Best light for a home inspector?

Hi everyone,
What light would all of you best recommend for a home inspector. It needs to be bright enough to light up distant areas in dark attics, basements, etc, so that wiring , structures, etc. can be examined. Something small would be best. I am leaning towards the Surefire G2Z, but am still unsure. The longer the runtime, the better. Would any Luxeon LED's be sufficient?

I doubt that you could find a Luxeon light that would be bright enough in 100% of those situations. I would go for a combo of lights...a good luxeon and a good incandescent. Something like an Arc LSH/Arc4 and a bright light like a Pelican M6, which is a great light for the money. The reliability and battery life of an LED is a great asset to have. The whiteness of LEDs may also make them more useful for picking up colors and identifying molds, etc.

Do you need to use it for close up work too?

-Mike

I am sure a Luxeon LED will be sufficient.

An incandescent might be too much lighting in this case. A dark attic, dark corner of the basement, and so on will probably be sufficently lighted by a Luxeon LED.

The new Inova rechargable Luxeon light seems like it'll work well.

Jason

If you are looking for something small enough to easily fit in your pocket, an Arc4 should provide you with the beam brightness and throw you need for that application.

If you want to go even brighter, and don't mind the lights a bit larger, electrolumens makes some really bright LED lights that have super long runtimes. The FT-3C is the smallest 3C cell light that is probably ever made, barely larger then the batteries themselves, and it has a beam profile that I believe would be perfect for your application.. bright hotspot with bright sidespill for a broad beam... nice and white too.

http://elektrolumens.com/4_SALE/For_Sale.html

Without getting into exotic high bin luxeons as a newbie.

I would recommend a Streamlight Ultra stinger or SL Stinger XTXP. Both of those are workhorse rechagables with excellent long throw and excellent price. The last house inspector I ran into was using an Ultra stinger for craw space work.

For closeup work, it would have to be Arc4+. Try to get one of the seconds for $99. The first are $180 and most people are reporting they don't know why their lights are seconds.

I can't imagine that the Pelican M6-LED would not be sufficient. Mine lights up the yard across the street at 50 yards.
I don't know what the runtime is.

I also think if one wanted something not quite as bright, but still with a relatively long throw, the SL TL-2LED would do the job. I base this on checking my neighbors yard and car across the street.

I don't know how far you need to see, but an attic would have to be very, very large for either of those lights to be insufficient.

If youy need more than that, then the PM6 incand or G2 class would be called for, without being expensive.

Jerry

ive got a friend who is a home inspector. he moved from the standard mag to a SF 9nx but is currently using a SF G2 which he likes better.
me, I'd much rather have a rechargeable incan for this type of work. streamlight polystinger w/ dual chargers would be my choice.

For your use, rechargable seems like the only choice.

I recently traded my Stinger HP for a Standard Stinger. The Standard makes a MUCH more useful beam to my way of thinking.

For close work something like an Opalec module in a minim*g or a PT Attitude would likely serve you well!

A Streamlight 4AA 7LED might do up to 90% of what you need with a very nice white flood. It's cheap enough to allow the purchase of a Pelican M6 for longer range work.

For home inspection you really really really want a Luxeon because the quality of the light makes it much easier to see details like cracks and water seepage.

I would suggest the Surefire L6, which is way bright enough to light up any attic and has a great,high-quality, high-contrast beam.

The Arc4+ would be good as a second light because it will fit in your pocket and you can dim it for close-up work.

Josey

If this is for your job, day after day you want something you can recharge... Look at the Lambda Illuminator HD which is based on 2 AA cells - I run it from 2300 mah NiHms... small, light, bright, rechargable.. if you need brighter look at the ElektroLumens FT-3C fairly small, very bright, rechargable on 3 C cells.. see my beam shots from 30 feet away.. (in sig)

I'd think rechargeable would be a good thing too for your purposes... maybe the new Streamlight Strion? It's tiny, bright, decent runtime, but I haven't read any reviews on it yet.

If you go for lithiums I think a G2, or similar LA, would be overkill and brighter than what you need. I'd go with the E2o, or an E2e w/ MN02... should be bright enough... have good throw... and a little longer runtime than a G2 or Pelican M6.

LED would be good as an area light... but you will probably need a light that throws better... With a good incan you'll be able to light up all the dark places under those crawl spaces and in the attics without crawling too far into them.

