PortalGuy

Regardless, I am against further government regulation and interference. When purchasing a house, the house inspector should be on the buyer's side; but actually, the house inspector today is recommended by the estate agent, and his interest is actually in seeing the deal completed. The buyer should use an independent house inspector, found on one's own. One would need to make him aware that energy-efficiency is important. A $300 energy audit with a blower-door test should be de rigeur.

As first-time homebuyers, we did our research and nevertheless made lots of mistakes. That's how we learned the above. Our house is pretty new and nevertheless it leaks air like a sieve. It has lots of vapour barrier to trap & condense exiting moisture, though. The builder was clueless and cut corners, even though he did numerous politically correct 'green' things. Why builders obsess about trapping exiting moisture I shall never know. But they're human beings; turn them into government functionaries and they'll be even more careless and cut more corners.