Rise of the Virtual Pool Inspection

By: Joe Trusty - Pool Magazine

In the wake of Covid-19, an entirely new cottage industry has popped up. Virtual pool inspections are becoming increasingly popular in the state of Florida, where new legislature recently enacted now means pool inspections can be done remotely.

Traditionally pool inspections are performed by certified pool inspectors or home inspectors that are able to submit an official report about the overall condition of the home owners pool and equipment. Pool inspections are vital as they are used to determine if pools comply with local building and safety regulations. These inspection reports also help home buyers and homeowners identify any potential safety hazards or repairs that need to be made.

A white-hot market for pools has seen the demand for these services increase. The process of getting an inspection done traditionally involved scheduling a date and time for the inspector to come out to the job site.

Changes to Florida legislation were recently made to streamline that process. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, a bottleneck began to occur for many builders. An incredible backlog of requests for inspections and a drastically reduced number of inspectors who were available to perform them helped ease the pathway for legislation to allow virtual pool inspections.

Recent changes to Section 553.79, allowed a “state or local enforcement agency” to “perform virtual inspections”.

Starting on July 1, 2021, SB 1382 now requires building authorities to allow virtual inspections to be performed remotely and submitted electronically.

As we now enter our second year of the pandemic, people have adjusted to doing business virtually. Remote office workers became all too familiar with products like Zoom as they began to rely on these services to conduct business using video conferencing technology.

The Inspected platform is based on a similar concept but is tied directly to the inspection process.

“We developed a patent-pending technology that geolocates the conference call to a specific job site,” said Anthony Perera of Inspected. “We realized that with the passing of all these laws and with these new house bills that municipalities were allowing third-party providers to perform single-trade inspections around the country. That’s kind of how and why Inspected was born.”

Perera who was an HVAC contractor by trade has rolled out an impressive platform allowing virtual inspections to occur remotely. “We essentially replace the city inspector on job sites,” said Perera, “Gone are the days when you would get to a certain stage in that pool inspection, and would have to stop the project and call up the city inspector to do that inspection; we’re able to do that in real-time now.”

One of the biggest differences between a regular pool inspection and a virtual pool inspection is obviously that the inspector is not physically on-site. “The contractor becomes the avatar for our inspector,” said Perera, “We have our checklist based on the municipality, of the items we have to inspect. We run through the checklists, take the photos, and perform the proper documentation to ensure all of the code standards have been met.”

Ultimately, Perera says virtual inspections create a more seamless process for builders and expects mass adoption soon. While not available everywhere, virtual inspections are slowly being introduced to different cities, states, and municipalities.

As the sunshine state adjusts to the new rules and regulationsregarding inspections, Inspected.com recently has emergedas a leading service provider of virtual pool inspections.

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