Totch Mabry and Jay Bennett, co-owners of QAI Residential Home Inspection Service, met in 2008 while they were both stationed at Little Creek. Both Navy divers, Totch and Jay have experienced, among many other assignments, deployments in the Middle East, Hurricane Katrina dive operations, picking up commercial aircrafts off the bottom of the ocean, and space shuttle Columbia disaster recovery. Their most recent venture as busi- ness owners in the home inspection space started in 2013 when the pair launched QAI. The company name is a nod to their diving careers. “We worked with complex life support equipment and hyperbaric oxygen chambers where quality assurance inspection (QAI) documentation was required,” Jay said.
QAI, with a team of seven and a combined 200 years of military service, is now one of the largest home inspection companies in Hampton Roads. Specializing in home inspections on the buyer’s side and pre-listings for people preparing to put their houses on the market, the QAI team also offers camera-guided main sewer line inspections, indoor air quality sampling and testing, lead-based paint and water sampling, and winterization and de-winterization of vacant homes. The QAI pro- cess is standardized from training to inspection to reporting. “The only differences among inspectors are personality traits,” Totch said. “Agents can have an inspector they like and want to use all the time, but if that person is busy, they can work with any one of our guys and get the same product.”