[ QUOTE ]
spotter1 said:
Hi everyone,
What light would all of you best recommend for a home inspector. It needs to be bright enough to light up distant areas in dark attics, basements, etc, so that wiring , structures, etc. can be examined. Something small would be best. I am leaning towards the Surefire G2Z, but am still unsure. The longer the runtime, the better. Would any Luxeon LED's be sufficient?

[/ QUOTE ]

I personally don't believe any of the LED lights would be appropriate for this. I'd suggest that you get a SureFire A2. It has the LEDS for those times you need them, but also the incandescent for true color rendition and throw.

Hello Spotter1,

Welcome to CPF.

I would recommend the re-chargeable Streamlight Stingers, or my favorite, the TigerLight.

You will have over an hour of run time and you can mount a charger in your car and keep the batteries topped off. If you are working up close, just bounce the beam off a wall or ceiling.

Tom

Well I do like surefire and I'd probbly use 2 LED's powered lights like the L6 and the L4 the L6 for the longer range and the L4 for closeup work. And as to rechargeable I use and reccomend the Pila Li-ion rechargeable battery system and you can get them at J.S. Burly's . Now that I have talked about the most expenisive lights lets talk about the
Pila flashights I have a Pila Gl4R combo comming in the mail to me this week. I know I know it's not LED but I want to try it out. By the way you can get pila lights at
J.S. Burlys But I would recommend getting the combo pack
that's the light, batterys, and the charger and you save some money.

My experience is that home inspectors spend a lot of time looking into dark areas from daylight/sunny areas, and the LED's just aren't going to cut it for this.

I also think that standard batteries would be helpful - you'll be using it a lot each day, and being able to stop into a convenience store and pop in some AA's if you run low would be helpful, IMHO.

My vote, and the one I use when working on my home and rental home, is a Pelican Stealthlite rechargable. Medium size, plenty of battery capacity, bright yellow, polymer frame doesn't mind being banged around, cheap bulbs, though I'm still on my first one after three years.

Total price of under $100 - about the same as just the rechargable battery portion of some of the above-mentioned combos.

I'm in agreement with Deanster /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif having done a lot of work recently in my attics I can say that a 1 watt luxeon is perfect for closeup work, but does not provide enough light to see to the end of the eves or the opposite end of a large dark space. At least not when you're not gonna be there long enough for your eyes to adjust. The light I was using in that situation was a pre arc4 high dome. It's a wonderful light, and you should get one for peaking into electrical boxes or looking under sinks and the like. There is nothing better for close quarters work with a lot of good light.

You also need to be able to look up chimneys and other such things that just aren't in the dark.

For the brighter light jobs the stinger or mag charger or something like that is going to be better. Crawling through the crawlspace or into the attic you're gonna want both. Would suck if you dropped your MagCharger or banged it on the rafters and had the bulb blow! And they are not convenient for work in smaller spaces.

I've seen lots of inspectors carry those monster rechargeable spotlights. They are certainly a lot cheaper than a stinger. But what a pain to carry around!

James S,

I personally know a residential building inspector employed by a coastal community about 125 miles south of you. His job is to conduct inspection for compliance to municipal codes. He carries an adjustable (flood to spot) Mag Instrument product as many of the LEOs do in that city. He finds the throw adequate to about 50 feet. For up close applications, the flood characteristic is more apropriate.

As a backup, he is still using the MagAA when the bigger Magcharger is too big and heavy to carry around. The next time I see him, I'll introduce him to the better quality LED light products now available. The last time we traded e-mail, we talked about the Surefire 9N; the older model with the dual lamp assemblies. If and when I upgrade to the Streamlight Strion, I'll give him my 9N.

Back OT. The best light will largely depend on personal preference. Just as many here have discovered whether recently or many years ago, two modes are generally required. One for up close and the other for distances 12 feet and beyond.

KT-

could you ask your friend if he actually uses the flood/spot adjustment? or does he just pretty much set it for best beam and forget it?

GregR

well, i'm not sure what would be best, but i will say this..
i think an adjustable light is necessary, or a brighter light and a dimmer light..

'cause pointing my Blaster 3 @ my ceiling, it actually drowns out imperfections like small cracks and paint bubbles and paint clumps.. and it's about the same brightness as a 3 or 4D Maglite.

so, that's just a heads up to make sure you have two different levels of light, wether it be one adjustable light, or two seperate lights for high power and low power.