In the late 1980's I was involved with a friend setting up his Home Inspection business. It was obvious that writing reports was a laborious task and we started thinking about using computers to simplify the process. In the beginning we used a check list at the site and then transferred the comments to the computer at our office. Computers at that time were running under DOS and they were too large to consider using them at the inspection site. As time went on portable computers became available and operating systems were greatly improved. As these new developments came into being I rewrote the software so many times I have lost count. This rewrite of the software will be the first in the C sharp programming language. It runs under Windows XP and requires the .Net framework 2.0.
The idea has always been to simplify the process of writing reports. For each area being inspected there is a little preamble that describes some of the considerations for that area of the inspection. This is followed by a list of boilerplate comments, which are the observations at the time of the inspection. All these commentaries and boilerplates are in the file HIP.txt that is a plain vanilla ASCII file which you can append and edited to fit your particular needs by using any ASCII editor like “Notepad”. During the inspection if you have comment for which there is no boilerplate you can enter your own comment. There is also a set of “flags” for emergency and dangerous conditions that you want the report to bring attention to.
The report is commenced by creating a client file. This file contains all the information about the client, agent (if there is one), and site. There is a file folder created for each client when their data is saved. This file can be amended or edited at any time using “Notepad”.
After a client is created and loaded you initiate the inspection process by selecting the “Inspect” button. Upon doing this you are presented with a list of the various areas to inspect. We usually start with the external inspection, followed by the garage, cellar, upstairs and Attic. The file HIP.txt is arranged in that order. We have incremented the numbers for the area of the inspection by 10 for each number. This allows you to make as many as nine additions between the existing entries. You pick the area to inspect by clicking on the text with the mouse and upon doing so you will be presented with the preamble relating to that area followed by numerous boiler plate comments. If you click on any of the text in the preamble you will be told that this is automatically added to your report. Clicking on any of the boiler plate comments will cause the comment to be added to your report. A MessageBox will pop up confirming that the comment has been saved. You can also add special comment flags if you feel they are warranted.
