local

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

Home inspectors might find more hack repairs when it comes to plumbing projects than anything else - mostly because it's easy to  do a plumbing project wrong, but still have the drains work.   Sort of.

I have about a million photos of hack plumbing repairs, but that's not the point of this post.  Today I'm going to give a list of some common plumbing products sold at home improvement stores and hardware stores in Minnesota that probably shouldn't be purchased.  Whatever you plan to do with these products is most likely going to be a violation of the Minnesota State Plumbing Code.

S-Traps

First and foremost comes my favorite; the drain tube meant for an S-trap or washing machine drain.  I love the photo below because the packaging encourages you to be your own plumber... which is exactly what the ambitious-looking square on the cover has decided to be, unfortunately.  He's installing an S-trap, which is illegal in Minnesota (4715.0960), and as far as I know, everywhere else in the country.  While the packaging also says that this 1-1/2" drain tube can be used for a washing machine drain, the minimum size allowed for a washing machine drain, also known as a standpipe, is 2" (4715.2300).

bottom note: what's with the suggestion to be your own plumber? Has this clever marketing piece ever actually encouraged someone to 'be their own plumber' ? By the time you've wandered in to the plumbing repair aisle at the home improvement store, there's a good chance that you've already made the decision to be your own plumber.

S-traps are usually found at sinks, and are often accompanied by several other plumbing defects.

There is no simple solution to an "S" trap, but they're usually not a major problem.

Bottle Traps

Another illegal plumbing trap is any type that relies on concealed partitions to create a trap - such as a bottle trap (4715.0960).  They come in several varieties.

The proper and prudent product to purchase in these particular cases is a P-trap.

Corrugated / flexible traps

Corrugated drains have to be one of the most common 'handyman' plumbing repairs that home inspectors find.

These things violate a basic plumbing principal of the Minnesota State Plumbing Code - section F, which states

"F. The drainage system shall be designed, constructed, and maintained to conduct the waste water with velocities which will prevent fouling, deposition of solids, and clogging."  (4715.0200)

All of those little corrugations allow for fouling, deposition of solids, and clogging.  When changes in direction need to happen, it should be done with proper fittings that have smooth interiors.

Needle valves / saddle valves

Saddle valves are usually used for whole house humidifiers, which I'm not a fan of to start with, and ice-makers.  They work by piercing a hole in your water pipe, and they're prone to leaking.  They're also not allowed in Minnesota.

Instead of using a saddle valve, have a proper valve installed.

Clamshell toilet fill valves

Toilet fill valves are supposed to be installed with the critical level line at least 1" above the top of the overflow tube in the toilet tank.  One of the more common types of fill valves are the ones made by Fluidmaster.  The diagram below comes from their installation instructions, and it shows what a fill valve should look like.

The toilet fill valves that sit in the bottom of your toilet tank are often referred to as 'clamshell' fill valves, and they're not allowed in Minnesota, because they create a potential cross-connection between the water in the toilet tank and the potable water supply. Don't put these in.  See 4715.2150 - flush tanks.

Instead of buying a 'clamshell' style fill valve, get the adjustable 400A valve made by Fluidmaster.  These are sold everywhere.

Rubber fittings

Rubber fittings used on drains or vents like the one shown below can sag or collapse.  They're always a no-no.

If you can't figure out how to make your drains work without the use of rubber fittings, call a plumber. The one exception to this for above-ground drain and vent piping is a rubber coupler with a stainless steel metal band or sleave surrounding it.  The stainless steel band gives it rigidity, which prevents what's happening to the un-banded connector in the photo below.

These un-banded couplers are sometimes allowed or even required on high-efficiency furnace vents, and they're allowed to be installed on their side when buried in dirt, but the other 99% of the ones you'll see are wrong.  The photo below shows a proper steel-banded connector.  Check out the fine print that says "2" CI, PL, or ST to 2" CI, PL, or ST".  This tells you the different materials that this connector is designed for.  These types of connectors are usually the right ones to buy.

Slang terms: Note the brand on the coupler shown above - "Fernco".  When you hear people refer to "Fernco" couplings, they're usually referring to couplings without metal bands, but Fernco obviously makes both.  When you hear people mention "Mission" couplings, they're usually referring to banded couplings... but Mission makes both as well.  For quick proof of this, do a google image search for "mission coupling", and do another for "fernco coupling".

Flexible connectors

Flexible connectors aren't allowed at water heaters or water softeners in Minnesota.  I've heard that these are actually a good thing to use in parts of the country that are subject to earthquakes, but not here.  The state plumbing code doesn't allow these flexible connectors, because they reduce the water pipe diameter - the minimum allowable pipe diameter is 3/4".  I know of one manufacturer that offers a connector with a .72" inside diameter, but they're still not allowed in Minnesota.

I have these connectors installed at my own water heater because that's what was there when I bought my house.  I could personally care less if they're there or not, because I've never noticed any difference in water flow at homes that have these... but they're still a plumbing code violation in Minnesota.

If you have a Truth-In-Sale of Housing Evaluation performed at your home in Minneapolis and the water heater is less than three years old, these flexible connectors would be a required repair item.

Mechanical vents

Mechanical vents are not allowed in Minnesota.  These are often referred to as cheater vents, and they come in two varieties - an air admittance valve and a check vent.  A discussion of the different types is a moot point for Minnesota, because neither is allowed.  If you're curious though, check out this post by Seattle Home Inspector Charles Buell on check vents vs. air admittance valves.

The photo below shows a check valve installed on a lav vent inside a cabinet.  On a proper installation, the vent would have been run inside the wall, connected to other vents for the bathroom, and eventually terminated above the roof.

The purpose of a mechanical vent is to allow drains to suck air without admitting sewer gas in to the home.  I've heard that air admittance valves actually work quite well, but they're still a code violation here in Minnesota.

Conclusion

Just because they sell it doesn't mean it's legal.  I often hear homeowners say "If these things aren't allowed in Minnesota, why'd the guy at the store sell it to me?"  The answer is usually that they didn't know any better.  You shouldn't expect the person working in the plumbing department at a home improvement store to be up-to-date on the latest plumbing codes.  Plumbers need a lot of training and experience - that's why they charge what they do.

Now go hug your plumber.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections