House Detective: Making the Most of Home Inspection

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: We purchased our home about a year ago. After moving in, we noticed a dark spot on the bathroom wallpaper. When we peeled up an edge, there was mold and lots of it! It turned out there was a slow leak in the wall, caused by the seller who did his own plumbing repairs. A plumber fixed the leak, and the sellers’ real estate agent sent a handyman to get rid of the mold. He removed the base of the cabinet, sprayed some stuff on the wood and drywall, and then closed it back up. But my daughter and I are allergic to mold and have been having symptoms ever since. With the sellers’ agent having knowledge of this mold problem, do we have any recourse?  Shelly

Dear Shelly: Mold cannot be fully remedied by any kind of spray. Professional expertise is necessary to address mold in a responsible and effective manner. No handyman should be doing this kind of work, and a professional agent should know this. The proper solution for mold infection is total removal of all affected materials: drywall, wood, etc. The sellers and their agent need to arrange for a mold survey by a Registered Environmental Assessor. Mold samples should be sent to a lab to determine the types of mold that are present. Air testing should also be done to determine the types and amounts of mold spores that are airborne in your home. Once a mold report has been issued, the contamination should be eliminated by a qualified, professional expert.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: We just purchased a 1920’s colonial style home that we are renovating. During the basement work, we removed the carpet and discovered tiles that we fear may contain asbestos. A few were cracked, and most were covered with a rough layer of mastic that secured the carpet. If we cover these tiles with new carpet, would that be a health hazard? If not, is there a way to test the air for asbestos particles?  Catherine

Dear Catherine: Vinyl floor tiles may or may not contain asbestos. The only way to confirm asbestos content is to have a small sample tested by an environmental laboratory. The cost of this test is nominal, usually less than $20. If you send a tile sample, be sure to include some of the adhesive mastic that secured the tiles, as well as some of the mastic that secured the carpet. Adhesive mastics often contain asbestos fibers.

On the optimistic side, asbestos tiles and mastic are not regarded as significant health hazards because they are not friable. This means that they do not crumble easily and, therefore, are unlikely to release asbestos fibers into the air. Covering asbestos floor tiles with carpet does not pose a significant health hazard. However, when you eventually sell the home, be sure to disclose that the tiles under the carpet may contain asbestos.

If you want to test the air for asbestos fibers, check for asbestos inspectors in your phone book. Not all asbestos inspectors perform air tests of this kind, so be sure to ask when you call these inspectors.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: Home inspectors are often accused of negligence when excessive weather conditions prevent them from inspecting some areas of a home. For example, a home inspector might not inspect an attic when the outside temperature is over 100 degrees. If problems in the attic are discovered at a later date, is it unfair to hold the inspector liable?  Gloria

Dear Gloria: Weather conditions often prevent home inspectors from completing portions of an inspection, and liability can be a problem in some of these instances if undisclosed defects are discovered at a later date. Rain, for example, can prevent a home inspector from walking on a roof. Snow can prevent an inspector from even seeing a roof. And hot weather, as you suggest, can prevent inspection of an attic. However, in each of these instances, the need for disclosure does not end with a disclaimer in the inspection report.

In the case of an overheated attic, the inspection report should recommend further evaluation of the attic prior to close of escrow. If the attic is too hot in the afternoon, it will probably be much cooler the following morning. A home inspector who is concerned about the interests of customers will make that kind of recommendation. This applies to other situations, as well. Wet weather, cold weather, storage of personal property, inaccessibility, or other issues can prevent the completion of an inspection. Home inspectors should always recommend further evaluation when conditions that prevent a full inspection have been eliminated. This approach serves the disclosure needs of homebuyers and reduces the liability of home inspectors.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: My husband and I disagree over how to treat the termites in our home. For the past 27 years, he has sprayed poison wherever we’ve seen frass particles. I’ve heard that termites must be professionally exterminated, but he says that termites are a permanent problem in our area and that they will always return after extermination. What is your advice?  Ninel

Dear Ninel: Here are some vital termite facts to help settle your domestic debate:

1)  Termite colonies continually increase in population. The older a termite colony is, the more mouths it has to feed. A five-year-old colony may contain a few thousand termites. A colony that is 27 years old could have a census of millions. Consider how much wood that many termites could eat on a daily basis.

2)  Termites live deep within the recesses of the wood members of a structure. They eat tunnels in the wood framing until all that is left of a stud, joist, or rafter is the outer veneer.

3)  When termite tunnels become clogged with frass (termite poop), the little “wood-munchers” make small holes to expel these particles from their domain. The frass that you see in your home is a small sample, compared with what could be found in the attic or inside the walls.

4)  Insect sprays cannot penetrate into the structural framing members where termites live, eat, and multiply. The only way to eliminate them it to have your home professionally exterminated. Postponing this process ensures the continued consumption of the wood components of your home.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: I’ve made an offer to buy a 40-year-old condo with electric radiant heat in the ceilings. So far, I haven’t been able to confirm that the heat is working. Our home inspector said he wasn’t sure. So what should I do next, hire an electrician? If the heating doesn’t work, is the seller obligated to fix it? Kelly

Dear Kelly: Home inspectors can verify the function of radiant ceiling heat in two easy steps: Step one is to turn on the thermostat in each room and then wait about 15 to 20 minutes, while inspecting other aspects of the property. Step two is to carry a ladder from room to room and to place one’s hands on the ceiling surfaces. If the ceiling feels warm, the radiant heating is functional.

You don’t need to hire an electrician. Instead, call your home inspector and ask that the heating inspection be completed. If the system is not operative, you can request that the seller have it repaired. The seller may not be required to make these repairs, but you can argue that a home without a functional heating system is not a legal dwelling.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: We purchased a condo last year and had it professionally inspected. The inspector could not see the gas line for the patio barbecue because it was under the concrete slab. But the seller assured us that it was installed to code. He volunteered this information while taking us on a tour of the home. Recently, we removed the patio to replace it with brick pavers. It turned out the gas line was on top of the soil, directly under the concrete. The paving company won’t install the new patio until we have the gas pipe buried at the required depth of 18 inches. Are the sellers responsible for this plumbing work, or must we swallow the cost? Denise

Dear Denise: Sellers often make statements about code compliance in utter ignorance of the building code. In fact, home inspectors laugh among themselves about sellers who say, “We built the addition without a permit, but everything was done to code.” Unless sellers are architects or building contractors, they have no way of knowing whether code compliance has been met. If you combine the building code, the plumbing code, the mechanical code, and the electrical code, you have a set of books about five inches thick and written in esoteric language that is essentially foreign techno-speak to the average person.

The “craftsman” who installed the gas line below your patio, without burying it 18 inches below grade, was obviously not a professional. This means that the seller installed a gas line (or had some other unqualified person install it) and did so without a required building permit. Since the seller represented the gas line as being “installed to code,” it would be reasonable to request that he make that line comply with his own disclosure. If he does not agree, a small claims judge would be likely to rule in your favor.

Be sure to take photos of the gas line before having it replaced.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: The home inspector I hired never mentioned that the floor tiles and air duct insulation contain asbestos. Shouldn’t he have pointed this out?  Robert

Dear Robert: Asbestos is generally regarded as “outside the scope” of a home inspection and is typically not mentioned by most home inspectors. For homebuyers, this leaves a gap in the disclosure process. For home inspectors, the issue is one of legal liability. If any material is disclosed as a potential source of asbestos, the inspector may be held liable for other possible asbestos materials that were not mentioned in the inspection report. For this reason, the home inspection industry has excluded asbestos as a consideration during home inspections.

If asbestos disclosure was included in home inspections, complications could ensue because there are so many common building materials that might contain asbestos. Examples include sheet vinyl flooring, asphalt and vinyl floor tiles, adhesive mastics, acoustic ceiling texture, old heat duct insulation, asphalt composition roofing materials, plaster, stucco, drywall, joint compound, and more. In most cases, these do not contain asbestos, although with some materials, such as acoustic ceilings, asbestos content is common. Those materials that contain asbestos are usually not hazardous if they are undamaged and allowed to remain as-is.

