Historic Home Inspections

Mr. Showalter specializes in inspecting historic homes. With an extensive background renovating historic homes in Maryland, the Florida Keys, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New York he brings his experience and knowledge to you.

With the understanding of the nuances of the structure, mechanical and electrical systems Mr. Showalter will help you to better understand the home you are purchasing.

Foundation: Historic homes will have a wide variation of foundations including stone, masonry and even terracotta.
Structure: With historic homes he will help educate you whether ballooned framed, post and beam, post and girt and masonry structures.
Electric: We look for signs of knob and tube wiring, 30 amp 120 services and common concern with older wiring methods and modifications.
Plumbing: We will help you understand some the potential concerns with older plumbing systems.
Heating: We will evaluate the heating system from older boilers to centralized furnaces.
Styles: We also discuss the design and era such as Federal Style, Georgian, Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Saltbox, Richardson Romanesque, and Various Victorian Era styles. We point out some of the classic columns, Doric order, Ionic order, Corinthian order, Tuscan order, and Composite order. We also discuss how to date your  home form the nails to the saw marks such as hand hewn, pit saw and radial cuts. These include dating from the lathing materials.

A few of of the local Historic Homes Mr. Showalter has inspected include the Peggy Stewart House,  Howards Loop and the Flag House in Annapolis Maryland

Mr. Showalter has been teaching classes on historic homes to home inspectors and realtors for more than a decade. He has instructed classes at the ASHI conference and the Maryland Association of Realtors convention.

Mr. Showalter has instructed a class for the Calvert Country Historic Trust and was recently interviewed by the Washington Times for historic homes (link).