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House Questions (part deux!) (UPDATE: I'm a home owner now!)
Posts
what was missing?
The house was listed as having Natural Gas lines built into it, both in the MLS description and in the seller's property description at the house. This is rather important to me, as where I live Natural Gas heating costs significantly less than electric does where I live (to the tune of about $800/year on average). Natural Gas also heats a hell of a lot better than electric does (a Natural Gas furnace blows air at around 110 degrees while electric blows air at around 85 degrees). While the house was listed as currently being electric, the gas lines would have allowed me to switch prior to winter, and I've had made the money back in about three years, so it didn't worry me.
When we went through for the inspection, though, we found that there were no gas lines and there never were. It wasn't a situation where it was partially removed and then capped off. They just never existed.
This waiting game sucks.
If you ask for things like replacing carpets or windows, it can be better to get quotes and ask for the cash at closing rather than having them cheap out on fixing them.
Don't even worry about the appraisal, that's the sellers' thing to worry about getting screwed up.
Make sure someone is caring for the yard in between now and closing.
Change the locks as soon as you get the keys. They could have had unsavory tenets living there prior.
Those are just off the top of my head in the middle of the night. Have fun!
Most of the people she quoted me were ~300 for full house inspection and there was one on there for 585 (includes termite and radon). I went with 585 after seeing they had no complaint against them in the BBB since 05.
Yep, compared to the cost of the issues, it's cheap. Also check to make sure they're a member of http://www.ashi.org/ etc.
Here's what I got from the report:
His concerns:
- Outlets outside need covers on them.
- Outlet on back porch needs to be secured.
- Chimney needs to be sealed with something other than caulking.
- Toilet in master bath needs to be secured.
- Breaker box needs to not be double tapped.
Less concerning:
- Gutter screws coming out, need to be secured.
- Master bedroom ceiling is slightly bowing, possible water damage?
Is this too much?
Concerns 1, 2, and 4 seem like things you can handle yourself (careful w/r/to electricity). Do you ave an electrician you can talk to?
I wouldn't necessarily consider bowing ceiling a lesser concern. If he says it's not a big deal then perhaps you can ignore, but you might need to fix when you sell. replacing drywall and refinishing isn't cheap.
Personally, I would see if you could get the current owners to pay to have them both redone by certified people. If you can only get one, have them get a certified electrician to redo the breaker box. You can solve the Chimney issue by simply not having a fire in it until you can afford to get it fixed.
the breaker box is a big deal possibly
That's exactly it, it was just the mortar bits. So I'm going to try and get them to fix a lot of the things and if they refuse I'm going to get them to at least do the breaker.
The bowing ceiling is something to check out though.
Except for when the Double Tapping requires more voltage than the breaker box can handle and the box bursts into flames. That was a fun experience when I was 10. At the very least, you really need to get a certified electrician in there to look at it.
Agreed, but it basically just costs 1 new breaker per tap to fix unless the box is full.
Its when you place two conductors under one circuit breaker. Some breakers are designed for this (and are labeled as such) but if they're not, the the wires can come out or can draw too much power without tripping the breaker and start a fire if the house is trying to draw more power than the breaker can handle (for instance, if its a 150w breaker, and the house is drawing 200w). This last is VERY uncommon, and you'll probably only find it in older houses who never had the breaker replaced. This issue was discovered in the late 70s and modern circuit breakers will just kill the power.
Some home inspectors don't inspect the interior: you'll need to get a chimney inspection done as they'll inspect the flue, the damper, the interior mortar/liners. You'll want to know the state of the chimney before you start using it.
- Roof
- Water heater
- Cooling system and when the last time it was serviced
If your AC uses R-12 or R-22 Freon the supply is dwindling and prices rising due to the phase out, so if the system springs a leak you'll have to either do a retrofit or replace the entire unit. HVAC's have a lifespan of 10-20 years, so by knowing when it was installed you have an estimate timeframe.I'll have to look at the cooling system. I seem to remember hearing about it. I think the inspection guy said the furnace is old but in good condition. He said that if the temperature gets below 26 or something like that then it kicks in, otherwise it reverses the air from the AC unit. I'll look through the inspection report to be sure, though.
So, I'm not an electrician but this doesn't sound right. I'm like 99% sure you can't draw more power through a circuit breaker than it's rated for regardless of what you connect to it. That's why it exists. Likewise you can't overvolt a circuit breaker. It is not a transformer and the transformer outside your house won't ever provide a higher voltage.
The danger with double tapping seems to be loose wires. Basically the NEC states that you should never hook up more wires to any connection device than what that connection device is rated for. For a circuit breaker that usually means 1 wire. If you hook up two wires then there's a chance that the wires will come loose from normal contraction/expansion of the wires (the effects of which are now doubled because you have 2 wires instead of 1). This creates a fire hazard because even though the circuit breaker is rated for a high current, and the wires themselves are rated for a high current, the connection point between them becomes overly resistive due to the loose connection and gets too hot at normally safe currents.
At any rate it's rediculously easy to fix and is probably not something you would want to negotiate over.
Yeah, that's what they're supposed to do. However, Federal Pacific, a major manufacturer of circuit breakers in the '60s, 70s, and 80s had a major flaw in the breakers that were made for them by Stab-Lok. In the breakers, if an individual breaker draws too much power for a circuit, it will NOT trip, and instead it will overheat and eventually catch on fire. Tests done have shown that 1 in 4 Federal Pacific boxes have this flaw. These fires have been known to burn down the entire house. So, if you're going to buy a house manufactured in that timeframe, you REALLY need to check out the breaker box and be careful of it.