Floor Drain Basics

One of the most common defects that I find in old Minneapolis and Saint Paul houses is missing cleanout plugs in floor drains - especially during Truth In Sale of Housing Evaluations.  Missing cleanout plugs can allow hazardous sewer gas in to the home, and often indicate a clogged floor drain.   To learn why and how, read on.

Every plumbing fixture has a trap. The purpose of a trap is to prevent foul-smelling sewer gas from coming back in to the house.  The diagram at right shows a P-trap, which can be found at sinks, showers, and bath tubs.   The left side of the trap connects to the plumbing fixture, and the right side connects to the sewer.  The 'sewer' side will have sewer gases present, but the water sitting in the bottom of the trap prevents the sewer gases from entering in to the house.

Floor Drain

Floor drains are no exception. The photo at right shows a floor drain, as viewed from the side.  The shaded portion shows the trap where water will always sit, which prevents sewer gas from coming in.  When you look at an installed floor drain, all that you typically see is the grill on top; the rest of the drain is always buried in the basement floor.

When the drain line gets clogged If the drain line for the floor drain gets clogged, it needs to be cleaned out with a drain cleaning tool. The floor drain has an area which bypasses the trap, which will allow a tool to be inserted in to the drain.  I've highlighted this bypass in the photo below, left.   Normally, a plug is always in place here, because this is an area where sewer gases dwell.  When the plug is removed, sewer gases come in to the house.  After the drain gets cleaned out, the cleanout plug needs to be replaced.   The plug is circled in blue in the photo below, right.

 

What if the threads are destroyed? On some older floor drains, the threads that used to accept the cleanout plug are damaged or badly rusted, to the point that it's impossible to screw in the cleanout plug.  The only acceptable repair for this situation is to install a rubber plug that is sandwiched with two pieces of metal that expand the rubber when tightened together.  The two photos below show a rubber plug before it's tightened and after it's tightened.

 
A missing cleanout plug usually means one of two things:

1. The drain was clogged, someone removed the cleanout plug to clean the drain, and they forgot to put the plug back in.
2. The bottom of the trap is clogged, and someone removed the cleanout plug to allow water to drain directly in to the sewer, instead of going through the trap.

Any time I see a missing cleanout plug, I tell my client that the cleanout plug needs to be replaced, and the floor drain may need to be cleaned out or replaced.  If the drain cannot be cleaned, the entire floor drain needs to be replaced.  When I perform re-inspections on homes in Minneapolis that have had missing cleanout plugs, about one in five floor drains need to be replaced because the drain couldn't be cleaned out.  This is an expensive repair, as it involves breaking up the concrete in the basement floor, replacing the drain, then pouring new concrete.

Just for fun, here are a few photos of missing cleanout plugs that I've taken within the past couple months.




For more information on common Truth In Sale of Housing defects, click on any of the links below.

• Missing Jumper Wire
• CO Alarms
• Vacuum Breakers (backflow preventers)
• Toilet Ballcocks
• Smoke Detectors

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minnesota Home Inspections

Finding Shower Leaks

One of the most common places that I find plumbing leaks during home inspections is at the showers.  Steel showers always leak, glass doors frequently leak, and tiled shower floors will usually leak if they're installed wrong.  Any time I inspect a home, I do my best to find these leaks.  Today I'll share a few of my methods.

Metal Showers

These old showers look really nasty.  All I need to do to make these leak is run the water.  They leak at the sides every time!  The fix is to replace the shower.

Glass Doors

I'd estimate that about every other glass shower door leaks.  To find these leaks, I simply point the shower head at the corner of the wall and door intersection, turn the shower on, and let it go until it leaks.  If the door doesn't leak right away, I leave the shower on for a few minutes, inspect a different room, and come back again.  If there is still no leakage, the shower passes.  If it leaks, the repair is usually as easy as adding some caulking at the inside of the shower at the intersection between the wall and the base.

While a leaking glass door typically only allows some water to leak on to the bathroom floor, this can eventually lead to major water damage at the sub-floor if the shower base or tub isn't properly caulked at the floor.  The photos below illustrate this quite clearly, I hope.  To help prevent damage here, always make sure that the tub or shower is properly caulked at the floor.

Tiled Shower Floors

They look great, but they often leak.  These leaks sometimes take a long, long time to manifest themselves because the leaking is often very minor and very slow.

