I inspected a house in Minneapolis yesterday with an old gravity furnace.  The furnace had supposedly been certified, and the seller left the paperwork sitting on the kitchen table.  Here’s the form:

Here are a few key points:
1. The printout shown below was attached to the form and has the same date.  This is the ORSAT test that needed to be attached.  This shows the CO level in the stack at 2788 ppm, which is ridiculously high. The gas company will shut down the equipment and red tag it at 400 ppm.  The contractor wrote “0 at registers”.  Who cares about registers?  That’s not where they’re supposed to be testing!

2. The form specifically says the installer checked the vent connector for signs of deterioration. The vent connector was wrapped with duct tape and completely rusted out underneath the duct tape; I could feel it crumble as I pushed on it. Signs of deterioration don’t get much more obvious.

3. The contractor was supposed to check the manual gas shut-off to make sure it’s consistent with City Code Enforcement Standards. Gate valves are not.  That round handle thing in the middle of the photo is a gate valve.

So what the heck was this contractor looking at?  You’ll notice the address on the form at the top was actually left blank.  Maybe they inspected the wrong house?

I might follow up with this contractor to figure out exactly how they could have signed this blank check.

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

I don’t know how it happened, and I’m not accusing anyone of intentionally doing something that’s completely despicable, but it looks like someone intentionally tampered with a radon test.

I recently inspected a home that was being flipped for some young first-time home buyers.  The home had a newly finished basement, and the young couple planned to use one of the basement bedrooms as their master bedroom, so they hired me to do a radon test at the same time.  For the record, radon causes lung cancer.

The radon test was high, so the buyers asked the home flipper to install a radon mitigation  system.  Here’s where it starts to get interesting.

Red Flag #1

The flipper refused, and said they wanted to have the radon re-tested.  Why?  I don’t know.  There was absolutely no legitimate reason to have the radon re-tested.  We followed EPA protocol for the radon test, using a continuous electronic monitor that we send in for calibration annually.

Red Flag #2

The flipper wanted to have ‘their own guy’ perform a radon test, using the charcoal canister method.  Why would someone prefer to use an older method of testing?  I don’t know.  The electronic monitor gives an hour-by-hour breakdown of the radon levels in the home; the charcoal canister method just gives the final number.   It’s far easier to tamper with a charcoal canister than an electronic test.

Red Flag #3

The buyer’s agent, who is a great guy that I know and trust, warned the young buyers that this was highly unusual. The buyers really wanted the house, so they agreed to have a second test performed.  They said the test had to be done by me, and the results would be averaged with the first test.  If the average was still high, the seller would need to install a mitigation system.  Here’s the unbelievable part: the seller crossed off that part of the purchase agreement addendum and wrote “we’ll see when the results come back.”

Um… gee… that doesn’t sound suspicious or anything.  The buyers went along with it.

So we set another test…

I received the call to do a second radon test on a Wednesday afternoon.  The buyer’s agent said we had permission to set the test any time.  I told him we’d try to get it set on Thursday morning, but  someone from my company was able to set the radon test later that same evening.  In other words, we set the test earlier than planned.

Here’s the unbelievable part

When I picked up the radon test at 6 pm on Friday, the bedroom window was open.  The window wasn’t open when we set the test.  It was below freezing outside, the house was vacant, and the temperature was supposed to drop down to the teens that night.

So why was the window open?

I took a photo of the open window and immediately notified the buyer and their agent that the test was invalid.  I ran the test anyway, just because I was curious about the results.  The radon levels were almost identical to the first test we did, up until the last four hours, when the levels plummeted.  I have no doubt in my mind that that’s when the window was opened; there is no other reasonable explanation for the sudden drop in radon levels.  The graph below shows the hour-by-hour breakdown.

Did someone open the window on purpose, with the idea of coming back early the next day to close the window?  I don’t know.  I’m a trusting person who gives people the benefit of the doubt, but I’m having a hard time even entertaining the idea that this was an accident.

What do you think?  What would you do if you were the buyer?

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Maple Grove Home Inspector

Often I run into people who tell me that remodeling projects seem to drag on forever. And ever. And even a little bit more.

My friend Terri lives in Chicago. She started a kitchen remodel in June 2011. It was supposed to be a two month project. As of November 2011, she still can’t use her kitchen. She and her partner are having to eat out every night – which is getting to be tiresome for a couple that loves to cook.

I was just talking with my friend Heather Nemer last Thursday. She was bemoaning the fact that her contractor, who was a friend of the family, was taking three weeks to get some in-stock carpet installed in her basement.

Stuff like that is enough to make you want to pull your hair out.

Why do projects get delayed and what you can do to keep your project from dragging out?

