home inspections Archives - Charles Buell Consulting LLC

October 4, 2020 by Charles Buell

“Functional,” another useless inspection term.

When the home inspection report says something is “functional,” what does that mean?

I do not think it means much.

I could pick almost anything for analogy purposes, but to keep it simple I will use testing water to a sink.

To turn on the bathroom sink faucet and state it is “functional” tells me little, and I am an inspector. I should have more of an idea than the average consumer, so to them it is going to mean even less or might not match their idea of functional at all.

What is the inspector trying to accomplish?

Well we are supposed to test sinks and tubs and determine their condition and anything else that might be going on with them. Some inspectors will turn the faucet on and if water comes out, they will write down that it is “functional.”

So why not just say “water came out?”

That is not as impressive sounding as “functional,” even if it is closer to the truth. Even I will sometimes merely state that “water flowed”–without further elaboration.

Here is a different approach: “The stopper was closed, and it took 20 seconds for the sink to fill to the overflow with both hot and cold water running. It then took 25 seconds to drain.”

This is much more accurate a description of “function” and it does not use the word “functional.” This verbiage also attests to the drain stopper being functional, as well as both hot and cold water coming out. You are even giving some guidance as to “functional flow” by stating the amount of time it took to fill the sink. You get even more guidance by including the time it took to drain the sink.

But this all takes time, and that is the real reason most inspectors are not interested.

In a sense each descriptive component of the narrative becomes a “placeholder” for anything that might be wrong with the sink, its components, and its operation. For example, you might add to, “it then took 25 seconds to drain, and a glug-glug-glug sound was heard consistent with poor venting. I recommend further evaluation by a licensed plumber to determine the cause of this noise and to make any repairs deemed necessary.”

Functioning as intended.

“Functioning as intended” is similar, or perhaps worse, as we have not communicated what was “intended.” What is intended is for water to come out and at sufficient amounts, no? As we have just discussed, we do not keep it that simple and resort to “functional.”

What was intended can be different based on whether the house is new or old as our expectations of acceptability might be raised or lowered. Stating anything is “functional” cannot allow for any of these differences, and we may suffer the wrath of someone that has a different idea of what functional means.

Back to our sink faucet.

If the faucet aerator is badly plugged but “water comes out,” is it enough to state the faucet is “functional?” Or would it be more helpful to state something like, “while water came out of the faucet, flow was reduced because of a plugged aerator (include picture of plugged aerator). I recommend the aerator be cleaned by a qualified party to allow for better flow.” You could further add that, “this clogging is consistent with galvanized piping and further clogging should be anticipated until the piping is replaced, as was previously discussed in this report.”

Again, notice how the word “functional” is nowhere in sight?

Words like functional, satisfactory, and operated as intended, have little real meaning, and do nothing to create a report of substance.

As inspectors, if we simply write about what we see,
write about what we do,
and then write down the effects of what we do,
we can avoid the use of the word functional entirely.

By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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January 5, 2020 by Charles Buell

What is the purpose of a home inspection?

This post could be considered an addendum to the post I did the other day: Home Inspectors and the Building Codes–Who Cares?

One of the comments on that post was about the “purpose of a home inspection.” I think if you ask ten agents the purpose of an inspection, you will get ten different answers.

If you ask ten home inspectors, you will likewise get ten different answers.

I wonder if we ask ten consumers?

So, what is the purpose of a home inspection?

The minimalist answer to this question could be: For the inspector to find substantive structural and safety issues with the home that affect the habitability and use of the home.

One of the issues with this approach is that the inspection report will be so minimal as to leave the new homeowner to discover the laundry list of little things on their own. These “honey-do” lists can add up to an amount equal to, or larger than, something major. Also, as they say, the devil is in the details and without the details something much more substantial might not be discovered.

One thing that “detail” is good at, is helping to explain conditions that might only be determined by a specialist but the specialist might not even be called because 2 + 2 are not put together. Let me give a scenario. The inspector sticks his head up in the attic and states, “you’ve got some black stuff growing on your roof sheathing.” The client of course wants to know if its mold and the inspector won’t “know.” They won’t know the cause because they didn’t crawl all the way to the far end of the attic where the b-vent for the furnace has a huge hole corroded through the side of the pipe allowing all that moisture and combustion products to vent into the attic.

If the inspector does not push through and scratch his or her head and investigate further what is the client left with? The inspector likely won’t even be able to have a recommendation as to who should figure it out–let alone what repairs might be necessary.

A typical report on the finding might read something like this: “Mold or mold-like fungal growth noted in attic. Recommend repairs.”

Dark stained areas were actually dripping water

If this was an inspection for you, on your future home, is it what you would want to hear from your inspector? Is this what you would expect? So why would any agent think this is good enough for their client buying a home? (This is pretty standard verbiage by the way—perhaps a little wordy is all.)

Why would any inspector think this is adequate?

The advantages of this approach, as near as I can tell, serves two main purposes. One thing it accomplishes is that it gets the buyer to “sign-off” on the inspection contingency quicker (and we all know what that means). Secondly it gets the inspector out of the house and off to their second or third inspection for the day. All that head scratching and being helpful takes time—taking too much time is not “productive.”

A better answer to this question of what an inspection is might be: For the inspector to fully inform (this should be considered relatively open ended) the buyer as to the condition of the home, including but not limited to substantive structural and safety issues that might affect habitability and use of the home.

