“YOU JUST COST ME A LOT OF MONEY!”

Do you remember the telephone game? You’d get a bunch of kids in a circle, and the first kid would whisper a phrase in the next kids ear, and then that kid would whisper it to the next, and so on. Once the last person heard the message, they’d say aloud what they heard, and everyone would have a great laugh because the message was never even close to what the first person said.

While this is all great fun for kids, it’s frustrating when it happens in the real estate world… especially when it happens on purpose. If you read my blogs with any regularity, you already know that I’m passionate about my work and I stand behind my inspection reports. I welcome challenges to my calls, and I stand behind them… but sometimes I don’t get the chance.

Some time ago, I inspected a home with a 23 year old Trane furnace where I was able to remove the back panel to get a clear look at the heat exchanger. Many older Trane and GE furnaces have these removable panels which makes inspecting the heat exchanger a piece of cake. I found obvious cracks in every single port of the heat exchanger, so I told my client to replace the furnace, and I even included photos of the cracked heat exchanger in my report. This should have been a no-brainer furnace replacement, but it didn’t work out that way.

 

Two days later I received this voicemail – the choppy parts are where I removed the agent’s name, house address, and the name of the HVAC contractor:

Click here to hear the voicemail - You just cost me a lot of money

I think I had steam coming out of my ears after I listened to that message. Who told the owner to hire a heating contractor to “inspect my comments”? Certainly not me. Weren’t my photos of the cracked heat exchanger good enough? Above all, why would a contractor say the furnace was perfectly fine? I don’t know of any contractor that would use language like that about a 23 year old furnace. The best thing I’ve ever heard a heating contractor say about a 23 year old furnace is “I can’t find any problems with it.” This didn’t make any sense.

I had to get to the bottom of this, so I waited several hours until I was calm enough to speak in a civil manner, and I finally called the listing agent back. I got the name of the heating contractor and called him to chat about the furnace. The contractor sheepishly admitted that he wasn’t aware that this furnace had a removable back panel, so he never found the cracks.

I asked the contractor why he would have said that there were “no cracks at all” and that there was “nothing wrong with the furnace, at all”. Can you guess what he told me? He said he never said that. The contractor told the homeowner that the furnace was heavily rusted, 23 years old, and most likely did have a cracked heat exchanger, but he couldn’t find any cracks.

I called the listing agent back and told him what the contractor told me. The listing agent apologized and said he wasn’t even the person that talked to the contractor in the first place; he was just repeating what the owner told him. Huh. There’s the telephone game. I told the agent that I didn’t envy his job.

If you want the full story, sometimes you have to just go to the source. To this day, I’d still love to know exactly what that homeowner told his agent.

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

    

Moldy Shower Caulk... Fixed!

Dirty bathrooms are a huge turnoff for home buyers.  Mold is another huge turnoff.  Combine the two and the ‘yuck’ factor multiplies.  I think everyone has seen moldy bathroom caulk before, and if you’ve tried cleaning this stuff, you know it’s impossible.

 

I recently moved in to home with some nasty looking caulk in the shower; that’s my shower pictured above.  I figured I would need to remove all of the moldy caulking and re-caulk my shower walls to get them looking good again, but after doing some online research, I found a cleaning method that worked surprisingly well and wasn’t much work.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn this in to a Martha Stewart blog… but I was so happy with the results that I had to share the process.

Gather supplies. I grabbed a small mixing bowl, a jug of bleach, a box of baking soda, a disposable paint brush, a roll of plastic wrap, and a spray bottle.  The plastic wrap (orange handle, green plastic) shown in the photo below is the stuff you use to wrap things together, but you can also use the same plastic wrap you keep in your kitchen.  Oh, and one other thing – while it’s not required for the project, I strongly suggest wearing a respirator.  Those bleach fumes are bad news.  Also, wear old clothes that you wouldn’t mind spilling bleach on.  It might happen.

Mix up your cleaning solution. The cleaning solution consists of a bleach and baking soda paste.  You make it by mixing bleach and baking soda in a bowl until it’s about the consistency of pancake batter.  The baking soda doesn’t do any cleaning; it’s just a cheap powder that will help make the bleach pasty.  Don’t skimp on the cleaning solution here – go ahead and make way more than you think you’ll need.  Bleach and baking soda are both inexpensive.

Apply the cleaning solution to the moldy caulk. Use your disposable paint brush to apply the bleach paste on to the moldy caulk.  Again, don’t skimp here; it’s cheap, so cake it on.  I suggest you try to work somewhat quickly though.  The bleach is going to disintegrate the bristles on your disposable paint brush, so you don’t have all day.

Cover the cleaning solution with plastic and wait. Covering the cleaning solution with plastic will help to keep the bleach from drying out.  Now you wait.  If you have a white porcelain kitchen sink or white porcelain whatever-else, spread the extra cleaning paste on it.  You can just let the paste sit for about 10 minutes, and then your sink will look brand new when you rinse the bleach off.  No scrubbing required.

