Serving the Orillia, Barrie, Severn Township, Oro-Medonte Township, Ramara Township, Midland, Newmarket, York Region. Ontario.

At Cowden and Associates, our mission is to provide our customers with the information they need to make good decisions regarding their properties and investments. 

Our Inspectors are former municipal Fire Inspectors trained under the Fire Marshal’s Act and are also Certified Home Inspectors. 

Our Services:
• Home & Building Inspections
• Fire Code Inspections
• Fire Safety Planning
When you're looking for a great inspection, who do you call?  Why not call the guys who've been inspecting all types of buildings since 1990.  We understand your concerns and have assembled an inspection program that is unique and well-suited to meet your needs.

All our home inspections are backed by a 90 day Limited Warranty.

We complete a recall safety check on all major appliances and provide you with lifetime safety recall services.

We're backed by a $10,000 Honour Guarantee.

Scott Cowden is a 34-year veteran of the Canadian Fire Service and has been a leader and innovator in many areas of public safety delivery. During these years, he recognized a growing need for expert building inspections and fire code resources for those needing to better understand their responsibilities and the state of their properties.

Our Inspectors are former municipal Fire Inspectors trained under the Fire Marshal's Act and are also Certified Home Inspectors. At Cowden and Associates, our mission is to provide our customers with the information they need to make good decisions regarding their properties and investments. Our Services: Home Inspections; Fire Code Inspections; Fire Safety Planning

Our home inspection services are completed using the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice in accordance with the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors [NACHI]. Our Fire Code services are based on many years of training, certifications and experience in the Ontario Fire Service and designed to assist you in making timely and affordable decisions.

We are:

• Experienced Fire Fighters and Senior Officers
• Certified Home and Building Inspectors
• Certified Health and Safety professionals
• Trained and experienced Fire Code Compliance experts

Our primary concerns are your safety and satisfaction.

Home Inspection Services

Our Inspectors are Certified by the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors and adhere to the Code of Conduct we will conduct a thorough visual inspection of your potential purchase and explain in detail our findings.
Our inspectors use a methodical approach to look at your potential purchase. From the landscaping around the house, from the basement to the peak of the roof, we visually examine the structure and systems within to provide you with a snapshot of the current condition of the home.
Our role is not to tell you to buy or not buy any particular house, but to provide you the information you’ll need to make an educated and informed decision that is right for your circumstances.
We provide a comprehensive report with explanatory materials and photographs so you fully understand your decision to purchase.

Some of the systems we inspect:

Properly installed and maintained eaves-trough is critical to the long term health of the building and its occupants.
The management of water, keeping it outside of your building envelope is one of the most important long term priorities.

“leaking eaves-trough”

“lot drainage”

Lot grading is also extremely important.  Let’s face it: It’s going to rain, you can count on it just like death and taxes. Make the lot your building sits on help you keep water out of the basement. Ensure that good lot drainage is part of your solution.

International Association of Certified Home Inspectors

Fire Code Audits

Regular smoke alarm testing is a must in Ontario

Local Fire Departments are staffed with dedicated people, whose mission is to improve the level of fire safety in the community.  They do this, in part, by conducting inspections of buildings to ensure minimum standards of fire safety are in place. Their inspectors will gladly come to your property to inspect it
The risk to you as an Owner is that if any part of your building is found in contravention of the Fire Code, you will be issued an Order to Comply and you also risk charges under the Fire Code which may carry crippling fines.
You may have simply had questions regarding your building and can end up with an order for repairs or modifications with little to no time to plan or react.
It’s different with us. We will work with you and provide options to best suit your circumstances, and our joint efforts minimize the threat of legal action and fines.
Property owners must contend with the many regulations that are in place.
Let us provide you with your own, ‘fire marshal’ who will work with you to provide fire safety for your home or business.
Fire Safety Plans are another area that many small businesses struggle with.  Let us help you with that!
Working with you, we’ll help you complete a plan that will protect both you, your staff and clients in the event of an emergency.

Residential Rental Properties

Multi-unit residential properties are a popular investment and income tool, but like every investment, there are risks that have to be evaluated and mitigated to ensure the safety of your tenants and the value of your investment.
Older rental properties are subject to regulations under the Ontario Fire Code to provide an updated level of protection from fire. Part 9 of the Code entitled, ‘Retrofit,’ requires a minimum standard of fire protection in four areas:
Containment, which slows the spread of fire;
Egress, which is a fancy word for ways out of the building;
Alerting, which requires smoke alarms and/or an alarm system in larger buildings; and
Suppression, which means automatic sprinklers shall be used in some instances
or may be used in others.