There are only three reasons projects get delayed:

1)      Poor upfront planning by the contractor.

2)      Unforeseen conditions.

3)      Changes by the home owner.

Let’s look at each one of these see what they sound like and learn what you can do.

Poor upfront planning by the contractor

Poor upfront planning by the contractor is one of the most common reasons for a project delay. I know this because every time I slip on the planning side of the project, my projects get delayed.

Poor upfront planning often sounds like this:

“We are ready for the electrician, but he can’t make it here for another week.”

“The tile we selected is out of stock and is on back order.”

“I keep calling my contractor but he never gets back to me.”

“I’m sorry, but we aren’t going to be able to get your job done on schedule. We’ve been delayed in some of our other jobs.”

How do you minimize poor upfront planning with your contractor?

The easiest way to minimize this problem is to get a written schedule for how the construction project will be done.  Some contractors are very detailed about what goes into the schedule; others are not quite as detailed. Lots of detail or a little detail, either way will work because it will give you a chance to see immediately what is going on from week to week. If you get to the end of a particular week, and the work is not done according to schedule, you are at risk for a delay. This is a good time to talk to your contractor about what is going on.

Unforeseen conditions

Most projects do have things that are hiding behind the walls or some other conditions that can’t be seen until the construction project starts. Unless your contractor did a poor job preparing for your project, or was lowballing you to get the work, these hidden items should be relatively small – but not always.

Unforeseen conditions often sound like this:

“We just took out the plaster and the insulation in your house and we discovered rot.”

“We just opened up your ceiling and noticed a plumbing problem.”

“It’s been raining all week and this has affected our schedule.”

If your contractor is keeping a written schedule for you, he or she should be able to tell you almost right away how many days or weeks the project might be delayed. Even though delays are undesirable, I have found that telling people that their project will be delayed as soon as I know is better than waiting till the end when you’ve gone past the original scheduled by a few weeks.

Changes by the homeowner

A homeowner who adds to the project and a contractor who is not upfront about the added time for the added work is the second most common reason for delays.

Changes by the homeowner sound a lot like this:

“I know we were thinking of laminate countertops, but we’d like to change to granite now.”

“We would like to do our bathroom as long as you are doing the kitchen.”

Homeowner changes happen quite often and are considered quite normal. The impact to the schedule can be minimized by an experienced contractor who asks a lot of questions during the design phase of the project. Most homeowners don’t have the expertise or experience to know what other work makes sense to do at the same time a particular remodel is being done. A good contractor does. Asking about these potential changes early on can help set price and schedule expectations.

When you decide to make some changes in the middle of the job, the contractor should update your schedule to show what impact these changes will have.

So, to sum this up, a written construction schedule can keep you and your contractor on track. A verbal, “Yeah, I think we can be done in 2 months” is not a schedule you should accept from your contractor.

Tell Us What You Think.

Mike Otto, Fair and Square Remodeling

When a temperature and pressure  (T&P) relief valve at a water heater leaks, it’s usually a simple fix; just replace the valve.   These valves cost less than $15, and replacing the valve is a very basic job – just drain some water out of the water heater, remove the discharge tube, and replace the valve.  No big deal.

Unless it starts leaking again.

If a recently replaced T&P relief valve starts leaking again, it probably means that the relief valve is only doing it’s job; it relieving excess pressure in the water heater.  When this happens, the fix gets a little bit more involved.  I’ll explain.

When a water heater heats up the water in the tank, the water expands.  When this happens, the water typically ends up expanding back out the cold water inlet, all the way back to the water supply coming in to the house.  The municipal water supply for the house acts as a gigantic expansion tank… and nobody notices.  This is illustrated in the diagram below.

What would happen if a one-way valve, or check valve, was installed on the water supply piping for the house?  The water wouldn’t have anywhere to go.  As the water heater heats the water, it expands, which builds up pressure in what is now essentially a closed system.  When the pressure builds up enough, the T&P relief valve on the water heater just does it’s job and relieves the excess pressure by leaking a little water.

In Minnesota it’s rare for a check valve to be installed on the water supply line for the house, but it’s fairly common to have a pressure regulator installed.  When the pressure from the water supply coming in to a house is too high, a pressure regulator needs to be installed on the water main, to prevent damage to the plumbing components in the house.  The problem that these regulators can create is that they will act as a check valve; they’ll allow water in to the home, but they won’t allow water back out.  This creates what is called a ‘closed system’.

When this happens, the T&P relief valve for the water heater can leak.  This doesn’t happen every time a pressure reducing valve is installed, but there may be other problems that show up in the house, such as the toilet fill valves randomly re-filling toilets, or faucets chronically dripping.

The Fix  When a closed system exists on the water distribution piping in a home, an expansion tank needs to be installed somewhere on the plumbing system.  This is a fairly simple and straightforward fix; an expansion tank will give the water somewhere to go when it expands, and the T&P relief valve on the water heater will stop causing problems.

This rule also applies to hot water heating systems; when a boiler heats the water in a hydronic heating system, the expansion tank allows for the water to expand without the pressure relief valve leaking.  If the pressure relief valve on a boiler system chronically leaks, even after replacement, it probably means there is a problem with the expansion tank.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Maple Grove Home Inspector

Most homeowners who live in cold climates know it’s important to ‘winterize’ the outside faucets to prevent them from freezing, which can destroy the faucet or lead to a burst pipe.  The problem is that many people don’t quite get it right – winterizing the outside faucets in the fall seems like a simple thing to do, and it seems like it should be straightforward and easy, but there are a few tricks you need to know to make sure all the water is out.

Garden hoses - First and foremost, disconnect your garden hose from the outside faucet.  If you leave your garden hose attached to the faucet, you’re asking for trouble.

Frost-free sillcocks with an integral vacuum breaker  If you have a properly installed frost-free sillcock with an integral vacuum breaker, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.  You should be able to leave the water on to these faucets all year ’round without them freezing.  A properly installed frost-free sillcock will have a slight downward pitch, so that when the water is turned off, the water will all drain out of the stem.

When frost-free sillcocks aren’t installed with this downward pitch, water will sit inside the stem of the sillcock even when it’s turned off.  The pitch is a little dramatic in the photo below, but you get the point.

If this water freezes, it can burst the stem of the sillcock.  Most homeowners don’t know this has happened until the first time they use their faucet in the spring.  Once they turn their faucet on, water starts shooting out of the burst stem inside the house, making a big mess while nobody is inside the house to see it.  This recently happened to Connecticut home inspector James Quarello while he was inspecting a home.  Better him than me, I say.

The fix for an improperly installed frost-free sillcock is to have it re-installed with a slight downward pitch.

Winterizing standard sillcocks  With a standard sillcock, the water needs to be turned off and drained out to prevent freeze damage.  To do this, you’ll need to first turn off the water supply to the faucet from inside the house.  Exterior faucets should have a separate shutoff valve inside the house, but not all of them do.  On older homes, these valves are typically located at the ceiling somewhere close to the outside faucet.  On newer homes, the valves are typically located right next to the main water valve, and they’re also usually labeled.

Once the water is turned off inside the house, the outside faucet needs to be opened up.  Next, the bleeder cap inside the house needs to be unscrewed – this will allow water to drain out of the pipes.  Depending on how the pipe is pitched, the water may drain through the bleeder cap or through the outside faucet.  Keep a small bucket handy when you do this, just in case a lot of water needs to drain out of the bleeder.  After the water drains out, you can screw the bleeder cap back on and turn off the outside faucet.

Sometimes, two wrongs really do make a right  Some older houses in Minneapolis and Saint Paul don’t have a shutoff valve for the outside faucet, and the faucets never get winterized… yet they never have a problem with freezing.  How can this be?

Here’s a hint:

On older houses with no insulation at the rim space, there can be so much heat loss occurring here that the outside faucets never get cold enough to freeze.  I call this “two wrongs making a right.”  It’s certainly not a reliable method of preventing freeze damage, but it does seem to work.

Vacuum breakers complicate things  The problem with external vacuum breakers (aka backflow preventers) is that they don’t allow all of the water to drain out.  After the water is turned off and appears to have drained out, the rubber seal in the vacuum breaker will still trap enough water to destroy the vacuum breaker, which will cause water to spray out all over the place when the faucet is used again in the spring.

There are two possible solutions: remove the vacuum breaker in the fall, or drain the water out of the vacuum breaker.  If the vacuum breaker will just unscrew from the sillcock, go ahead and take it off in the fall.  The problem with this is that vacuum breakers are often designed to be permanently installed.  They have a little set-screw on the side that gets tightened down until it breaks off, making it so the vacuum breaker can’t be removed.  If your vacuum breaker leaks every time you turn on your faucet and you need to replace it, there is still a way to remove it without destroying your faucet – I made a video showing how to do it.

If the vacuum breaker can’t be removed or you don’t want to hassle with removing it, no problem;  there is still a way to drain the rest of the water out.  If you look up inside the vacuum breaker, you’ll notice that there is a small white plastic post.  Just push this post to the side, and the rest of the water will drain out.  The video below shows how this works.

If the vacuum breaker doesn’t have that white post, it may have a plastic ring that will allow it to drain.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector in Maple Grove