I look for caulked joints in the floor, cracks in the floor, and patching at the ceiling below.  I also use a rubber shower dam to fill the shower with about 2" of water.  I leave the water slowly running in the shower and I don't worry about it overflowing - that's the beauty of using a dam.  I've found a lot of leaking showers using this method.  The leaks usually take a while to show up on the ceiling below, but it's dramatic to witness once it happens.

 

The repair for a leaking shower is to replace it.  Caulking any cracked areas in the tile is not an acceptable repair.

Shower Drains

Shower drains occasionally leak at the connection between the drain and the tub or shower.  I find these leaks by carefully examining the area below the drain for any drips after I've run the water.  These repairs are usually quite simple.

Plastic shower drains ocassionally leak, and these leaks are extremely difficult to find during the course of a home inspection.  A friend of mine had a big stain on his ceiling below the shower, so we spent a couple hours trying to figure out where the leak was coming from, but we couldn't make it leak.  Two days later, the stain got bigger.  It turned out that the drain was leaking only when he was actually standing in the shower, which caused the shower floor to bow just enough to make the drain connection leak.  I've never found a leak like this during the course of a home inspection!

Just for fun

Here's a quick video of a rotted subfloor in a shower.  This shower had been leaking for a long, long time.  (right, Milind?)

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector Saint Paul

"Non-Conforming Bedroom?" How About "Not A Bedroom"

Last week I wrote about how bedrooms don't need closets to legally be called bedrooms.  That post got me thinking about this similar but opposite topic.  If a room doesn't have a proper means of egress, why call it a non-conforming bedroom?

I've only heard the term "non-conforming bedroom" applied to bedrooms in the basement that have very small windows that would be tough to get out of.  As I mentioned last week, there are a ton of requirements for bedrooms - ceiling height, natural light, ventilation, heat, electric outlets, etc.  Why not call a bedroom non-conforming if it doesn't have any one of these things?

Another phenomenon I've noticed is that bedrooms only get labeled non-conforming if the windows are really tiny, and the bedroom is in the basement.

What about a basement bedroom with huge windows but tiny window wells that don't allow for proper egress?  Or deep wells without ladders?  Or large basement windows that aren't quite large enough to meet egress requirements?  These never get labeled non-conforming... yet they certainly don't conform.

Another one is bedrooms on the first floor that don't have proper egress windows - just look at about half of the old ramblers in Bloomington and you'll see what I mean.  Some of these windows would be almost impossible for anyone to get out of.  I've never seen these houses listed as "zero-bedroom" houses.

I would love it if the real estate community could figure out exactly what makes a bedroom a bedroom, and be consistent with it.  Stop calling rooms 'non-conforming'.   It just confuses people when I come along and say that none of the bedroom windows are 'conforming'.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Bloomington Home Inspector

Bedrooms Don't Need Closets

Everyone knows that you need a closet in a bedroom to call it a bedroom, right?  While this is a universally accepted standard, good luck finding any type of authority that will back this up.

The funny thing about the ''requirement' to have a closet in a bedroom is that there isn't anything in the International Residential Code (IRC) that requires a closet in the bedroom.  There's also nothing in the Minnesota State Building Code that requires a closet, and there's nothing in the Minneapolis Maintenance Code.  So where does this thought come from?  I'm guessing HUD, FHA or VA require closets... but they're not authorities on the matter.

Minneapolis defines a bedroom as "A habitable room within a dwelling unit which is used, or intended to be used, primarily for the purpose of sleeping, but shall not include any kitchen or dining room." Minneapolis also requires the following for any sleeping room:

• Seven foot ceiling height
• Seventy square feet of floor area, not including any closet area
• A source of natural light (8% of the floor area)
• A source of natural ventilation (4% of the floor area)
• Can not be arranged such that access to a sleeping room can be had only be going through another sleeping room or a bathroom or toilet room.
• Proper Egress - the requirements for this are long and complicated, and depend on when the building was built and when the last windows were installed.

There are a few other requirements, but there's nothing about a closet.

What exactly is a closet anyways?  The IRC defines a closet as "A small room or chamber used for storage."  A chamber is "a natural or artificial enclosed space or cavity".  This means that a 6" box with a door that's installed on the wall could be called a closet.  Ok, maybe that's silly.  How about an armoire or a wardrobe?  I've seen plenty of houses with only wardrobes in the bedrooms, and nobody had a problem calling them bedrooms.

The bottom line is that bedrooms do not need closets to be called bedrooms.  The next time you hear someone tell you that a bedroom needs a closet, ask for proof.

Oh, and don't let common sense get in the way (everyone still needs a place to store their stuff!).

