Home inspections are typically done when buying a house. They help home buyers identify any problems with the house they're buying and often use the information to negotiate with the sellers to make repairs or lower the price.
Home inspectors are licensed in most (not all) states, and there are standards for conducting home inspections defined by the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors.
Half Bathroom – A bathroom with a sink and toilet.
Hand-Scraped – Also called hand-sculpted. Hardwood planks are individually hand-scraped to create distinctive, one-of-a-kind floors.
Hardwood Lumber – The close-grained woods from broad leaf trees like oak and maple, typically used for flooring.
Hazard insurance – Insurance that covers events such as earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and other acts of god.
Header (Lintel) – A structural beam across the top of the window (or door) opening supporting the weight of the wall above the opening.
Head Flashing – Flashing installed above the window head detail just below adjacent facing material that the window abuts.
Head Lap – Shortest distance from the butt edge of an overlapping shingle to the upper edge of a shingle in the second course below. The triple coverage portion of the top lap of strip shingles.
Heal – The end of a rafter that rests on the wall plate.
Hearth – Floor of the fireplace; it should extend into the room for safety from stray sparks.
Heat Welding – A process for sealing seams for linoleum floors and some vinyl sheet floors. Heat welding requires skilled professionals who use specialized tools
High Energy Bills – High utility bills in summer and winter can often be traced to air leaks in your home’s envelope, inefficient windows or inefficient or incorrectly installed heating and cooling equipment, or poorly sealed and insulated ducts.
Hip – The inclined external angle formed by the intersection of two sloping roof planes. Runs from the ridge to the eaves.
Hip Roof – A type of roof containing sloping planes of the same pitch on each of four sides. Contains no gables.
Hip Shingles – Shingles used to cover the inclined external angle formed by the intersection of two sloping roof planes.
Home Inspectors – Home professionals who have the training to inspect a home and identify most common problems, visible to the human eye. Trade organization for home inspectors include InterNACHI, …
Homeowner’s Insurance – Property insurance that protects homeowners against theft, personal liability, and fire.
Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) – When you have equity in your home, you can get a home equity line of credit to finance home improvements you want to make.
Home Warranty Insurance – Private insurance for homebuyers that covers appliances and plumbing, heating, and electrical systems in the home.
Horse Feathers (Also called Feathering Strips) – Tapered wood filler strips placed along the butts of old wood shingles to create a level surface when reroofing over existing wood shingle roofs.
HUD Flood Zone – An area prone to flooding, as determined by the Housing and Urban Development, a branch of the federal government.
Hybrid Mortgage – A mortgage that combines some attributes of fixed rate mortgages with other attributes of adjustable rate mortgages, e.g. a loan which is fixed for 5 years but then reverts to an ARM.
Hydrostatic Pressure – Pressure applied to envelope materials by various heights of water at rest.
