Serving Akron, Cleveland, Canton & the rest of NorthEast OHio
Shocking Home Inspection Finds
When you’ve done as many home inspections as we have, you’ve seen a few things. Maybe a few hundred things, that are shocking to most people. But some of them need a bit of explanation. See some of our favorites below.
lightbulb hack job
We see a lot of weird “DIY” fix-ups in homes, and this one is a great example of that. Here you can see a light bulb fastened to a wooden beam in an attic by large strips of packing tape. We totally understand it’s important to see what’s going on in the attic when you’re up there, but perhaps packing tape is not the thing that’s supposed to keep the light secure. Not to mention how this looks “ratchet” (as the cool kids say).
Insulation devastation
The perfect name for this one, in our opinion. Take a look at the photo to the right and see if you agree. Wood bits, cardboard, pink insulation shreds everywhere… The pink panther would be truly terrified if he saw this mess. This is surely the doing of rodents, living in this attic and hoping to build nests with the material. To top it off, the brown lumps in the midst of the chaos? Those aren’t chocolate bars, that’s for sure. One of the worst messes we’ve seen in an attic. We pray yours does not look like this!
Water, water, everywhere
Our inspectors use something called a “moisture meter” when they do general home inspections. It’s a device that measures the moistures in walls and ceilings that may not be visible to the human eye.
Pretty cool, right? The not-so-cool part is the meter on this one is in the red. The little hand is all the way to the right and off the charts. This means the moisture levels in that area of the ceiling are sky-high.
Water Water Everywhere #2
We also use infrared thermography devices (above) in our inspections. This one tells us there is a lot of moisture in this house’s ceiling too. The yellow color indicates normal levels of heat in the home. That dark spot of purple in the middle of the yellow? That tells us that there is a patch of cold, which, in combination with the moisture meter means potential serious damages may ensue.
We’re not saying the wall could burst at any moment and a wave of water will come gushing out… But it certainly is an issue to be addressed, or there will be a lot of major repairs to do later. After all, no one wants to pay for a new ceiling if they don’t have to.
“Wire” did I go wrong?
This one may not be as dramatic or strange as the others, but it is a problem. If you read our blog post on the unusual risks of a house fire, you know that people have fire hazards in their homes that they don’t even think twice about or even know are hazards. Take a look at this photo below. This was found in an attic of a home we inspected. There is exposed electrical wiring and incorrect venting of an exhaust fan. This means, in simple terms, these guys probably wanted to save a quick buck and just do these jobs themselves. Or maybe where they went wrong was they did hire someone, but they didn’t do a great job wiring the electric or venting the fan. Not only is this setup incorrect, it’s a major risk of house fire. The incorrect venting can cause overheating and the house could burn up from the top-down. To add salt to the wound, the faulty wiring could also cause an electrical fire.
Big yikes.
Maybe this one perhaps is common knowledge, but then again that isn’t so common nowadays. If you need wires adjusted, or venting put in, please hire a professional. Trust us on this one. It may be an expense now, but better to pay a little now for a knowledgeable, skilled guy to fix it up than a lot of money later in fire damages.
