Black Dog Home Inspections

Black Dog Home Inspections is Jeff — Jeffrey Audlee — the inspector who shows up and does the work himself, covering home inspections for buyers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Feedback on him runs from 2024 through this August, and it has been arriving steadily: dozens of reviews in the last six months alone, most of them from buyers and the agents who keep sending him back out. The word that repeats is thorough, and reviewers usually explain what they mean by it. A buyer in May said he went system by system and left no stone unturned; another that month said he used a drone to photograph the roof and took pictures of everything no matter how small; an August buyer who had used a different inspector before said Jeff took the time to explain what he was checking and separated the simple fixes they could handle themselves from the ones that needed a professional. First-time buyers turn up constantly in that group, several saying the process had felt overwhelming until he walked them through it. The report is the second thread. Buyers describe it as detailed, photo-documented and fast — one in May had it emailed before they got home from the inspection, and an April reviewer said it laid out both the immediate fixes and the longer-term maintenance. Agents value a specific quality: a March 2025 referral partner said he does not use scare tactics or inflammatory language and that his drone licence gets real visuals of roofs buyers otherwise cannot see, and an April buyer's agent said he explained things clearly and was not an alarmist, which left their clients confident in the purchase. Several reviewers describe hiring him a second and third time. One account runs the other way and is worth reading before you book. In late June 2026 a buyer rated the experience two stars: the inspection day itself was professional and helpful and the report arrived detailed and on time, but after closing they found major problems with the HVAC system — a compressor that would not run, a refrigerant leak, and ductwork two separate HVAC companies said needed replacing — none of which the report had flagged as urgent. It is the only complaint of its kind on file against a very large body of praise, but it is about the thing an inspection is bought for. If you are buying in Massachusetts or Rhode Island and want an inspector who narrates the walkthrough and hands you a same-day report, he fits. Worth doing when you book: confirm the licence numbers he lists (MA #1139, RI #44296), ask what the base inspection covers versus the radon, mold, water and wood-destroying-insect add-ons, and ask specifically how the HVAC and duct system will be evaluated.