Beyond The Dock

Crawl spaces with flourishing raccoon families, attics with live wires dangling from the rafters, foundations sinking sideways. As a home inspector, you’ve seen everything a traditional dwelling has to offer. But what happens when the home isn’t on land?

Floating homes are a unique breed of residence. While they may look serene bobbing gently on the water, these houses come with structural, utility, and safety considerations that differ significantly from their landlocked counterparts.

Whether you’re inspecting your first floating home or looking to sharpen your expertise, understanding their distinctive features is a must. In this article, we’ll dive into what makes floating homes unique. We’ll also highlight common inspection pitfalls and offer practical guidance to ensure your next floating home inspection is as rock-solid as the float beneath it.

What is a Floating House?

Floating homes are residential dwellings built on floatation devices, like concrete barges, logs, foam, or steel platoons. Unlike house barges or houseboats, these houses built on water are stationary, permanently secured by moors or anchors, and powered by utilities and sewage systems on shore.

Floating homes are far from common. Estimates from portlandfloatinghomes.com suggest there are only a couple thousand in the United States, with the largest concentration situated in the Portland metropolitan area. But you can also find floating home communities in California, Seattle, Louisiana, Idaho, and Alaska, to name a few.

Each state, jurisdiction, and marina will have its own definitions of and regulations for floating homes. Before inspecting floating houses, be sure to read and understand the characterizations and laws in your area.

Types of Flotation Systems

One characteristic that differentiates floating homes is the flotation system that supports them. According to Buddy Bell of Danbri Property Inspections in Oregon, there are four standard types of floats:

Risks & Challenges of Floating Home Inspections

Here are four ways to mitigate the unique risks and challenges of floating home inspections.

1. Add an addendum to your agreement—and get it signed.

If you’re insured with InspectorPro, your home inspector insurance covers floating home inspections. However, as is true for any inspection, you must get your pre-inspection agreement (like our model agreement, for example) signed before you start the inspection. Otherwise, your contract terms won’t hold up against a claim, and you may not qualify for insurance coverage.

While your standard agreement will suffice, consider supplementing it with an addendum specific to floating home inspections. In it, you can detail your floating home inspection exclusions. 

How should you document limitations in your inspection report for floating homes? For example, if you’re not code-certified, you’ll need to exclude local regulations, moorage rules, and jurisdictional requirements pertaining to the structures, utilities, and waste disposal.

Learn more about when and why you need custom home inspection contacts for specialized inspections.

2. Beware of the consequences of environmental conditions.

Much like beachside or waterside homes, floating homes experience more exposure to harsh environmental conditions than landlocked properties.

How can environmental factors impact your floating home inspection checklist? Jim Carlton of Adirondack Inspections in Tennessee inspected a property on the Oregon coast with a lot of brass fixtures, more than you’d expect in a residential home. However, the owner had utilized brass intentionally to mitigate corrosion. “The owner knew certain other building materials wouldn’t stand up to the elements as well,” Carlton said.

Freshwater and saltwater, currents, tides, marine growth, and weather can all negatively impact the structure and its components. Keep your eyes peeled for wear, tear, corrosion, and deterioration—especially on the exterior.

3. Get help inspecting the floats.

Floats give inspectors headaches for a lot of reasons:

1. A floating home inspection course sounds nice, but as far as we can tell, they don’t exist. Unless you have special expertise in floating homes from constructing them yourself, you’ll be hard-pressed to gain that knowledge in any way other than during the inspections themselves. 

2. Few areas have standards for flotation device inspections, making it hard to know what to look for when inspecting floats.

3. If an inspector wanted to determine if a float was level or unevenly settling, they’d have to use levels and tape measures, the use of which exceeds most standards of practice.

4. Much of the flotation devices exist underwater and out of sight, making them difficult to visually inspect.

5. Because floats are so specialized, most home inspector insurance policies don’t cover accessing or reporting on floats, barges, or other flotation devices.

So what’s an inspector to do? How can you tell if a float is deteriorating or at risk of failure?

To provide your clients with the best information and protect your business, Bell recommends hiring a diver. Experienced divers can inspect the floats from above and below the waterline. Have them assess the anchors and moors, describing how they’re attached to the dock or shore and whether there are signs of deterioration or strain. Additionally, have them examine the electrical and plumbing lines in the water going to shore.

For tips on utilizing subcontractors like divers, read our article on using subcontractors for specialty inspections on inspectorproinsurance.com. 

4. Understand unique utility concerns.

Overall, you inspect a floating home’s utilities the same way you do a normal house, Carlton said. However, utilities by or in the water have special risks. 

What should you pay special attention to when inspecting a floating home? Here are a few things to note:

Electrical grounding is even more important for houses built on water, so be sure grounding is present.

Electrical installations near the water may have special requirements. If you’re not a code inspector, refer clients to one so they can verify their electrical system meets regulations.

Even if there aren’t regulations outlawing specific utility installs, if you know something is unsafe based on your home inspector training, call it out in your report.

To mitigate freezing, pipes above the waterline and with high-efficiency furnaces should have insulation.

Stay afloat with the right protection.

Floating homes may offer a tranquil, picturesque lifestyle. But beneath the surface lies a host of unique inspection challenges. As an inspector, navigating these intricacies requires more than a sharp eye; you also need insurance.

When you’re operating in environments as unpredictable as the water itself, a single oversight can put your business at risk. Protect your livelihood and your clients with errors and omissions and general liability insurance from InspectorPro Insurance with the ASHI Advantage. 

Whether you’re dipping your toes into floating home inspections or already deep in the current, don’t set sail without coverage.

Note: The Managing Risk column with InspectorPro Insurance provides home inspectors with tips to protect their businesses against insurance claims