

If you’re buying a home in Londonderry or the surrounding towns, I’d love to talk.

Call or text: (802) 289-0025
Email: connect@resonanthomesnh.com

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