A pool is a second set of systems in the back yard.
Pumps, filters, heaters, lighting, bonding and barriers — all of it ages, and almost none of it is visible from the water. A pool inspection treats it as its own property rather than a line in the report.
InterNACHI Certified Pool & Spa InspectorTrained in pool and spa equipment, structure, bonding and safety barriers as a system of their own.
What gets inspected
Equipment, surfaces and safety, plus a water test to see what the chemistry has been doing to everything it touches.
- Pool surface and shell
- Deck and coping
- Filter
- Pump and motor
- Heater, where fitted
- Pool and spa lighting
- Accessories and fittings
- Safety barriers and gates
- Strip water test
Why it's worth doing separately
Pool equipment is expensive and it fails as a set. A heater at the end of its life, a motor that's been running against a restricted filter, and a light with failed bonding are three separate bills, and none of them is obvious to someone standing on the deck.
Surfaces tell you about maintenance history. Staining, etching and rough plaster usually mean the chemistry has been off for a long time — which is also what has been quietly working on the equipment.
The strip test is a snapshot, not a lab analysis. It gives a general read on where the chemistry sits today and whether what I'm seeing on the surfaces is consistent with it.
Safety barriers
California requires drowning-prevention measures around residential pools, and the specifics depend on when the pool was built or last permitted. I record which measures are present — fencing, self-closing and self-latching gates, door and gate alarms, safety covers — and which are missing or no longer working.
What I'm giving you is a factual record of what's there. Whether a particular property satisfies the current requirement is a question for the city or county, and I'll tell you when it's worth asking them.
InterNACHI Pool & Spa certified. A pool inspection is not a substitute for a specialist evaluation of a heater or of buried plumbing — if something needs a pool contractor's opinion, that goes in the report rather than a guess from me.
Other services
Buying a house with a pool?
Tell me roughly how old the pool is and whether the equipment has been replaced. That usually tells me straight away whether the inspection is a formality or the most useful thing you'll book that week.