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We post a new home inspection photo on the Structure Tech Facebook Page five days a week.  After pouring over all of our photos from the last year, we've come up with our favorite home inspection pics from 2012.  Click on any of the photos for a larger view, and feel free to share.

Bent Outlet Cover - Problem: I want an outlet right where the wall is angled, but I can't get the cover plate to fit. Solution: Cut the cover plate and then caulk it in place.

Worst Common Vent Ever - How can you get four water heaters to backdraft at the same time?  Just do something like this.

Outlet in duct - Moving the outlet would have been too much work, so someone just cut a hole in the exhaust duct for the kitchen hood fan.  Nice touch with the masking tape on the sharp sheet metal edges too.

Furnace covers reversed - furnace manufacturers intentionally make it impossible extremely difficult to get the upper and lower covers reversed.  With enough tenacity, one can make it happen though.  This allows most of the air to get sucked from the furnace room, completely bypassing the furnace filter.  No wonder the furnace filter was so clean.

Deteriorated Chimney - Flue gases from combustion appliances like furnaces and water heaters are corrosive; that's why you see a metal liner sticking out of most chimneys in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.  When the appliance vents in to the chimney without a liner, the flue gases often condense near the top and then drip down and destroy the inside of the chimney. This is also just one more reason why it's important for the home inspector to get on the roof whenever possible.

Optional Combustion Air - Have you ever had one of those days where you felt... y'know... a little too fresh?  Thanks to this person's nifty invention, the combustion air being pumped in to the furnace return plenum can be manually turned off.

Leaking Drain - Awww, isn't that cute?  We noticed a bunch of water on the floor in the basement after testing all of the first floor plumbing fixtures.  To confirm the source of the leak, we filled up the kitchen sink with water, pulled the drain stopper, then ran downstairs to catch the leak in action.

TwoFur - Early attempts at one-piece kitchen faucet / sprayer combos failed miserably.

Leaning Porch - no photo editing performed here.

Leaves in Attic - this huge piles of leaves in the attic was a mystery.

Not-so-frost-free faucet - Frost free faucets have a long stem that allows the water to be turned off inside the home, preventing them from freezing.  It doesn't work so well when they're installed like this.

Missing Roof Vent - Nice solution.

This deck puts the can't in Cantilever - The word of the day is 'fulcrum'.  Now, everyone over to the right for a demonstration. 

Medusa's House - we think we know where she lives.

Obstructed Vacuum Breaker - Over/under on how long it will be before that vacuum breaker is removed after the Bloomington inspector leaves: 9.5 seconds.

Scorched 'Safer Cooking' Manual - Alanis Morissette would love this photo.   Dontcha think?

Strategic Bath Fan Placement - this gives new meaning to the term 'point source ventilation'.

Worst.  Roof.  Ever.

Exploding Range - what happens when you take a range designed for natural gas and install it in a home with LP gas?  You create an explosion hazard.   DO NOT test the oven if you ever come across this defect - a huge fireball will shoot out when you open the door, which will singe your hair and give you half a heart attack.  Don't ask us how we know.

My crawl space has a flat tire - we couldn't believe our eyes when we found this trailer frame partially buried in concrete in a crawl space, supporting the addition at the front of a house in Hopkins.

Men make things fit - We've seen plenty of doors notched out to get around toilets, but this might be the worst one yet.

That last photo was a 'bonus' photo sent in by Rick Norling, past owner of Structure Tech.   If you enjoy these kinds of photos, remember to like our Facebook page.  Thanks!

Related Post:  Top 20 Home Inspection Photos from 2011

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections

Allen wrenches, aka 'hex' wrenches, are those "L" shaped wrenches that come included with just about anything you buy from IKEA.  I save these wrenches every time I get one, and I've accumulated a nice little hodge-podge collection of wrenches over the years.

To make sure you always have the size you need, it's a good idea to get a folding wrench set with all of the sizes built in - both metric and standard.  I consider this a must-have for any basic tool set.  I have two wrenches, one for metric and one for standard.

One day, my wife and I were putting something together that needed a lot of allen wrench turning, and I started telling her about how I should buy a set of allen wrenches that have socket wrench ends on 'em, like the set pictured below.

My wife then suggested I just cut the end off one of the "L" shaped allen wrenches and stick it in my drill.

Harumph.

I could have thought of that.

I just didn't want to.

It took me about 30 seconds to cut the end off and file it down, turning the L shaped allen wrench in to a hexagonal stick that I could put in my cordless drill.

The assembly project we were working on went much faster after that.  I was so happy with this 'invention' that I made a full set out of my spare wrenches.  I drilled a bunch of holes in a block of wood to store my wrenches in.  It's probably not the best way to store them, but it was the first thing I thought of and it's worked fine for me ever since.