Buildings affected by the Retrofit requirements the Fire Code. In general, buildings built prior to 1994 that are described as:

• Basement apartments;
• Duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes;
• Apartment buildings with more than two units that are less than 6
  stories in height;
• Apartment buildings that are more than 6 stories in height;
• Rooming, Boarding and Lodging houses.

Retrofit-is your building up to Code?

Although the Retrofit provisions of the Ontario Fire Code have been around more than 20 years, there has been very uneven application across Ontario. A few municipalities have or had a program in place, but the majority either had partial programs or more commonly no program at all, falling back on the, ‘Owners responsibility,’ clause in the Code requiring the Owner to ensure compliance.  Many audits that were done by local Inspectors were not followed up or fully documented.  As an owner, failure to have this documentation has significant financial impact on you and your income property.
We see two major issues in the properties we’ve assessed: Only a small percentage of subject buildings in Ontario have been thoroughly audited and retrofitted and secondly, many buildings that were retrofitted were inspected were either not properly audited and/or not well documented leaving the owner exposed to additional audits in the future and uncertainty as to the fire code compliance status which can affect the value of the building when it’s being sold.

Not having completed the required retrofit and not having documentation can cause you concern:

• When insuring your building. Uncompleted or undocumented audits can result in difficulty securing insurance and in higher premiums;
• When making an insurance claim in the event of a fire in your building;
• When a Municipal Fire Inspector inspects the building and has a
  different, ‘opinon,’ of retrofit compliance. Without a copy of a previous Compliance Letter from the Fire Dept. or other proof that the building has been properly audited and all work was completed, you may be subjected to an additional audit and/or prosecution.

So, what should you do?

You get the information, you keep the information.

Our audit process uses a thorough approach to look at the four elements required for a proper retrofit: Containment, Alerting, Egress and Suppression. In plain English that means we look at the floors, walls and ceilings; the smoke and fire alarm systems; the exits from each of the units in the building and fire extinguishing systems such as sprinklers and portable extinguishers required to be in place.

We make drawings of your building and provide all the details required during a retrofit audit.
We compile all this information in an easy to read and follow report. The report you receive will clearly outline any issues found and will explain the Fire Code and how it impacts on your property.
Once you’ve completed the work, the invoices from the contractor who completed the work and/or a follow up inspection to verify the building is fully compliant.
Once this is completed, keep all these documents on file for the life of the building.  This is your evidence to any inspector that you’ve ensured that your building is.

Do you have, or are you thinking of buying or building a duplex or other multi-unit building?

Our services will help you make sure the building complies with the Code and helps prevent costly legal proceedings.

Our reports will provide you with information on the building and the Fire Code requirements so that you can make the decisions on how to utilize your property.

Infrared Building Scanning

Take your Inspection to the Next Level-Order Thermal Scanning and see So Much More!

During my career in the Fire Services, we welcomed the introduction of Infrared Cameras to aid us in finding people inside smoke-filled buildings. We also used larger cameras to find people lost in the snow, or out on frozen lakes in winter.

In the home inspection business, we’ve learned the invaluable nature of infrared scanning when inspecting buildings for potential issues. To be clear: Infrared cameras interpret only the infrared band of energy emitted by all sources of heat. These aren’t X-rays; it doesn’t see ‘through’ anything. But it DOES see a wide range of things that are important for building owners to know and understand.

Things that impact on a building and are detectable by an IR camera;

• Early signs of water leaks in walls, ceilings and floors;
• Heating and cooling leaks in ductwork where the escaping air is impacting on a nearby surface;
• Many types of insulation-related issues-old, missing, animal-damaged, wet
• Condensation damage in walls and ceilings from moisture inside the building by insufficient vapour barriers behind walls and ceilings;
• Detecting the precursors of mold damage in the form of residual moisture at levels that allow mold growth;
• Electrical conditions that create improper amounts of heat at connections, fixtures and along wire runs;
• Evidence of evaporation of moisture coming from behind walls, floors and ceilings. Sources of evaporation include water intrusion from outside, plumbing leaks and condensation from insufficient insulation around HVAC ductwork and air conditioning system components;
• Air intrusion into the building envelope creating heat loss and heat gain.

So, if you’re really interested in finding out more about your investment or your potential investment and want to take it to the next level in terms of what you can learn about the state of your building, have us perform a thermal imaging scan in conjunction with our Full Service Home Inspection. You’ll be glad you did.

You see a typical wall and window with good paint and nice looking trim.

With our infrared camera, we can clearly see the dark area which indicates an area of cold that needs to be further investigated for possible air intrusion or missing insulation.