It could be argued, however, that home inspectors should point out potential asbestos in some cases. For example, many homebuyers plan to remodel and renovate the homes they buy. Interior renovations often involve, for example, the removal of acoustic ceiling texture or of sheet vinyl flooring. Unless alerted by their home inspector, the new homeowners could remove the material without consideration of the potential for asbestos exposure. Ceiling texture that is scraped off or vinyl flooring that is torn off could release asbestos fibers into the air of the home if proper removal procedures were not used.

Another example would be old insulation on warm air ducts installed prior to 1973. Duct insulation that appears as gray cardboard, sometimes with a foil veneer, it is certain to contain asbestos. If the material is undamaged, it can be left as-is. But it is common for such material to be torn in places or to be detached from the air ducts. Home inspectors in those instances would do well to recommend further evaluation and repair by a licensed asbestos contractor.

The pros and cons of asbestos disclosure have been debated among home inspectors for many years. On one hand, there is the need to provide vital information to home-buying customers. That argument weighs in favor of measured and limited asbestos disclosure. On the other hand is the fear of liability and lawsuits if asbestos disclosure is not comprehensive and thorough. That consideration favors a total avoidance of asbestos disclosures of any kind. The controversy is an outgrowth of the freewheeling practice of litigation, an ongoing threat to businesses and professions throughout the nation. The proliferation of cases, whether frivolous or justified, has taken its toll on home inspectors everywhere. In the end, each home inspector must decide whether to confront or avoid the practice of asbestos disclosure.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: My landlord has offered to sell me the house I’ve been renting. But the central heating system has broken down, and I’ve just learned that the air ducts are covered with asbestos. My landlord knows about this but refuses to lower the price of the home. What do you think I should do? Michele

Dear Michele: Unless the laws in your area require a seller to make such repairs, what you have is a negotiable issue. If the landlord remains firm in his position, you should decide if the property — plus the cost of furnace repair and asbestos removal — is acceptable to you. To help with this decision, get some bids from local contractors who service heating equipment and who handle asbestos removal. Be aware, however, that asbestos duct insulation is not necessarily hazardous or problematic. If the material is intact, it can be encapsulated by overlaying it with fiberglass insulation. The cost of encapsulation is far less than for removing asbestos.

If you decide to purchase the home, be sure to hire a qualified home inspector to conduct a thorough evaluation of the property. In all likelihood, there are other issues that should be addressed and that might be negotiated with the seller. If the heating ducts have asbestos, this is probably a very old home and is likely to have other significant issues.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: When we bought our home, the sellers said that everything was functional, which included the central heating and air conditioning system. On the day of our home inspection, the summer temperature was over 90 degrees outside, so the inspector tested the air conditioning but not the heat. Yet his inspection report said that the entire HVAC system was functional. Well, it turned out when winter came that the furnace would not work. The heating contractor we called found several problems, including a cracked heat exchanger. So now the furnace has to be replaced. Who is responsible to pay for this? George

Dear George: The sellers could be liable if the furnace was inoperative or had obvious defects while they owned the property. But that may not be provable. The sellers may in fact have been unaware of any furnace problems, even though it was defective at the time. The home inspector, however, is clearly liable for approving the condition of a furnace without testing it and without recommending further evaluation.

Operating and inspecting a furnace is standard procedure for home inspectors. If an inspector does not operate a heating system, because of hot weather or for any other reason, the report should clearly state that the system was not tested. The condition of the furnace should then be regarded as an unresolved issue, and the inspector should recommend further evaluation prior to close of escrow. A home inspector who discloses a system as functional when it has not even been operated is grossly negligent and should be held to account for that professional breach.

You should notify the sellers and the home inspector of this situation and insist that they take some responsibility for replacing your furnace.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: Back-drafting has been occurring in our fireplace. What can we do to make the fireplace usable? Ray

Dear Ray: When you refer to “back-drafting”, I assume that you mean yous house becomes smoky. This can be caused by a poorly designed firebox or by a chimney that is too short. A qualified fireplace contractor or chimney sweep can often recommend upgrades that will correct this kind of problem. For example, the chimney height can be extended at the roof, or the lintel can be lowered at the firebox. Just be sure to find someone who is qualified to make this kind of evaluation.