Now go forth and make your own set.  Just for fun, here's a video of me demonstrating how to make your own set, along with some questionable relationship advice.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections

Minnesota got dumped on last weekend with nearly fifteen inches of snow in some areas.  With hardly any snow last winter, we almost forgot what a real snow storm looked like.   I haven't heard about any concerns over ice dams yet, but I suspect they'll be coming very soon.  The perfect conditions for ice dams are large amounts of snow and temperatures in the teens and twenties, which is what we're expected to have this week.

Two years ago, many Minnesota homeowners experienced ice dams like never before.  The two things that everyone wanted to know was how to get rid of ice dams and how to prevent ice dams.  Today, the focus is going to be on prevention.

How Ice Dams Form

Because it's been a couple of years since I've blogged on the topic of ice dams, here's a quick refresher: ice dams are literally dams of ice that form on roofs and cause water to back up.  The dams form when the snow that touches the roof melts, and then that water freezes again before running off the roof.  This usually happens at the edges of roofs, but not always.  Here's a great diagram showing how this works, courtesy of Steve Kuhl.

The best way to prevent ice dams from forming is to address the three factors in your attic that contribute to ice dams; insulation, ventilation, and attic air leaks.

Attic Air Leaks (aka - attic bypasses)

This is the largest contributor to ice dams.  In almost every house with ice dams, there will be attic air leaks directly below the beginnings of the ice dam.  Attic bypasses are passageways for warmed air to enter in to the attic space, and traditional insulation won't fix this.  The photos below show some common attic bypasses that can be found in just about any older house.  The image series below shows how an infrared camera can be used by a home inspector or energy auditor to locate these bypasses.

The photo below shows one of the largest and most common bypasses - the space around the furnace and / or water heater vent.  Sometimes these are huge. The one shown below is relatively small, but allows a lot of air to leak up in to the attic.

In the photo below, you can see several holes in the top plate of a wall that were drilled for wires to pass through.  These holes could all be easily filled with spray foam, but finding these holes all over the attic would be a challenge without first removing the insulation, or performing an infrared inspection with a thermal imaging camera.  The insulation had to be pushed aside to find these and take this photo.

With additions, the transitions between the 'new' and 'old' construction seem to always be sources of attic bypasses.  The gap below was easily identified with the use of an infrared camera, but a lot of insulation had to be moved to get to the bottom of it.

When plumbing vents enter in to the attic, the space around the vents needs to be sealed.  This one obviously wasn't.

Some older houses have whole-house fans that are designed to run on hot summer nights; these fans are gigantic sources of heat loss, because they're usually not insulated or sealed up.  The photo below was taken from inside the attic without a flash.  There's some crazy heat loss occurring there, and as you might imagine, there was a huge ice dam nearby.  No infrared camera needed to find this.

Old ramblers often have stairwells with nothing covering the top - you could fit an entire family in this dead space.  It looked fine in the attic until the insulation was pulled away to show that this area was completely open.

The space around masonry chimneys is also a notorious location for attic air leakage.

What makes many of these attic bypasses so difficult to locate is that they're almost always buried in insulation. Finding these buried air leaks can turn in to a guessing game for someone without a lot of experience in digging through attics.

If you have these types of bypasses in your attic, my recommendation is to have an insulation contractor seal the air leaks.  They'll know where to look and how to seal them properly.  If you want to do the work yourself, download this guide from the Minnesota Department of Commerce - Attic Bypasses, and this guide from Building Science.com - Attic Air Sealing Guide and Details.   These guides both give some excellent information on how to properly seal all of these air leaks yourself, and they discuss other concerns that need to be considered when performing attic air sealing, such as combustion appliance safety, knob & tube wiring, and vermiculite insulation.

If you plan to have more insulation added to your attic, have the air leaks sealed first.  This can't be stressed enough. This is the driving force behind ice dams, and is even more important than having insulation added.   If your home was built before about 1990, it's almost a guarantee that you'll have attic bypasses that need to be sealed all over the attic. Unfortunately, many insulation contractors just add insulation on top of what's already there without sealing the air leaks.

Insulation

This is a basic concept that everyone understands; you need insulation in your attic.  If there are voids in the insulation, they need to be fixed.  If there isn't enough insulation, add more.  The current minimum requirement for new homes in Minnesota is insulation values between R-38 and R-44.  This means about 10" - 12" of cellulose, or 12" - 16" of loose fill fiberglass, depending on the manufacturer.

I'll follow up with another post on different attic insulation methods and challenges with insulating older attics in the near future.