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector Saint Paul

ps - Almost everything I blog about deals with topics that I have knowledge about, and I can almost always prove whatever I write.  For this topic, I'm writing about something that I don't have proof of. If anyone reading this blog can find evidence that I'm wrong, please post a comment.

Defects With Range Hood Fans

I'm a big fan of range hoods that exhaust to the exterior, and I like them even more when they're installed properly, but this doesn't always happen.  I find a lot of problems with range hoods when I inspect houses, and today I'll review a few of the most common defects.

Backwards fans.  By far, the most common installation defect that I find with over-the-range microwave / hood fans is a blower fan that's installed backwards.  Microwave fans are designed to exhaust out the back, exhaust out the top, or recirculate air out the front.  Depending on how the fan is installed, the internal fan needs to be rotated to blow in the proper direction.  The diagram below comes from an installation manual, and helps to illustrate this.  I frequently find fans that are designed to re-circulate the air, or blow it out the front, but when I turn the fan on, it just makes a lot of noise.  No air is coming in or out. The repair for this condition is to un-install the microwave, rotate the internal fan, then re-install the microwave.

 

Too powerful. One of the most powerful fans I've seen is a Japanese brand called San Yang Pai. These particular types of kitchen exhaust fans are just too powerful for most homes.  The least powerful fan they make is rated at 650 cubic feet per minute (cfm), which is a ridiculous amount of air being removed from the house.  By comparison, the most powerful residential hood fan made by Whirlpool is rated at 370 cfm.  Every time I've inspected a house with a hood fan made by this company, the fan has been so powerful that it caused the water heater to backdraft.  The water heaters always function fine after I turn the hood fan off.   The fix is to replace the fan or have additional make-up air brought in to the home (or just not use the fan, but I never recommend that).

Improper duct. The standard for range hood exhausts is a 6" rigid metal duct.  Anything smaller will always violate the manufacterers installation instructions - as far as I know.  I've never seen a manufacturer that allows anything smaller than 6".   The photo at right was taken at a condo conversion in Minneapolis.  The builder had to replace the duct with the proper size, and I'm sure it wasn't a fun project.


Improper wiring. Most hood fans come with a cord that needs to be plugged in to an outlet, or they have an opening in the cabinet so they can be hardwired.  I see a lot of hood fans in Minneapolis and Saint Paul wired with lamp cords or extension cords, and this is never a proper installation.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector Saint Paul

Moisture Problem Caused By High Efficiency Furnace

Nelly has lived in the same split entry house since it was built in 1980, and has never had any moisture problems with his home until recenty.  Shortly after replacing his old mid-efficiency natural draft furnace with a high-efficiency furnace, Nelly started noticing a host of moisture problems with his house.  It started with condensation on the windows that never used to be there, and developed in to water spots on the ceiling around the skylights, which were caused by excessive condensation in the attic.

Nelly called the HVAC company that installed his furnace and complained about the moisture problems he was having.   A badly cracked heat exchanger could lead to moisture problems in a home, and a vent that is not properly venting to the exterior could also cause serious damage to the home. The installers came out and checked everythings, and it was all working fine.  Why is Nelly having moisture problems now?

The answer has to do with combustion air and dilution air.  On a standard furnace, combustion air and dilution air are taken from inside the house.  Combustion air provides the oxygen that is required for combustion, and dilution air helps to lower the temperature of the exhaust gases.   When you add up the combustion air and diluation air, it equals quite a large volume of air that is constantly rising up and out of the house during the heating season.

Combustion air and dilution air get replaced with cold, dry outside air.  This is why older houses get so dry in the winter.  Is this starting to make sense?

High efficiency furnaces save energy by taking combustion air directly from the exterior, rather than wasting the heated air in your home for combustion.  When Nelly replaced his natural draft furnace with a high efficiency furnace, he stopped wasting all that warm, moist air.  In reality, the high efficiency furnace didn't 'create' the moisture problem any more than vapor barriers in walls create moisture problems.

In order to address the moisture problems in his home, Nelly has a few options.  He could install a continuous exhaust fan to constantly remove air from the home, but this obviously wouldn't be a very Green thing to do, because all of that warm air would always be replaced with cold air.  Nelly could run dehumidifiers all winter, but again, this would be expensive.  Nelly's best option would be to install a heat recovery ventilator (HRV).  An HRV will constantly change out the air in the house while at the same time removing humidity from the house.   More on HRVs another day.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector Minneapolis

RELATED POSTS:

• HRVs: Why Houses Need Them and What They Do
• HRVs: Maintenance and Operation
• HRVs: Installation Defects

The End Of Plastic Outlet Plugs

You know those little plastic plugs that go in outlets to keep kids from sticking stuff in and getting a shock?  I can’t stand ‘em.  No home inspector can, because they make it a big hassle to test outlets.  I did a quick poll (two people), and as it turns out, nobody likes them.  In fact, studies have shown that most two-year-olds can remove the plastic plugs, so they’re not really all that great to start with.  I have good news – they will soon be a thing of the past.

The 2008 National Electric Code (NEC) requires all new or renovated outlets in homes to be tamper-resistant.  That’s right, no more annoying child-safety plugs.  This new requirement has already gone into effect in Minnesota, and these are the only outlets that I see in new construction homes now.  Tamper resistant outlets are designed so that if you try to insert an object in to just one of the slots, it won’t go in.  They will only accept a standard plug.

As soon as I heard about these new outlets, I replaced all of the outlets in my house with tamper resistant outlets.  Now I don’t have to worry about my toddler trying to stick stuff in the outlets.  Tamper resistant outlets cost about three times as much as standard outlets, but it’s a small price to pay for the convenience of not having to deal with plastic plugs, and to make sure your outlets are safer for children.  Click the video below for a demonstration of these great devices.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector Minneapolis

PEX Is Better Than Sliced Bread

PEX Tubing

Cross Linked Polyethylene water tubing, or PEX, is a relatively new product which was first introduced in North America in 1984.   PEX has been primarily used for radiant floor heating, and more recently water distribution systems.  I love this stuff, and if you have any plumbing projects coming up, I recommend using PEX instead of copper.  Here's why:

Ease of installation My favorite feature of PEX tubing is it's ease of installation.  I've soldered plenty of copper tubing, and it's a time-consuming, pain-in-the-butt process.  Every length of tubing and every fitting needs to be perfectly measured, cut, reamed, fluxed, and soldered.  I get flux all over myself, I usually end of burning myself on a piece of copper that I forgot was hot, and much care needs to be taken to make sure the torch doesn't burn other materials in the home.  With PEX, all of this hassle is completely eliminated.  Because PEX is so flexible, you typically only need to eyeball the length of the tubing before cutting it, and the fittings are quite easy to join together - much easier than soldering!  The first time I installed PEX tubing it was so easy and so fast that it felt like I was cheating.  Plumbing isn't supposed to be this easy!

Home Run

Better water flow Instead of running large branch lines through the house and tapping off the branch lines with smaller lines to feed bathrooms, kitchens, and other rooms, PEX can be configured in what's referred to as a 'Home Run'.  This is done by installing a large manifold in the basement near where the water comes in to the house, and then running a separate water supply tube to every single plumbing fixture.  You can then install shutoff valves for every single tube.  This means that you'll have much less of a pressure drop when you're running more than one fixture at the same time.  You can also install shutoff valves for every single line, so isolating a fixture can be done with ease.

Less prone to failure Most failures with water supply pipes happens at the fittings, not in the piping itself.  With PEX, there are far fewer fittings needed because the material is so flexible.  Because PEX is so flexible, it is also freeze-break resistant.  In the last two years I've seen TONS of burst copper tubing from freeze damage, but I've never seen freeze damaged PEX tubing.  PEX is also highly resistant to chemical damage.

With all the benefits that PEX offers, why are people still using copper?  I don't claim to have an answer.   Oh, and as for the title of this blog - what makes sliced bread so great?  Don't get me wrong, I like sandwiches even more than the next person, but it wouldn't be fair to say that PEX is the 'greatest thing since sliced bread.'  It's better.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minnesota Home Inspector

A Common Problem With Roof Caps For Bath Fans

I start every home inspection by giving myself a quick tour of the inside of the house to get an idea of what I need to be looking for while inspecting the exterior.  While doing my brief initial walk-thru of the interior, I also turn on everything that removes air from the house, such as bath fans, kitchen exhaust fans, and dryers.  I do this to create negative pressure in the house so I can later make sure that all of the fuel burning appliances still draft properly, and to make sure that all of the fans exhaust the way they're supposed to.

As I turn the fans on in the home, I make a mental note of how many fans I've turned on, and I account for each exhaust while inspecting the exterior.  I've caught a ridiculous amount of bathroom exhaust fans there were vented in to attics or finished floor / ceiling spaces by doing this.  This is also a way for me to check to see that the fans are actually exhausting air, not just making a lot of noise.

I check the operation of bath fans by just putting my hand at the exhaust and making sure air is blowing out - after first checking for wasp nests, of course.  About one-third of the fans that are supposed to be exhausting through the roof are exhausting to a cap with a backdraft damper that is stuck closed, which causes a good portion of the warm, moist air to exhaust in to the attic space (pictured above).  Most of the dampers that I see are made by Broan, so I'll be talking about their specific roof cap.

Most roof caps for bath fan exhausts have a light aluminum backdraft damper which rests on a sealant strip, which is basically a foam piece of weatherstripping.  This sealant strip is installed to keep cold air from coming in, and according to a Broan customer service rep, it also "helps to prevent unbearable metal on metal chatter."  I'd have to agree!  Unfortunately, when the sealant strip gets hot from the sun beating on the cap all day, it gets sticky.  Eventually, the damper gets completely stuck to the sealant strip, which prevents the damper from opening.  This is what causes the black staining in the attic that you see pictured above.

When I find this defect, I usually take my awl and pry the damper open, which allows the damper to open and close freely again... until the next hot day.  Broan received so many complaints about these dampers getting stuck that they changed the material that was used for the sealant strip in 2006.  Now the sealant strips are made of polyester, and they don't get stuck any more.  If you own a house with older roof caps, you can order a replacement damper and sealant strip from Broan by calling 800-558-1711, part # s7017696.  Click here for damper replacement instructions - they're listed under the Maintenance section.  I'll be recommending this to a lot of my customers.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minnesota Home Inspector


Special thanks to Judi Weber at Broan for contributing information to help write this.

FPE Stab-Lok Panels

Federal Pacific Electric Stab-Lok panels have long been known to be problematic, and I've always called them out as a potential safety hazard, but I've recently become much more 'agressive' with the way I report them.  While performing a home inspection, I used to recommend having these panels evaluated by an electrician and replaced if neccessary, but now I just skip the whole recommendation thing.  I tell my clients to have the panels replaced.

To understand why, here are a few key points:

• Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) sold millions of panels between the 1950's and 1980's.
• Testing by the Consumer Product Safety Commision has shown these breakers to have an unacceptably high rate of failure, which creates a safety hazard.
• Testing has proven that virtually every panel installed in the United States contains defective breakers.
• FPE falsified their UL testing, making their UL listing void.
• Approximately 1 out of 3 breakers are defective.
• If a breaker fails to trip when it should, the wires in the home that are supposed to be protected can start on fire.

So why don't I recommend having an electrician evaluate the panel?  There's no point.  Many electricians are under the impression that FPE panels are safe if they can turn every breaker on and off, if every breaker is tightly attached, and if there is no evidence of overheating or scorching in the panel.  These things would be dead givaways that there is a problem, but to truly know if the breaker would trip when it needs to, each breaker would need to actually be tested.  This testing would be more expensive than having the entire panel replaced.

In the past, I told my clients to have FPE panels evaluated by an electrician. I followed up with many buyers that bought homes with FPE panels because I was curious how many panels actually got replaced, and I found two typical outcomes: One - the buyer's agent would tell the buyer that I'm just trying to cover my butt, the panel has been fine for the current owners for the last 30 years, and it shouldn't be a problem.  Two - the buyer would ask the seller to have an electrician evaluate the panel for safety, and the seller would find an electrician willing to say the panel is safe.


I started to wonder what electricians are actually saying about these panels, so I sent out emails to 50 local electricians, asking them how they test or evaluate FPE panels.  You'd be surprised how difficult it was to find 50 email addresses of local electricians!  Here are the responses I received:

• Twelve electricians said they don't look at these panels or test them, they just consider them a safety hazard and say they should be replaced.  I had several electricians call me and share some great personal stories and anecdotes with me.
• Four electricians said that these are poorly made panels that are prone to failure, but replacement is only recommended, not required.  They look for loose breakers, scorch marks, or burn marks.
• One electrician said that he overloads a random number of breakers past it's rating to see if they'll trip.  I like this guy's hands-on approach, but from what other electricians have told me, this is an unsafe practice and it won't tell you anything about the safety of the panel unless every single breaker is tested.
• Thirty-Three didn't respond.

The bottom line is that every single electrician I contacted was familiar with the hazards associated with FPE panels, and most of them recommend replacement outright.  About half of the electricians referenced a web site that has some excellent info on the hazards of these panels.  To read more about this issue, visit http://www.inspect-ny.com/fpe/FPE-Hazards-Revised-070525.pdf.


Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minnesota Home Inspector

Saint Paul Truth In Housing Reports - How To Look Up Online

Saint Paul Truth-In-Sale of Housing reports are available online.  Like Minneapolis has been doing for the last three years, Saint Paul is now providing easy access to TISH reports online.  While the reports aren't  'created' online the way that Minneapolis reports are, they are still available in pdf format.

To look up reports, go to www.StPaulOneStop.com .  Click on "Property info and Permits by Address".  Now type in the address that you want to look up.  For example, try 2117 Highland.  Now click "Submit".  Under the "List of Activity" on the next page, you'll see that the most recent activity for this property was a Truth In Sale of Housing Inspection, and there is a link to this report at the bottom of the box.   That's all there is to it.

There are some limitations - only new reports will be available online.  Reports filed before May 1st of 2009 generally won't be available online, but there will still be a record of it.  You'll need to call the evaluator to get the report if it isn't online.  Also, not all reports are available.  Saint Paul is allowing evaluators that are stuck in the dark ages to continue mailing or faxing their reports in, and these reports won't be available online.  This shouldn't last long though - the old school evaluators will soon be required to submit reports electronically like everyone else.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Saint Paul Home Inspector

RELATED POST:
Useful Links To Public Property Information

Reversed Polarity Outlets

Any time  I inspect a house where an amateur has been doing electrical wiring in a home, there's a good chance that I'll find outlets with reversed polarity.  This happens when the hot and nuetral wires get flipped around at an outlet.  Reversed polarity creates a potential shock hazard, but it's usually an easy repair.

A brief definition of Hot and Neutral wires: On a standard outlet, which is technically called a duplex receptacle, there are two wires that carry electricity.   One of these wires is connected to the earth, or 'grounded', and this wire is called the grounded conductor.  This wire is commonly referred to as the neutral wire, and it should always be white (unless it's an old home with cloth covered wires).   The other wire doesn't get connected to the earth, and it's called the ungrounded conductor, or hot wire.  This wire can be any color besides white or green, but it's usually black.   Because the hot wire completes a circuit by coming in contact with the earth, if you touch a hot wire and you're in contact with the earth (which is pretty much always), you'll become part of the circuit.  In other words, you'll get shocked.



Shock hazard scenario #1: I'm toasting an english muffin and it gets stuck in my toaster.  I look in the toaster and see that the heating elements are off, so I assume it's safe to stick a knife in the toaster to get my muffin.  I should be safe doing this, because the switch that controls the flow of electricity to the heating elements in the toaster shuts off the hot wire.  Unfortunately, my toaster is plugged in to an outlet with reversed polarity, so the switch on my toaster is shutting off the neutral wire instead of the hot.  This means there is always electricity at the heating elements just waiting for some poor sap to stick a knife in, and that electricity will travel up the knife, through my body, and back to the earth.  Breakfast ruined.  Your mom was right when she told you to never do this.



Shock hazard scenario #2:I'm using an old trouble light, and my finger accidentally comes in contact with the outside of the metal socket that holds the light bulb in place.  The socket is always connected to the neutral wire, so no big deal... unless the trouble light is plugged in to an outlet with reversed polarity.  In this case, I'll get a shock.  If this happens while I'm laying on the garage floor working on my car, there's a good chance that this could be the last shock I ever get.  This can also happen with old table lamps that have exposed metal sockets.


Damage to electronic components?  No. I've heard that reversed polarity can cause damage to some electronic equipment, such as computers.  I researched that theory for this blog and I couldn't find any evidence to support it.  Why would electronic equipment care which wire is connected to the earth?  It doesn't.  Reversed polarity is a shock hazard only.  Electronic equipment will still function fine.


How to fix: Get an electrician.  The electrician will check the color of the wires feeding to the outlet.  If the white wire is connected to the smaller slot on the outlet, then the outlet was wired backwards.  The fix is as simple as swapping the wires around on the outlet.  If the wiring appears correct at the outlet, this means the white wire is now the hot, and a problem exists somewhere upstream from the outlet.  This will take more investigation to determine exactly where the wiring went wrong.  Simply swapping the wires at the outlet would not be an acceptable fix.

The bottom line is that reversed polarity at outlets is a shock hazard.  Electronic equipment plugged in to an outlet with reversed polarity will still function properly.  You can test for reversed polarity at your outlets with an inexpensive outlet tester.  If you have outlets with reversed polarity, have this condition corrected by an electrician.


Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Edina Home Inspector