Michael Eugene

In the past few weeks I've written about a new homeowner that didn't have an inspection when he bought the house. He finished off his 3^rd floor roughed-in bath six months after he moved in and to his dismay he found out the waste was not connected and he'd been flushing that new baths toilet beneath his house.

The second homeowner did have a home inspection and was able to avert a potential disaster when it was found that the HVAC installers put his furnace documentation on top of the gas burners in the furnace cabinet.

This week we'll learn about a third new home buyer that was able to save himself a lot of aggravation (and heating $$$) by having his new home inspected.

Horror Story #3

I was inspecting a brand new home in the middle of January a few years back. It was cold for our area (20's during the day) then. The home was big, about 3700sf and the buyer spent a bunch on upgrades. The inspection was going pretty well for the most part with not really much to report. I go into the crawl space last on my inspections since they're the most fun (ha ha ha!). I opened the crawl space hatch and looked in and knew that something wasn't right. It took me a second but then I realized that there was no insulation installed underneath the house! This is an item that the county code inspector is supposed to sign off on. OOOPPPPSSSS! It just so happens the builder's site foreman was next door so we (me and the homeowner) called him over. I opened the crawl space and asked him what did he see. He looks, shrugs his shoulders, looks again, and then asks "OK, you got me. What's wrong?". We told him, he cursed and was on his cell phone getting insulation ordered. Even better, the county code inspector was a couple doors down doing a final on another house. The foreman called him over and asked him to look underneath. To his (the code inspector) credit he saw the problem right away. Moral of this story...don't rely on code inspectors to check everything they're supposed to check before you move in!

Missing or incomplete insulation is fairly common in new construction. Several times I've found unopened bags of insulation beneath sections of homes. Guess its quitting time, the guys installing leave and never come back to finish the job. In the meantime, the homeowners that don't have inspections wonder why the floor in one room always feels cold in the winter.

Urge new home buyers to have that new home inspected. It's cheap insurance!

Mike Eugene

Pillar to Post of Central Virginia

804-370-5092

Last week I told you about the poor unfortunate that did not have a home inspection prior to moving in. Poor guy finished his roughed in bath and started flushing his toilet beneath his house for about six months. This week I write about a wise soul that DID have his new construction home inspected prior to moving. Lucky for him too, read on...

Horror Story #2

This was a brand new $1million+ home...a very big home in our area. It was 3 floors and a finished basement. The house had 3 zone HVAC. Gas furnaces for the basement, 1st and 2nd floors and a heat pump for the 3rd floor. When testing gas furnaces I'll typically turn up the thermostat, go to the unit, pull the cover and watch the burn. For some reason while I was in the garage my guardian angel tapped me on the should and said "You're here now, pull the panel off the furnace before you fire it up". So I did. Guess where the HVAC installer put the installation and user docs for the furnace? You guessed it, right on top of the burners! I went up to the furnace in the attic of the second floor and found the same thing...the docs on the burners. Now this inspection was in June and the homeowner was months away from using his furnace. Had he not had an inspection he would have had not one, but two FIRES when he fired the furnaces up for the first time in the fall. He probably would have found the one in the garage fairly quickly but not the one in the attic!

A lesson learned for me too...I always pull the panel covers on gas furnaces before firing them up on new construction!

Next week...just one more reason to have a new home inspected before closing!

Many real estate agents that I work with tell me that they are asked this question by new home buying clients all the time..."The house is brand new...why do I need a home inspection?". I'm also frequently asked this question when I speak at home buying seminars. I give the usual reply that "no house is perfect"... "it's good to have a second set of eyes look it over"... yadda yadda yadda. Then I tell them three horror stories that I've encountered when inspecting new homes. After hearing these stories most clients agree that they do indeed need to have a brand new home inspected prior to closing.

Horror Story #1

This was actually an inspection of a home that was coming up on its one year warranty expiration. When I arrive for this type of inspection I'll always ask the homeowner if there are any particular problems that they've noticed so I can take a more exhaustive look at it. This particular homeowner told me that he's been noticing a really "musty" smell at one corner of his house for a couple of months. The house was about 3500sf and had an unfinished 3rd floor when they moved in. The 3rd floor was set up for a game room and was roughed in for a bath. He finished the 3rd floor and had been using it for about 6 months. The house has a crawl space which is the last thing I will inspect. As soon as I opened the hatch to the crawl I knew something was not right. After a couple of minutes I called the homeowner out, asked him to go up to the 3rd floor bath and flush the toilet. He did and whoosh. Yes, the plumbers did rough-in a 3rd floor bath BUT they did not connect it to waste underneath the house. So this poor homeowner has been flushing their toilet underneath their house for about 6 months!!! Quite unsavory to say the least!

Next week...horror story #2...stay tuned!

Greetings all! I hope everyone had a great and safe holiday. I had a little mishap at my house over the holidays that could have been avoided had I been a little more diligent in maintaining my own home. I wanted to pass this info on so someone else might avoid the aggravation my family has recently gone/is going through.

You know those little drain holes that are cut into the bowls of most sinks in baths? Well, they're for handling overflow of water should the sink fill up. Now, these holes don't have the capacity to handle a large volume of water for an extended period of time but they're intended to handle the forgetful person that gets distracted and wanders off and leaves the faucet on with the stopper either closed or the drain plugged. I check these all the time as part of my inspections and always flag them when they're clogged or not draining properly. Does anyone ever check them periodically to see if they've gotten clogged over time? I don't but I will from now on!

The weekend after Christmas my family went out of town to visit family. Sunday evening my two older sons returned home to find part of our kitchen ceiling on the floor and water dripping from the ceiling. We think the culprit was one of our cats. He's big and loves to drink out of the faucet when he has the chance. We think he jumped up into the bath sink and rubbed against the handle causing the water to trickle out. One of my sons had put his contact lenses in prior to leaving and had left the stopper pulled so the drain was shut. The overflow for the sink was clogged and didn't drain sooooo... it overflowed and caused some pretty extensive damage in the kitchen, bath, hallway, and family room. The flow was slow enough where the overflow would have easily handled the trickling water had it been clear! Oh well, with a $500 insurance deductible it's an expensive lesson for me and a maintenance item I will not forget to check every now and then. I will certainly mention it to my clients in the future!

Here are a few pix of the damage (the blue things are heated blowers to dry things out!). Amazing what a little trickle of water over about 24 hours can do!

To everyone a very Merry Christmas!

A safe, happy, and healthy New Year!

Our family sends out special prayers to all those that have lost or in danger of losing their homes. We hope for better times ahead and help for you all!

The Eugene's