Selecting a home inspector Mercury News Wire Services   When you are buying a house, your best friend can be the inspector. A house inspector can let you know if you're about to buy a lemon or warn you about potential problems. At best, you can move into the house confident that it's in good shape; at worst, the inspector's report can let you back out of the deal if the house has major, unexpected problems. A general inspector can't detect every problem, though. That's why it helps to know how to select an inspector and when to call in a specialist. ``What a home inspector does is provide an independent review of the property, not influenced by any of the other professions in the transaction,'' said Mike Casey, an inspector in Haymarket, Va., and president of the American Society of Home Inspectors. What Casey means is that the inspector doesn't have a stake in the outcome of the inspection. Inspectors get paid whether the sale goes through. In contrast, lenders and real-estate agents make a profit when the sale closes. Most home buyers find their inspectors through recommendations from their real estate agents -- 69 percent of them, according to the joint study. But buyers should be careful. Casey points out that some real estate brokerages will place an inspector on a ``preferred vendor'' list only if the inspector pays a fee to the brokerage. He urges all consumers to ask each inspector they interview whether they paid to be on the list. Also, real estate agents have been known to avoid recommending the toughest inspectors, known in the business as ``deal killers.'' Inspectors are ``looking for anything that could be a potential problem,'' Casey said. Don't expect inspectors to break through walls, dig holes in the yard or research building permits, he said -- they just look for observable problems. ``We don't have X-ray glasses. We see what you see, but we're looking at it with an educated eye.'' The cost of a home inspection varies by inspector, region and size of house. Anywhere from $200 to $500 could be considered reasonable. A typical home inspection includes an assessment of: • Exterior features such as outside walls, soffits, decks, the roof, chimneys and drainage conditions. • Interior items such as the condition of windows, doors, plumbing fixtures and electrical outlets and switches. • Heating and cooling systems. • The attic and crawl space and whether they have adequate insulation and ventilation. ``We're looking for big surprises and anything that's a significant safety hazard,'' Casey said. You usually have to hire specialists to assess the conditions of swimming pools, septic systems, underground storage tanks for heating oil, and the health of trees and shrubs. If you would rather find an inspector yourself than through your agent, ask friends and relatives who they have hired, look in the Yellow Pages under ``Building inspectors'' or ``Home inspectors,'' or visit the ASHI Web site, which has a search page at www.ashi.org/find/ that allows you to type in your ZIP code and get a list of certified inspectors in your area. Or you can call an ASHI referral line at (800) 743-2744. Expect an inspection to take at least three hours, and plan to be there if possible. A good inspector can teach you a lot about how the house works. If time is tight, at least try to be there for the last hour to review the results.