Saturday Perspectives - Rain Sustains Life And Can Wash Your House Away
September 6th, 2008 Categories: Buying a Home, Home Inspections, New Construction Homes
What’s left of hurricane Hanna is blowing through Raleigh right now. I live in Wake Forest and we have had quite a bit of rain and wind. Nothing serious. The creek out back is a little swollen. The grass will be greener next week. This is very typical of what we get from hurricanes that make their way up the east coast of the United States.
Water is a fascinating substance. Without it, we cannot survive. Our bodies are up to 60% water. Our brains 70%. Our Lungs 90%. As necessary as water is, it can destroy your home, even in small quantities, when it gets in the wrong places.
I have a basement in my home. The front wall is solid, steel reinforced, concrete with a waterproof coating on the side exposed to the earth. In addition to all that, there is a drain that takes excess water away from the foundation wall of the building. Sounds pretty water tight, doesn’t it?
Well, we noticed water coming in where the plumbing pipes come through the wall about a month ago. It seemed to come and go with the rain. As it turns out, there was a tiny void in the packing material around the plumbing pipes that was allowing enough water to come in to wet the floor in a good sized area whenever we had a heavy rain.
Since we have a new home, and we managed our relationship very well with the builder, he gladly agreed to fix the problem. The plumbing crew had to come back and remove all the old packing around the pipes and re-seal it. So far the heavy rain we just had from Hanna has not made its way into my basement.
This basement leak was easy to spot since I can walk down into my basement anytime I want. I don’t have to crawl under the house to see what is going on. I don’tlike crawling under houses at all. Most people don’t ever do this no matter how long they live in a home.
Water is one of the most compelling reasons to have every home you purchase inspected. An inspector will crawl under the house. A good one will take photos of anything he sees wrong and include them in a detailed report. When buying a house, the inspection period is your chance to get the seller to fix small problems before they become big ones. It is also your chance to walk away without penalty from really major problems with a house.
Smart buyers have every home they purchase inspected. Even a new home. New homes typically need more repairs that used ones
The inspector for my new home did not catch the basement leak because it came and went with the amount of rainfall. But he did catch more than enough other items to make it more than worth the money I paid him. And throughout this process I was able to build a relationship with the builder that facilitated getting my basement leak repaired after we had already closed.
There are two morals to this story.
First, always have any home you are purchasing inspected. There are no exceptions to this.
Second, respect the relationship with the builder of any new home you are purchasing. Most of the time, if you work with them, and don’t complain about the small stuff, they will gladly take care of the big stuff for you.
And here’s another idea for you. Have your home inspected every five years or so. A lot can fail in a home over five years. Unfortunately, many of these failures cannot be seen by the average homeowner. Periodic home inspections are cheap insurance.