Ventilation

Having adequate ventilation for the attic space will help to keep the roof surface cold, which will help to prevent snow from melting, which will help to prevent ice dams.  Ventilation is required for attics, but it's the last thing that should be considered when troubleshooting the causes of ice dams.

The traditional way to ventilate an attic was to have half of the ventilation provided by vents installed low, such as soffit vents, and the other half at the top, such as ridge vents. According to information shared at a recent seminar put on by Dr. Lstiburek here in Minnesota, a better way to ventilate the attic is to make the ratio about 1/3 high and 2/3 low.  This means way more soffit venting than ridge venting. If the soffit vents are dirty, clean them or replace the grills if they're painted shut.  Grills are cheap.  If the soffit vents are blocked with insulation, install air chutes at the eaves inside to prevent the insulation from blocking the vents.

When all else fails...

If you've already done everything you can think of to fix your ice dams but they keep coming back, or you hired a contractor to fix your ice dams two years ago but the ice dams have returned, call a home inspector or an energy auditor.  We look at this stuff every day, and some of us even specialize in ice dam inspections.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections

If you plan to renovate your kitchen, take the time and spend a little extra money to get the plumbing, mechanicals, and electrical right.  Home inspectors find a lot of remodeled kitchens where it would have been just a little bit of extra work to fix an existing problem or avoid future problems, but someone skimped.

Electrical

Add more circuits.  The current requirement for kitchens is that there needs to be at least two 20-amp small appliance circuits for the kitchen countertop outlets.  If the home doesn't have these already, this is a nice upgrade.  Current standards also require a dedicated circuit for the dishwasher and a dedicated circuit for the garbage disposer.  Go ahead and bring this stuff up to current standards - this will reduce the potential for nuisance tripping at the circuit breaker panel. It's also good practice to add a dedicated circuit for the microwave, and another for the fridge.  These aren't required, but again, they're nice upgrades.

Add GFCI protection.  Perhaps the most important safety upgrade for kitchens is to add GFCI protection for all of the countertop outlets.  The purpose of a GFCI outlet is to keep you from getting electrocuted; not shocked, but electrocuted.  As in 'killed by electricity'.

GFCI protection can be added to several outlets by wiring the first outlet in the series through a GFCI device, and then wiring all the rest of the outlets downstream from that one.  GFCI outlets cost less than $15 each, making this a smart safety upgrade for any kitchen that doesn't have them, but especially a remodeled kitchen.

Think about your gadgets.  Where do you charge your mobile phone and other gadgets?  If it's in the kitchen, create a little space for them and add an outlet with built-in USB chargers.  Home Depot sells these for $20.

Plumbing

Replace steel water lines.  When old galvanized steel pipes supply water to the kitchen sink, they should be replaced as part of a remodel.   The inside diameter of these pipes gets smaller and smaller over time as the pipes rust, to the point that water flow gets restricted because of such a small diameter.  Even if you're not ready to re-pipe the entire house, at least replace the pipes in the kitchen when you have stuff torn apart.

Replace steel drains.  This is huge.  Home inspectors find a lot of recently remodeled kitchens with brand new cabinets, but an old galvanized steel drain in the wall.  Just like steel water lines, steel drain lines rust internally.  It's only a matter of time before these things gets clogged and become unusable.  It's not a big deal to replace them with newer materials when the walls are opened up.

Mechanical

Don't settle for a re-circulating hood fan.  Hood fans that just re-circulate the air are almost useless.  Yes, they have little filters that will collect some grease in the air, but that's about it.  They won't do much for cooking odors, smoke, or moisture in the air.  If you want to have a hood fan that's useful, design your kitchen so the fan can exhaust to the exterior.

Summary

While none of these upgrades are required, they're nice things to get right the first time, and they're a lot easier to do when things are torn apart.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections

If you're buying an old house in the Twin Cities with pipes sticking out of the ground in your yard, heads up.  You might have an oil tank somewhere at the property.   While the vast majority of homes in the Twin Cities are heated with natural gas, there is still a small percentage of homes in the metro area that are heated with fuel oil, and far more houses with abandoned oil tanks.

When a home gets converted from fuel oil to natural gas, the fuel oil tank becomes abandoned.  Once the tank is abandoned, it needs to be dealt with.

When tanks are abandoned

If the tank is buried, it needs to be removed or filled in place  If a fuel oil tank is left buried, it could eventually leak.  A leaking underground storage tank (LUST) can contaminate the soil as well as the home, creating an environmental hazard that can cost a ridiculous amount of money to clean up.  You can visit the EPA's web site on LUSTs for more info.

