Careful With Those Water Lines!

In keeping with the exterior faucet/Winter theme, you can never get enough warnings about keeping pipes from freezing.

As a home inspector, I often see plumbing in places where I worry about what will happen on those super cold nights, the ones where the mercury dips below 0 for several nights in a row.

Even if you live in a new house with frost proof faucets installed on the exterior, sometimes there are areas or rooms where temperatures can dip dangerously close to freezing.  Lots of new construction has laundry sinks in the garage, make sure those garage doors are closed at night and if this is your first winter in your new house, you may want to put a thermometer in the garage and check on it during those hard freeze nights.

A more common pipe freezing problem is when renovations place pipes in unheated areas.  A typical example is when a kitchen remodel moves the sink lines to the outside walls etc.  In a lot of older ranches and bungalows circa 40s and 50s there are little "bump outs" or soffits that overhang free space.  These locations are very susceptible to freezing pipes, if plumbing is installed.

Use common sense and caution this winter.  Keep an eye on those pipes, open cabinet doors beneath sinks when to circulate warm air if needed.  Heated pipe wrapping is also available if you identify a pipe that may freeze.  An ounce of protection ahead of the trouble can save thousands in flood damage.

Frost proof faucets

As we dip back into more seasonal temperatures overnight here in NE Ohio, I thought I'd talk about frost proof faucets.

There are basically two types of faucets used on the exterior of homes, although this information would also apply to faucets installed inside attached garages.  The first is the old standard, seen on houses since they started putting exterior faucets in.

The rubber valve that stops the flow of water is right at the faucet.  If you were to take this one off the house, it would consist of the greenish portion only; there would still be a small portion of pipe sticking out of the house.  Why is this not good in colder climates?  When you shut the water off, water is present in that portion of the pipe that sticks out and is subject to freezing.  Freezing water expands and bursts pipes.

The solution, is to put the valve that stops the water flowing deep inside the house where the temperatures are warmer.  This type of valve looks like this:

This works relatively well, but of course isn't completely infallible.  Under the right conditions, even these can freeze, so it's a good idea to use common sense with water in areas of the  country where you experience freezing temperatures.  I routinely tell clients during home inspections to be mindful of keeping garage doors closed during hard freezes, the kind of nights where it's single on negative digits.  Also, make sure your faucet is well sealed to the house with caulking etc.  And putting one of these in at an unheated crawlspace is also asking more of it than it was designed to do.  Remember, the copper pipe portion of the valve in the photo above must extend into a heated space.

There's lots more info out there on these if you want to read more.  They're a great device that allows you to hook up the hose on those warmer winter days without having to head into the basement and turn the water back on and then bleed the line again when finished.  You also don't have to remember to turn these off.  Just remember that it does still have water back at that inner end, and if it's cold enough, it can still freeze depending on where on your house this is installed.

New Construction Inspections PT 2

As home inspectors, we sometimes get asked to inspect new condos.  The other day I inspected a condo for a client who was to close in four days.  Workers were still in the unit trying to finish things up.  There was a long, long list of items I found that required completion.  Some were items that you might expect, missing hardware on kitchen cabinets etc. but many were not.

One of the things a home inspector can really help with on a new construction inspection is verifying all is in order.  Buying a house or condo keeps you pretty busy, and by hiring a home inspector for a few hundred dollars they can do a methodical inspection of all the supposedly perfect things in your new house.

The example from the other day was a condo in Ohio City.  If your house was built in the winter, you can bet the furnace was installed to help dry the drywall work.  Unfortunately you can also bet that no filters were installed in your furnace, and that as the drywall was sanded and the house was swept (over and over) that your furnace saw the brunt of this.  We often find brand new furnaces caked with construction dirt.  The ductwork will also be subject to this.  Who checks the ductwork on a brand new house?  The home inspector does.

In this instance, due to the economy, this condo project, which was new construction within the walls of 100 year old building had seen a very long delay between start and finish of the units.  The furnace, air conditioner and hot water tank, besides being filthy, were all almost 6 years old when I inspected them.  Questions are raised in this situation: will the warranties be honored?  If not, perhaps the builder can purchase a warranty on these mechanicals.

The bottom line is that inspections on new construction can save you problems and money, just as they can on older homes.  My advice is don't skimp on an inspection under any circumstances.

Inspections For New Construction

I thought I'd take a moment to talk about the importance of inspections for new construction.  Most people think "it's a new house, the builder gave me a warranty, why have a home inspection?"

The reality is you probably do still need a home inspection.  I've done more than a few inspections where problems were of such magnitude  that the buyers chose not to purchase the home.  I'll give a few examples.

This past summer, during the height of the drought I inspected a development home built by one of the areas major builders.  The home wasn't brand new, having been lived in about one year prior to the owners being transferred.  Things got interesting in the finished basement.  The lower half of the drywall had been replaced, and the recently installed carpeting had been removed.  These are clear indications of water damage.

Of course the sellers had nothing about any of this in the disclosure.  There was a sump pump installed which was not working.  As I told the potential buyers that the sump needed replacement and re-installed the cover, the sump began to run.  And run.  And run.  It pumped water from the basin for the next 30 minutes or so.  I finished my basement inspection and it was still running.

I had not seen water in that amount draining that long in a sump.  It was like fire hoses were filling the basin.  Clearly something was amiss.  I delayed my departure a bit to see if it would eventually cease and it didn't.  The buyer realtor called the seller agent to let them know something was not as it should be.

I contacted several colleagues about this and all agreed that there might be water table issues in the area or that the sump was discharging at the exterior and coming right back in.  Two days later, when the Radon tester arrived to pick up the Radon monitor, he called me to confirm that after two full days, the pump was still running.  I suggested the buyers do some old fashioned detective work and talk to neighbors in the development.  Sure enough, stories of flooding and failing sump pumps (these things weren't made to run that much) from both sides.

Figuring out exactly what caused this would take some diagnostics by qualified contractors.  The buyers, who thought a one year old house would be worry free decided to buy another house.  

Tomorrow, I'll post an inspection story about a brand new townhouse/apartment.

Just An Interesting Use of Railroad Track

I thought I'd post this just for fun.  I worked with several fellow inspectors on an old church that was being sold by the Catholic Diocese here in Cleveland.  Very interesting job overall, as the sale consisted of several buildings including a school.  In one class room there were photos of the presidents they stopped at Nixon- his photo had "1968"- beneath it!

The house used by the priests was using this railroad track for the main beam in the basement!  My fellow inspector noted that it was probably from a light gauge trolley that used to run here in Cleveland.

"I Wonder What They Did Here?"- Your Building Dept. and Your Soon to be Neighbors May Have the Answers

The other day I inspected a home for a client that was more than doubled in square footage by additions.  They went up and out, bathrooms, second floor living rooms and laundry etc.  Sometimes this can be done very tastefully with the proper architect.  

This particular expansion left me scratching my head, and my only conclusion was that there was no architect or just a bad one.  As an example, there were multiple areas where as many as four doors could be opened to collide with each other- just not good practice.  

 Bottom line is that when you're buying a house and have large scale questions, the city building department can hold many answers.  Sometimes they'll remember the project and can give you some names of contractors who were part of the work.  Other times they won't know any work at all was done (no permits pulled) which, if it's a large project like the house I was inspecting was, can raise red flags as to the quality of the contractor (or homeowner) who did the work.  

Lastly, neighbors can hold a lot of information.  I often break the ice with my inspection clients and the neighbors so that they can ask some questions about the history of the house, and also meet their new neighbors!  Sometimes the neighbors even come to us, which always endears the neighborhood to the clients.

So, don't hesitate to contact the city or neighbors to ask about a the history of a house you're looking at.  Neither costs a thing and you never know what you might find out.

What is it?

I'll finish up the home inspection series shortly.  In the meantime I thought this was interesting.

What is it?

I came across one of these in an old house in Gates Mills.  It was on the ceiling of the detached garage.  Luckily, the caretaker of the estate is a retired fireman so he gave me the scoop.  From about 1870-1910 fire “grenades” were marketed as a form of fire extinguisher.  They contain a chemical, in most cases carbon-tetrachloride or CTC.  Some early ones used salt water.  Used for electrical fires, they were mostly removed by the 1950s due to the dangerous nature of the chemical inside- repeated exposure damages the nervous system and internal organs, and with heat CTC converts to Phosgene gas which was used as chemical weapon.  This particular type would have a lead wire that would melt and release the chemical.  If you come across one, tell your client that they have a dangerous but valuable antique, best removed.