The Study Guide has Arrived

by Paul Staron September 1, 2015

One of the frequent questions we’ve received over the years at the Examination Board of Professional Home Inspectors (EBPHI) is: “Where can I get a study guide for your exam?” The exam, of course, is the National Home Inspection Exam (NHIE), which is an integral part of ASHI’s NCCA certification program and a requirement for full ASHI membership certification. We are proud to announce we now have a complete and comprehensive study guide available.

Getting Started
The genesis of this project started several years ago with a market analysis. After taking a hard look at the current offerings we determined, while several were well written, none were as comprehensive as we felt necessary. We then decided to create an affordable, comprehensive study guide geared to preparing users to take the exam.

As we began to outline the study guide, it was decided the best arrangement of the materials would be by technical and non-technical components. The goal was to base the technical components off of the same outline we use for populating the exam. This outline is derived by the latest Role Delineation Study (RDS). The RDS is performed approximately every five years by surveying thousands of inspectors regarding the components they inspect in a home and their business offerings. Our first major decision was to find qualified, available technical writers who would do justice to the technical component of the guide.

The Best Author
The author we found was Bruce Barker,
one of the best technical writers in our profession. Bruce is author of the very successful Everybody’s Building Code and is a current member of the ASHI Board of Directors and a long-time contributor to the Reporter. We also had editing assistance from Tom Lauhon of the EBPHI Board
of Directors, and Michael Casey, former ASHI President.

It’s What’s Inside That Counts
The guide began as a single book, but quickly developed into two volumes: the NHIE Study Guide and the NHIE Home Inspection Manual. The Study Guide
contains non-technical components including administrative procedures and exam-taking tips. To assist the candidate in preparing for the exam, there are 200 sample questions. These questions were analyzed and vetted much in the same way as the active questions in the test bank. Since EBPHI performs an RDS every five years,
we are committed to updating the volumes after each study to ensure the content
reflects our current exam.

The NHIE Home Inspection Manual is move than 650 pages of detailed technical information about the components we
inspect, along with common defects and code
references. The end result is that this is more like a textbook than just a study guide for it can be used by those candidates taking the NHIE while being an excellent reference for the experienced home inspector.

Serving the Profession
One of the advantages of
being a nonprofit corporation is that EBPHI doesn’t need
to make a big profit on our development investment.
This enabled us to keep the pricing of these two volumes very low, as our goal is simply to serve the profession, not our bank account. We are proud we have been able to address this unfulfilled need by offering this comprehensive guide and reference that will serve both the new and veteran home inspector. Go to:
www.homeinspectionexam.org
for more information.


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