The issues with this approach are obvious. For one thing the deal might go south (funny how even the minimalist approach results in this too). For example if the buyer could handle 2 big issues but the 10 little issues add up to more than both of the two big issues put together, the deal might not “pencil out” for them. Of course the minimalist inspector did not provide them with the information about the 10 little issues. The buyer was left to find them on their own over the next few years where the condition of those issues did not get any better—but sure were obvious at the time of inspection.

This is when the phone calls start.

First of all to the agent that recommended the inspector gets the call; and then the inspector gets calls from the agent and the buyer wanting to know how the inspector could have missed “all this stuff.”

The second approach is typically desired by informed buyers that have either been recommended by agents that see the advantages of this approach, have found the inspector on the internet or through other happy friends, or by agents buying for themselves or their friends and family. One has to seriously wonder about agents that want a different kind of inspection for their clients than they do for themselves or friends/family.

I have had agents tell me and clients tell me that the level of detail and recommendation actually saved the deal, because they then had a blue print to follow, whereas without the information there was only road-blocks.

The advantages of this approach is that the buyer is fully informed and when they do find a house that is within their budget (whether it is the first one or the tenth one), even the little things make sense within that budget. They can then lay back in front of the fireplace in their new home–with the glow of their laptops and the fireplace in their faces–making great recommendations on Yelp, Angie’s List etc about how happy they are with their inspector and their agent.

Isn’t this what it is really all about?

Making sure the client is taken care of.

Isn’t this really what an inspection is all about?

Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

January 2, 2020 by Charles Buell

Home Inspectors and the Building Codes–Who Cares?

I was reminded of the idea for this post from a comment on one of the inspector Facebook forums. I think we have all heard the scenario where the Home Inspector inspects an older home with his or her “New-Home” glasses on. The scenario is about how, when the house was built, everything was “up to code,” but today it is not “up to code,” so it is “wrong-and-has-to-be-fixed-yesterday.”

I would like to argue that, while this might happen on a VERY rare occasion, it does not happen as a matter of course.

There are indeed some real estate agents that would have other agents, home inspectors and the rest of the world think that this is the way Home Inspectors are in general. They would like everyone to believe that home inspectors are all committed to turning every old POS into something that just received its first certificate of occupancy.

There are a couple of significant fallacies with this notion.

Number 1 Fallacy:

There are HUGE discrepancies with which codes were in place when the home was built and when those codes where adopted by any particular jurisdiction or even whether there were any applicable codes at all. What we have come to know as the modern IRC codes that include, plumbing codes, electrical codes, HVAC codes, building codes, fuel gas codes etc are relatively new. That the legislators of States routinely adopt the latest version of the IRC codes is an even more recent development. If your house was built prior to 1975, there is a safe bet that, unless you live in a large metropolitan area, there may not have been any enforced codes.

Electrical codes were perhaps some of the earliest widely adopted codes—with enforcement and inspections. Burning down our homes, businesses and even entire cities will have that effect.

I cringe when someone tells me that something built in 1950 “met code” at the time. I have even heard someone claim that a house built in 1901 met the codes of the time it was built. Just what code would that have been? Many cities didn’t even have building departments in 1950—let alone building codes—we can pretty much forget 1901. There were permits for installing boilers, doing electrical work and other mechanicals in the home—in some areas. These codes were the first to get on board. The quality of work and any “oversight” of work done, largely resided with people trained in the School of Hard Knocks as well as trade schools—especially after the Second World War.

Houses and their systems were not as complicated in those days—we could afford to just throw tons of BTU’s at a structure and call it good. We were a rich and wasteful nation—a nation that has been forced kicking-and-screaming to care—to conserve.

Number 2 Fallacy:

With older housing stock, a home inspector cannot afford to care what code cycle something was constructed under or even whether any applicable codes were in place or not.

We have to look at them from the perspective of what is wrong with them by “today’s standards.” No other lens will keep people safe or leave a buyer fully informed.

We merely observe, report, and recommend.

The fact that something has hung on the side of a house for 30 years or supported a house for 100 years, cannot be the end of the story for the inspector. We must look at all components to see how they are performing today, with today’s information resources. In other words, there is an assumption that we have learned something in the last 30 years or 100 years—not in a final way, but as a process.

Why would we think that anything from another Jurassic time period is still satisfactory today? Why would we not want to apply all that we have learned, and apply it to making things better today–to keep someone from killing themselves today?

In conclusion, we as inspectors must look at every house with the idea that many things can benefit from upgrading to today’s standards and that in some cases it might be downright dangerous and irresponsible to not do so.

Does any seller have to upgrade anything, or heed anything we have to say?

With a few exceptions, the answer is no. I think a lot of the confusion around this could be alleviated if real estate agents did more to educate their clients, our clients, about the idea that just because the inspector has some REALLY great recommendations, it does not mean the seller has to pay any attention to most of them. Most of it is merely for the buyer’s own information so that they can make their lives better if they want to—not to force the seller to make the buyer’s lives better.

Of course this is what negotiation is all about isn’t it? There will always be things that one will likely be able to wrestle from the seller—life and safety concerns typically. Many of the other things discovered during the inspection must be kept in the context of what one is buying. One cannot expect the seller of a 1947 house to hand over the keys to a house free of lead paint and asbestos. If a buyer does not want those things in their dream home—pick something newer—something less of a nightmare.

The real question here is why did the agent (assuming they understood the buyer’s dreams at all) bother to show them a house from this time frame in the first place?

On the other hand if there are obvious issues that could result in burning the house down in the near future, or the crawl space could double as a lap pool, you might reasonably expect some improvements to be made. This is true of even homes sold “as is.” A potential sale is on the hook waiting to be reeled in.

A fisherman will tell you that once you have one of the few fish in the pond on the hook, why would you let it go?

Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle