We recently inspected a new construction, custom built home in Edina.  We did a team inspection at this property, where Neil, Duane, and I all inspected the house at the same time.  We really went over this house with a fine tooth comb, but we didn’t come up with much that was wrong – it was a very well built home.  Towards the end of the inspection, we asked the buyer if they would mind us opening up the attic access panel, which had been sprayed shut.  The buyer was fine with that, as most buyers are.  What we found was quite surprising.

The builder had taken all of the necessary steps to seal all of the bypasses to the attic,  by doing something most builders never do.  Before blowing in loose-fill fiberglass insulation, he had a company spray foam the ‘lid’ to really make sure that any potential bypasses to the attic would be completely sealed.  This isn’t required, but it’s a great idea.  Unfortunately, the person doing the insulation had missed a few areas, and this allowed a ton of frost in to the attic!

The builder was very glad we found this, and quickly had the insulation company back out to re-insulate the areas that were missed.  This is a great example of why it’s so important to break the attic access seal, and why it’s so important to have even new construction homes inspected, no matter how good the builder is.

The best builders will encourage their buyers to have private home inspections performed, and they’ll welcome any feedback from home inspectors.  This will not only prove to the buyer what a good house they’re buying, but can also save the builder from major potential problems in the future.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections – Email – Edina Home Inspections

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One of the biggest sources of contention I’ve had to deal with doing home inspections is whether or not a sealed attic access panel should be ‘broken’ to access the attic; even more specifically, whether or not I should be allowed to break the seal.  If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here’s a photo of an attic access panel. To understand this issue, you need to understand why this panel is here and why it has been sealed.

First, the access panel is here because it is required by the Minnesota State Building Code.  The panel is here for me (or anyone else) to use to get in to the attic to inspect it, or to do work.  That’s it, plain and simple.  The Minnesota State Building Code, section R807.1 says

“…an attic access opening shall be provided to attic areas that exceed 30 square feet and have a vertical height of 30 inches or greater.”

This covers just about every attic space.  Outside of Minnesota, the building code will typically read the exact same way, as this is taken from the International Residential Code.

So why is the panel sealed?  In a new home, the panel only gets incidentally ‘sealed’.  The panel does not get attached to anything; it just gets set down on the opening. When the ceiling finish is applied, which is often spray texture, the seam between the panel and the rest of the ceiling gets covered over.  This is what people are referring to when they say the access has been ‘sealed.’  There is very rarely any caulking or adhesive keeping this panel in place.

This can become a subject of contention when I inspect a house where no one has been in the attic since the ceiling finish has been applied… or as most people say, the access has been sealed.  I say ‘sealed’ too, just because it’s easier than saying “incidentally covered over with a finished surface.”  My evaluation of the attic is a major part of a home inspection, and it’s important for buyers to know about any defects in the attic.  This is a place that homeowners may never even go in to as long as they own their home.  For this reason, I break the seal on just about every home I inspect, but I never do this without permission from the buyer.

The biggest sources of contention come from parties attending the inspection that are under the impression that attic spaces in new homes don’t need to be inspected.  Well, by that logic, new homes wouldn’t need to be inspected at all.  Please check out my blog on New Construction Inspections, and you’ll understand how important inspections are on newly built properties.  A large portion of the problems I find in new construction homes occur in the attic.  Just for fun, here’s a photo I took at a 2004 built Minneapolis townhouse – yes, this attic was completely uninsulated.  Don’t listen to anyone that tells you new attics don’t need to be inspected, or that attic access panels shouldn’t be opened.  They’re not looking out for your best interest, or they’ve been mis-informed.

Missing Insulation

The other common argument I hear about not going in the attic is that the panel will look bad after I open it.  This just isn’t true.  If a knife is used to cut the panel open, it will usually leave a noticeable scar in the ceiling, but if the panel is lightly bumped open, it will usually set back down and look almost identical to the way it did before I opened it.  Much of the time, you can’t even tell the difference between a sealed and unsealed panel unless you look closely.

The bottom line is that attic access panels are there for the attic to be accessed, and this is something that should be done at every home inspection.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections – Email – Minneapolis Home Inspections

One of the most common myths related to new home construction is that new homes don’t need to be inspected.  I personally know several people that have purchased new homes and didn’t have them inspected because they were ‘new’.   I’ve seen far too many problems on new construction homes to think that they’re not worth first inspecting, regardless of the builder.

One common myth that builders will sometimes tell buyers is that the home has already been inspected many times by the city as part of the permit process, so the buyer is wasting their money hiring a private inspector.  While there may have been many brief inspections performed by the city along the way, things still get missed every day.  Did you know that unless a ladder is provided at the site for the city inspector, they won’t even get up on the roof to inspect it?  It’s actually common practice for roofers to leave a few photos for the building inspector to look at to sign off on the roof.  The photos below show a hole in the roof of a new construction townhouse that I recently evaluated, and the builder was a reputable, well known builder that you’ve definitely heard of.  The builder had actually tried to talk the client out of getting a home inspection.

Another myth is that because a home is new, there won’t be problems.  While new homes don’t have the same types of problems as old homes (such as components reaching the end of their life expectancy), they can still have serious issues, typically related to improper building and installation methods.  These are the types of issues that an average homeowner will know much less about; it’s easy to look at cracks in a foundation or rust in a furnace and know there’s an issue, but it’s impossible to identify installation defects without knowledge of building, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical codes.  While a private inspection is certainly not a code compliance inspection, an excellent home inspector will be aware of code requirements , and will be looking for any problems.

Below are a few photos of problems I’ve found at new construction homes, or homes that were relatively new.  Remember, these were built by big, reputable builders.

This window was on a second story, and I suspect it had been dropped before being installed.

The two photos below show a whole house fan that was supposed to be exhausting to the exterior; the bottom photo shows the wall that the fan should be exhausting to.  Obviously, the person installing the siding went a little too fast.

These photos show where a roofer was going too fast – they forgot to install the damper for the bath fan exhaust, so there was just a hole in the roof.

This photo shows the heat duct and the exhaust opening for the HRV, located right next to each other in a basement bathroom (one supplies air, one sucks air out).

I can’t tell you how many plumbing vents I’ve seen with knockout plugs still in place. These are supposed to be removed after the final plumbing inspection, but it’s commonly forgotten about.  This means that the plumbing fixtures are not vented.

Many, many, many air conditioners get installed with the wrong size circuit breakers.  Note the text on the label for the AC that reads in all caps “MAX FUSE OR MAX CKT. BKR. – 20″  The 30 amp breaker is what fed the AC unit.

I could go on and on with these photos, but hopefully I’ve made my point; new homes need home inspections too!

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections – Email – Minneapolis Home Inspections

POST EDIT, 5/17/09: For a great post on why new construction should be inspected, visit http://dallashomeinspectionblog.com/archives/23