Bath Tub Overflows

Many years ago, I learned about a bath tub leak that I never caught during my home inspection.  The seller didn’t have any children and didn’t take baths, so they never knew about the problem with the bath tub drain.  I did my standard inspection of the bath tub, which included filling the tub up with about four inches of water and then letting it drain.  I didn’t find any leaks and never reported a problem.

After the new owners moved in, the first time their children used the bath tub water began leaking through the kitchen ceiling.

Why didn’t I catch that leak?

Because I didn’t test the overflow.  The first time the kids took a bath, they filled the water up as high as it would go.  When the water hit the overflow, it leaked right through the overflow in to the wall cavity because the overflow wasn’t connected properly.  If the overflow drain at the bath tub isn’t connected properly or has a worn out seal, it’s going to leak, and sometimes profusely.

That was a real ‘duh’ moment for me.  I had never heard of other home inspectors testing the overflow, so I just assumed that doing this was beyond our standards of practice.  After hearing about the leak, I realized that this was something that I could have been testing all along, as long as I can view the bath tub drain via an access panel in the wall or floor.  I checked my Standards of Practice, and according to 6.1, A, 1, I’m supposed to inspect the plumbing fixtures.  What that means and how I do it is pretty much up to me.

From that point on, I started testing bath tub overflow drains, and I’ve since found dozens and dozens of bath tub drains that leak at the overflow.  I’ve also found that this test forces me to run a lot of water down the drains, and if the main building drain has a clog, there’s a good chance that I’ll find out about it after running all this water.

The video below shows the worst overflow leak I’ve ever found; this was at a house that was being ‘flipped’.  Luckily it was an unfinished basement, so the leaking water didn’t do any damage.

If you want to test your own bath tub overflow, it’s very easy to do.  Just fill up your bath tub with water and watch the back side of the overflow when the water starts draining in to it.  If it’s not working right, you’ll know.

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

    

Houses never need cosmetic updates

Today is going to be a long day.  As I sit here writing this blog post, it’s 4:55 am and I just finished doing a little research on the house that I’ll be inspecting at 9:00 am.  The online listing for this property says it has lots of square footage and needs some cosmetic updates.

I haven’t been to the house yet but already disagree with that description.  Cosmetic updates are never needed. I googled ‘cosmetic’, and here’s what I came up with.  The first two definitions of this word apply to people, and the third applies to objects.  I bolded it.

cos·met·ic

adjective /käzˈmetik/ Involving or relating to treatment intended to restore or improve a person’s appearance - cosmetic surgery Designed or serving to improve the appearance of the body, esp. the face - lens designs can improve the cosmetic effect of your glasses Affecting only the appearance of something rather than its substance - the reform package was merely a cosmeticexercise

When a property description says it needs cosmetic updates, look out.  The house is probably going to need a lot of serious work.  Here are a few other ‘real estate terms’ to be wary of:

• Needs TLC
• Needs routine maintenance
• Handyman’s dream

I plan to finish writing this blog post after I inspect the house.  I’m sure I’ll have some good photos of some “costmetic” updates that are needed 

Part Two

There were no big surprises during my inspection; it was about what I expected from the online description.  Here are a few things I found during my inspection of this bank-owned property:

The house was soaked in cat urine, and smelled even worse.  According to the neighbor who came by to chat during the inspection, the previous owner never let the cat out and didn’t have a litter box.  The first thing I did upon arrival was to open up every window in the house while breathing through my mouth, lest my nose hairs get burned off.  This only made the yard smell horrible.  The carpets will all need to be replaced, and possibly the subfloors as well.  This isn’t a cosmetic update issue, it’s a health issue.

 

The shingles were severely deteriorated and in need of replacement.  There was also a golf-ball sized hole in the roof, most likely from a tree that fell during the recent storms.  This ain’t cosmetic.

 

The water pipes had freeze damage.  The buyer hired a plumber to de-winterize the house before my inspection, but the plumber had to just cap off several lines that weren’t winterized properly and had burst.  Cosmetic freeze damage?

The radiator pipes had freeze damage, and the boiler was a dinosaur.  The plumber said the heating system would need major repair.  I agree, and I’m sure the boiler needs replacement as well.  Notice the discoloration highlighted on the boiler below, right.  This is a problem.  More on this topic another day.  Even if you know nothing about boilers, you can probably guess that these issues aren’t costmetic.

 

The electric panel was a Federal Pacific Stab-Lok panel; I recommend replacement of every one of these panels because they present a fire hazard.  There is no such thing as a cosmetic fire hazard.

Again, these were just a few of the things that I found during my inspection.  This house was clearly in need of major repair just to be made habitable.None of these issues were cosmetic.  I knew this house was going to be in very rough shape because I’ve learned to interpret those euphemistic real estate descriptions that I see so often (and to call them euphemistic is a euphemism).

• Needs TLC = Needs major renovation
• Needs routine maintenance = Nothing about the maintenance needed is routine
• Handyman’s dream = Handyman’s nightmare
• Needs cosmetic updates = cosmetic updates are the last thing you should think about.

What do you think?  Are these terms all innocent real estate euphemisms, or something worse than that?  I think that calling a house a ‘fixer-upper’ is an acceptable way of stretching the truth, but some of these other terms might be pushing it a little too far.

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

    

Why municipal inspectors wear blinders

I’ve taken many building code classes that were taught by the Building Official for the City of New Hope, Roger Axel.  He’s a fantastic teacher.  In his classes, I remember him repeatedly telling us to take off the blinders; what he meant by this was to not miss the forest for the trees.  Sure, the deck ledgerboard has lag screws every six inches… but if the house was built with floor trusses, what are those lag screws going in to? The wall sheathing? Look at the big picture, keep an open mind, don’t make assumptions, question everything.

Despite this sage advice, municipal inspectors often have to wear blinders.  This blog post isn’t about deck construction.  This post is about why municipal inspectors have to wear blinders.

Here’s a common scenario: I inspect a home for a buyer, and I come up with a list of electrical defects that are potential fire hazards.  The buyer asks the seller to fix the stuff.  Two days later the seller calls me, and she’s not happy.

Seller: “Hello Mr. Saltzman, you told my buyer a lot of bad information about my electric service.  I just had the Minnesota State Electrical Inspector out at my house last year, and they said everything was fine.”

Me: “Why did you have the state inspector at your house?”

Seller:  ”I had my basement finished off, and they approved all the work.  They wouldn’t have signed off on it if there were problems!”

Ah, but that’s not true.  When a permit gets pulled for work being done at a property, the permit fee covers the cost of the inspections to make sure the work being done is correct.  Again, the work being done… not all the work that was ever done at the house.  A $50 electrical permit for some wiring in the basement doesn’t cover the inspection of the entire electric service at the house.  The electrical inspector is being paid to look at the work that’s being done, and that’s it.  If there is a glaring electrical defect that has nothing to do with the work being done, will the electrical inspector require repair?  It depends.

On one hand, the electrical inspector may not have the right to require repair.  If the municipal inspector is being hired to inspect the work that’s being done, they have an obligation to the homeowner to approve the work if it’s done properly, regardless of whatever else is going on at the house.  If an owner is replacing an electric panel, should the municipal inspector go through the entire house to make sure all the lights are wired properly, all the outlets grounded, and GFCI outlets installed to today’s current code?  Probably not.

On the other hand, does the inspector have a moral obligation to report the other defects they see?  Maybe, but these defects shouldn’t have any effect on the permit approval process.  If a municipal inspections department begins requiring repair of defects that aren’t directly related to the work being done, what are homeowners and contractors going to start doing?  They might decide that it’s too much of a hassle to pull permits, because some ‘a-hole inspector’ is going to start poking around for other problems as soon as he or she sets foot in the house.

Municipal inspectors need to have a delicate balance of what they look at and enforce; if they miss defects, they get labeled incompetent or lazy.  If they start requiring more repairs than what they’re hired to look at, people think they’re being jerks, and people stop pulling permits.  To a certain degree, municipal inspectors have to wear blinders.  I don’t envy the job of the municipal inspector.

If a municipal inspector signs off on a permit, they’re signing off on the work that’s being done; not the entire house.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email- New Hope Home Inspections

    

Trapping Your Condensate

In approximately 99.2% of the houses that I inspect, there’s a 3/4″ hole in the air conditioner ductwork that lets air blow out where it shouldn’t.

Can you guess what it is?  Here’s a clue.

Do you see it?  It’s that clear tube coming off the condensate drain pan on the air conditioner’s evaporator coil.  As the air conditioner runs, warm air from the house blows over the evaporator coil, which removes heat and moisture from the air in the house.  The heat gets carried out of the house via the air conditioner’s refrigerant lines, where it gets dissipated at the exterior of the home.  The moisture gets removed from the air through condensation, and that clear tube carries the condensate to an appropriate disposal location, such as a floor drain.

The problem with most condensate drains is that not only will they carry condensate away, but they’ll also allow air to blow out through the drain, which is ineffecient.  When ductwork is properly installed, all of the little gaps and holes in the ductwork get sealed up, including the hole created by the condensate drain.

To fix the hole created by the condensate drain, a trap needs to be installed. This trap will work  the same way that any other plumbing trap works; the water sitting in the trap prevents sewer gas (or in this case, air) from coming through.

In my opinion, the best kind of condensate trap is a pre-manufactured condensate trap, such as the one pictured below by EZ-Trap.  These kits have a clear plastic trap, so you can see when the trap gets filled with gunk.  These traps even come with a little cleaning brush so you can easily clean out the trap when needed.

The other type of trap is a field fabricated trap, which takes a little more to assemble and isn’t so easy to clean, but is also far cheaper.  These can be easily assembled with a few cheap plumbing parts.  The photo at the top of this blog was the condensate drain at my own house… dontcha love how the plastic was wrapped with metal tape to keep it from melting where it touched the furnace vent?  Ha ha.  That wasn’t my doing.

The photo below shows my homemade (or if you want to sound professional,  ”field fabricated”) trap, which took me about 15 minutes to put together with about $5 worth of CPVC fittings.  I also replaced the entire plastic condensate drain with 3/4″ CPVC, which won’t kink or get knocked out of place.  How easy was that?

At the moment, everything has been dry fit together, yet it still holds water.  I suppose I should use some CPVC cement and make it permanent.  Whenever I do, I’ll just have to remember to not glue the cap at the top.  I want to leave that accessible for when I need to clean the trap.

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