Here is one example of a improper manufactured stone install at the roof gutter. Kick-out flashing should always be used to direct the water away from the wall into the gutter. When the flashing is left out, the water will seep back into the wall and saturate things. Over time this will cause things to leak and rot the wall below it.
Using fiberglass batt insulation in a attic is a bad idea. It always leaves gaps in your coverage. You can see here under thermal imaging just how bad this bedroom is. Rigid foam or packed loose fill is always a better option when you want to fix what your builder screwed up. When you watch the video the black spots on the walls are cold spots.
The builder failed to flash this deck correctly at the ledger connection and water is seeping in around the deck in the basement, rotting out the back wall of the house. I check all ledger connections like this during my inspections to make sure you don’t have major failure like this.
Here in Louisville, KY it is common to see termite damage during my inspections. They just show up. Most of the time they are found and treated with no big problems. But every now and then, a homeowner will let it go, and they cause huge amounts of damage. This house was like that. The entire floor system was destroyed.
This HVAC guy thought he was drilling into a sump pump lid. I’m sure he figured it out once the smell of sewer hit him, but it was too late. Now, the basement smells like a sewage plant because there is a straight path for sewer gases to leech into the home.
Sometimes home sellers go out of their way to try and cover up problems. Here we have a new piece of contact paper placed under a kitchen sink to hide the rotten floor. It’s not like like is a major repair, but when I come across something like this, it makes me suspect of what else the home sellers may be trying to hide.
“BRAND NEW CUSTOM TILE SHOWER” is what the listing said. I try to run the water as long as I can during a home inspection. Sometimes 20 minutes is just not long enough for a problem to pop up, but it was this time. Someone who clearly didn’t know what they were doing built this shower and it leaks, badly. Nothing to do here but start over. No worries, it will just cost 5-7k to do the correct way.
When a chimney is too tall to be safety reached by a ladder or by walking on the roof, I fly the drone for my clients to get info they need. This house had a couple of chimney crowns that were in need of repair. The main problem here is that they are so high in the air, a large man lift is the only way to safely reach them.
You get what you pay for folks. Here is a prime example of why people really should do their research on who to hire as their home inspector. There are hack inspectors who are 1/2 the price of what I charge. Half. What they don’t tell you is they won’t find 10% of the issues I will. When you price shop for inspectors, you get burned every time. This flashing around the chimney was pulled away and letting water run down the wall of the chimney and seep in. This repair alone was over $2,000.00.
Anytime you have a vertical wall meet a lower roof line you must have properly installed kick-out flashing to divert the water into the gutter. If this flashing is omitted (and it usually is) the water will run back in behind the siding and cause the wall to rot out over time. In this video you can see all of this happening when I scan it with a moisture meter. The area under the gutter is soaking wet, and the wall adjacent to it is bone dry.
You know, I understand that not everyone is a master plumber with 20 years experience. Everyone starts at the beginning. But who in their right mind would think it’s even remotely OK to install a run of flexible CSST gas in the basement and NOT install a single strap/bracket on it! You want these kind of things strapped up safety out of the way of everything. The last thing you need an a damaged and leaking GAS LINE in your home.
I’ll admit it. I don’t really like crawlspaces that much. In all the hundreds of them I’ve been in, I’ve never come out and thought, “That was a pleasant time.” But I always see the craziest things in them as well. Like a chunk of a ceiling fan blade being used as a shim under the foundation of the house. You can’t make this stuff up. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while this place was being built.
You must NEVER have the walls of your home burred underground. If you ignore this, and bury your house in the ground, don’t be surprised when wall rots and the termites come out to play. This home had the vinyl siding under the grade line because of the landscaping. So when the moisture levels come up, the water seeps in under the wall itself. Always keep the grading 3-4 inches BELOW the dirt in your yard.
Here is another video using my drone who I named Ed-E. While I do not use Ed-E everyday, he’s always in the truck ready to spring into action. Even though it’s super to cool to use a drone for roof/chimney work, you still can’t replace up close and personable. So I still try to physically walk every roof I can. If I can’t safely reach the area I need to look at, then it’s time to call in backup.
This home had cracks in the tile grout on the shower wall. I could scan the area below the damage with my moisture meter and pick on the water inside the wall cavity. The worst part is to correct this water issue you have to open up the shower walls and see how bad the water damage is. If you let it go too long the structural wall of the home can rot away.
When moisture is allowed to seep into a chimney chase (typically from a failed crown/cap) that moisture is drawn to the surface. In the winter this moisture will freeze and “spall” the bricks. This is when the face of the bricks pop off from the moisture that is just below the surface freezes and expands. If you see any part of your home (especially the chimney) where the bricks are crumbling, it’s because you have a moisture issue.
This video pretty much speaks for itself. If your home has a sump pump, chances are you need it to keep things nice and dry in your basement. Having a sump pump installed by Billy Bob is a great way to flood your house. Be sure you have nothing buy professionals work on your home, or you’ll find out the hard way.
This crawlspace had so much moisture in it I could wipe the water off the sub-floor with my fingers. It was bad. No vapor barrier of any kind, lots of water, and lots of mold. In a warm swampy climate like Louisville in the summer, you have to make sure the crawlspace stays as dry as possible or you will create a mold farm under your house. The repair ticket on this crawlspace was over 15k.
I don’t always get this lucky, but whenever I see a new shiny plastic window well cover installed, I automatically start to look for the water damage. I usually find something, just not something this bad. There was a couple of old windows behind this wall in the basement that had been leaking water for a long time. The whole wall was rotten to the point you could move it with your foot. Opening up the wall and repairing the damage will cost thousands of dollars.