Check on it. After the bleach has been sitting for several hours, it will probably have dried out, despite the plastic covering.  At this point, if the caulking looks as good as new, great!  You’re done.  If you still have moldy caulk, put some bleach in a spray bottle and wet the walls down right above the plastic wrap.  The bleach will run down underneath the plastic and re-saturate the paste.  You can do this as many times as it takes, but even with my super-nasty caulk, I only needed to re-apply the bleach one time.

Now clean up.  At this point, your caulk should look brand new and bleachy fresh, or at least pretty close to it.  Now you can clean up the mess.  Water works just fine.  Click on the before and after photos below for a larger version to see how well this worked.  If I were a better photographer, all of the whites would have looked the same, but oh well… I think you get the point.

I was amazed that this worked so well.  The entire project probably involved about 20 minutes of work, and required no elbow grease whatsoever.

And now, a word of caution:  do this project at your own risk.  Bleach is powerful stuff.  Read the warning label on the bleach.  It says to use in a well-ventilated area, don’t let it touch your skin, don’t breath the vapors, etc.  Bleach can also cause pits in metal.  I used it on the metal trim ring for my shower faucet and no pitting occured, but other people might not be so lucky.  Also, I’m not kidding about wearing a respirator.

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

    

Radon in Granite Countertops: Don't Worry.

Back in 2008 there was a media scare related to radon in granite countertops.  The scare went something like this: radon causes lung cancer.  Granite contains radon.  Therefore, granite causes lung cancer.  There was even an article published in the New York Times, where some guy was actually quoted as saying "It's not that all granite is dangerous, but I've seen a few that might heat up your Cheerios a little."



I figured this media scare would quickly be forgotten about, but it seems there is still some information floating around making people worried about granite, as I recently had a client ask me whether he should be worried about elevated radon levels in his new house because of the granite countertops.

I'm not worried granite countertops. Not the slightest bit.  As for that New York Times article and the idea that some granite might heat up your Cheerios... I'm sorry, but that's just absurd.  In the same article, another expert says you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than being at risk for cancer because of radon in granite.  Granite countertops may contain trace amounts of radon, but not enough to be of any consequence.  Being worried about granite is a little bit like being afraid of dirt. From everything I've read about this scare, I think it's mostly a laughable smear compaign; the people saying granite countertops present a radon risk are largely the manufacturers of competing products.  Gee, imagine that.

If want to learn more about this topic, read what the unbiased parties have to say.  Check out the EPA info on radon in granite, or read this Position Statement on Granite Countertops and Radon Gas from the Technical and Science Committee of the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (AARST).  The bottom line from both is that you should have the radon levels in your home tested, whether you have granite countertops or not.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email- Radon Testing in Minnesota
    

Why Test For Radon?

If you're buying a home in Minnesota, get it tested for radon.  There are two reasons I give for having radon tested; lung cancer and money.

A few quick facts about radon

• Radon is a gas formed by the breakdown of uranium and radium, both of which are found in high levels in Minnesota.
• Every home is susceptible to radon, even new construction.
• There are a large number of homes in Minnesota with high radon levels.  We've found that about one out of three houses have high levels of radon.
• Radon is unpredictable.  Two houses built right next to each other, at the same time, with the same construction methods, may have very different radon levels.

Lung Cancer

Radon gas is the number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers, and the second leading cause of cancer in America.  Radon testing is recommended by the EPA, the Surgeon General, theAmerican Lung Association, and the Minnesota Department of Health.  The area most at risk in a home is the lowest level that gets lived in.

Money

When we conduct a radon test and the test results come up high, the buyer typically asks the seller to pay for or install a radon mitigation system.  These systems are extremely effective at lowering radon levels, and they cost about $1500 on average.    If you buy a home and you decide not to test for radon as part of the home purchase, you can still test for radon after you own the home, but if a radon mitigation system needs to be installed, you won't have the luxury of asking someone else to pay for it.  Well, I suppose you could always ask...

Picture this scenario: you buy a home, but don't have it tested for radon.  Several years down the road, you sell your house.  The new buyers have a radon test performed, the radon test comes up high, so the buyers ask you to install or pay for a mitigation system.   You'll probably wonder why you never tested for radon when you bought the house.  This happens a lot.

Objections to radon testing

We hear many objections to radon testing - some are valid, some aren't.

The home doesn't have a basement. Ok, that's a good objection.  We've found that most homes without basements have very low levels of radon.  Basements with a walkout generally have lower levels, but we've still found our share of high radon tests at basements with walkouts.

It's new construction. Minnesota requires a passive radon mitigation system installed in every new house; this doesn't mean radon will be eliminated, it just means the chances for elevated radon levels will be reduced.

The home already has a mitigation system. If the system is working properly, the radon levels are probably very low.  We've never found high radon levels in a home with a mitigation system.

I'm buying a bank owned property or short sale, so it doesn't matter if the house has high radon levels.  The sellers won't be paying to fix it, and I'll still want the house either way.Fair enough.  It's still a good idea to get a do-it-yourself test after you own the house though.

I'm going to do my own test. Not as a part of the real estate transation!

Radon is a conspiracy of the government.  Oh boy.  I've heard this before, and I'm not going to get in to that discussion... but just for the sake of argument, let's pretend radon is a conspiracy.  Who cares?  Even if radon was only a percieved health problem, it would still be a liability.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email- Radon Testing in Minnesota