Alan Block

Well worth every penny! Alan was highly recommended by a good friend who recently bought a home. He saved us from making a huge mistake. He does not sugar coat things. He went in the crawl space, he went in the attic space, he ran the outside hose for a while to see how the water was draining (not well in this case), he opened the vents to find new ducts but asbestos that was not cleared in the flipping of this particular house. He also pointed out the electrical box was wired by a handyman rather than an electrician and that when the house was flipped they did not reinforced it for an earthquake. The list goes on. He is very thorough and straight with you. If you are investing in a house, having him onboard will go a long way!

Ok, this is not about home inspection services but about what a kind, generous and thoughtful person Mr. Block is. His actions speak volumes about character and goodness. We want that in the people we do business with, right?
I am a dog walker and yesterday, at a busy 4 way stop on Grizzly Peak, my mini-​van full of dogs seemed to explode. People in nearby cars were yelling at me that the car was on fire and I was frantically trying to get 7 dogs out of the van when a pick-​up truck stopped behind me. Mr. Block got out, asked if we were OK and said that he didn’t think it was a fire but the radiator. He opened the hood, confirmed that the radiator hose had popped off and after getting a tool from his truck he reattached the hose and filled the radiator with water I keep for the dogs, plus his own supply of bottled water. He told me it should hold for a few miles but to go to my garage asap. I asked for his card and he reluctantly gave it.
So now I can tell the Unilocal community what a chivalrous guy Mr. Alan Block is. He was the ONLY person to stop and help! Thank you kind sir! I feel if you hire this man you will get a genuinely good person who cares about others. I know I’ll be calling him when I sell or buy another house.

I met Alan through a contractor friend of mine years ago, and I had heard nothing but good things about him. He’s probably a sellers worst nightmare, because his inspections are so thorough.
He came by and consulted with me on a large home I recently purchased, and advised me on every aspect of the house, including giving me an incredible list of rock solid specialists that could help with the various issues. I would have had a much harder time with this house if it weren’t for Alan’s sage advice. Top notch.

We recently bought our first home after a long home search and viewing many homes in a state of disrepair and/​or neglect (ie: needed new foundation, roof, water damaged, in addition to ‘refreshing’). But for those homes, we read through the homeowner’s inspector’s reports which didn’t allude to any serious issues. The issues were uncovered after we reviewed the home for ourselves. This left us wondering how many people just buy homes without touching on these things, ignoring the issues to move on to redecorating.
When deciding to purchase our home, we knew we wanted a very thorough and comprehensive inspection report. That meant that we wanted to work with Alan Block.
If you want an inspector to gloss over things for you and tell you things are sweet — go with someone else. If you want an inspector to really tell you what’s going on with your house: including all the good and all the warts, work with someone as thorough and knowledgeable as Alan Block. Just keep in mind that if you decide to buy the home based on an inspection that doesn’t really do a deep dive, you will find it all out sooner or later and probably when something unexpected happens.
Alan took the time to do his inspection, while explaining things to us every step of the way. We learned a lot about the house during the process and felt very comfortable about taking the next step following his evaluation.