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One of Nonprofit Home Inspection’s lead Portland home inspectors is Charles Lewis. Charles is an Oregon Certified Home Inspector (# 1740), a Washington Licensed Home Inspector (# 1561) and a licensed general contractor (CCB # 204515). Charles has over 15 years of construction experience ranging from working his way through college as a construction surveyor in Alaska to serving as the general contractor for a $4 million community center. Over the years, Charles has built houses from the ground up, remodeled existing homes, renovated churches and community centers, installed rainwater cisterns, built ecoroofs, and even installed wind turbines among many other activities. Because of the breadth of his construction experiences, Charles has a firm understanding of modern building science and is able to give comprehensive, experience-based home inspection reports that are easy to understand.
Charles earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Portland and a master’s degree from Harvard University.
Charles decided to become a licensed home inspector in order to help protect families from unknown hazards in the homes. When he was growing up, Charles’ single mother purchased a “fixer upper” that needed a lot of work. Raising 6 kids mostly by herself by working as a waitress, Charles’ mother wasn’t able to afford a proper home inspection. Years later, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma because of exposure to asbestos. Within a month of being diagnosed, she passed away from an easily preventable hazard. Not wanting other families to go through similar ordeals, Charles created Nonprofit Home Inspections to elevate the level of home inspections by training better home inspectors and by making home inspections available to everyone in the community. In addition to establishing a state licensed trade school for home inspectors, Nonprofit Home Inspections’ services are offered on a sliding scale so that everyone can afford to have their own home inspection. By using Nonprofit Home Inspections for your own home inspection, you are helping to create healthy homes for some of Oregon and Washington’s most vulnerable populations.
Charles is being interviewed by Preston Sandlin of Home Inspection Carolina and Ask the Charlotte Inspector.