When a tank is located inside the house but not buried, it needs to be properly disconnected, and sometimes removed.  A fuel oil tank takes up a large amount of room, so most people choose to have them removed, but requirements vary from city to city.  For example, once a fuel oil tank is abandoned in Minneapolis, it needs to be removed from the property.  This is written in to their Truth-In-Sale of Housing Evaluator Guidelines under item #25.  The guidelines state:

"The evaluator shall determine if there are any abandoned fuel oil tanks. If found, mark as RRP or RRE. A licensed contractor must properly remove them. (A permit is not needed if the tank is less than 200 gallons.). (Per Uniform Fire Code Sec. 79 and Mpls. Code 48.145)"

Another option for an abandoned fuel oil tank is to stick it out in your front yard and paint it like a cow.  You might think I'm kidding, but I've seen it done several times.

Clues to a buried fuel oil tank

The easiest way to identify a potential buried fuel oil tank is to look for a fill pipe and vent pipe at the exterior of the home.  Sometimes the pipes will go through the foundation wall of the home.

Sometimes they just go down in to the ground.

When fuel oil tanks are removed, the fill and vent pipes need to be removed or cut off and filled with concrete.  If you find pipes sticking out of the ground or foundation wall like the ones shown above, it probably means one of two things: either the tank is still there, or it was removed by a hack.  No professional oil tank removal contractor is going to leave the vent and fill pipes looking like that.

According to Dean Nething of Dean's Tanks, there were many 'erroneous deliveries' that happened during the 60's and 70's, where one house address got confused with another.  About once a year, a basement would get contaminated with hundreds of gallons of fuel oil.  In every one of these cases, the contamination was so bad that the fuel oil company, Standard Oil, had to buy the property so they could tear it down and dig out the basement.  This is why the fill pipes always need to be removed when the tank is removed.

When the pipes are right next to each other like in the photos above, there's a good chance that the fuel oil tank is (or was) located inside the house or under the house.  When the pipes are separated from each other, there's a very good possibility that there's a buried fuel oil tank in the yard.  The photo below came from a house in Minneapolis - these pipes led to a 1,000 gallon tank buried in the yard.

Here's another example - the fill and vent pipes were located in the front yard behind some bushes at a home in Edina. These innocuous, nearly hidden pipes led to an enormous buried tank in the front yard.

There are a few diagrams floating around online that show an indoor style of tank buried in the ground, like the big green one that I showed at the beginning of this post.   Those indoor style of tanks are extremely unusual to find buried - or according to Dean's Tank, "once in a blue moon".  The vast majority of buried tanks look a lot more like big drums, like the ones shown below.  The photos below are courtesy of Dean's Tank.

Here's another example of pipes sticking out of the ground leading to a buried oil tank in the yard.  In this particular case, the fill pipe had a cap that could be opened.  I stuck my tape measure down the pipe, and it came out soaked in fuel oil.  It smelled like fuel oil for the next two weeks, despite my half-hearted efforts to clean it off.  Fuel oil has a strong odor, and takes a long time to go away.  It's easy to understand how a leaking tank can create such a nasty problem.

The person buying this home had the sellers remove the tank; here's what the site looked like after the tank was removed.

What to do if you suspect a buried oil tank

If you suspect a buried oil tank, call Dean's Tank, Inc.  They've been specializing in fuel oil tank removal / abandonment in the Twin Cities for over 25 years.  If a fuel oil tank has been professionally removed from a property, there's a good chance that this was the company that did it.  To determine if a fuel oil tank is present, they'll come out and do a site inspection for $200.

Dean estimates his company has removed between ten and twenty thousand tanks.  The cost of removing a buried fuel oil tank varies greatly from property to property, but costs will typically range from $2,000 to $3,000.  Having a tank filled in place typically costs just a little bit less.

According to Dean and Minnesota Real Estate Attorney John Braun, some homeowners may qualify for financial assistance through the Abandoned Underground Storage Tank Removal Program, which is run by the Petrofund program at the Minnesota Department of Commerce. You can read more about this program in the first link included at the end of this post under 'Useful Links'.

Buried Fuel Oil Tanks and Home Inspection Standards

Home Inspection Standards of Practice specifically state that buried fuel oil tanks are not something that home inspectors are required to inspect.  Here's some SOP language from different home inspection organizations:

• ASHI:  Inspectors are NOT required to inspect: underground items including, but not limited to underground storage tanks or other underground indications of their presence, whether abandoned or active.
• NAHI: The inspector is not required to record location of any on-site visible fuel tanks within or directly adjacent to the structure.
• InterNACHI: The inspector is not required to inspect fuel tanks or underground or concealed fuel supply systems.

• Minnesota Pollution Control Agency - Tank Compliance and Assistance Program
• Minnesota State Department of Public Safety - Removal or Abandonment Information Sheet
• Minnesota Pollution Control Agency - Heating Oil Underground Storage Tanks
• EPA  - LUST

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections