Your mother was right about keeping clean. But, was she thinking about parts of your air conditioner and furnace?
If your AC/furnace is dirty on the inside, it can cost you big bucks. You can pay higher monthly utility bills AND need to replace your system sooner than necessary.
Here's a normal, clean evaporator coil (below). All of the air in your central HVAC system passes through this coil. This coil provides the cooling for your house in the summer. If you have a heat pump, this coil provides most of the heating for your house in the winter.
Compare the coil above with the coil below. Notice the debris (dust, mold, hair, who-knows-what) on the coil below. All of the air in the house passes through this coil. That's the air we breathe! Yuck! How long can you hold your breath?
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So, what do we need to do? We need our coils cleaned.
Can anybody do this? No, it's the job for a licensed HVAC technician. Some techs will spray a surface cleaner on the coils and wipe it off. That's generally NOT good enough to clean all of the debris that's down in the middle part of the coil. Most times the coil needs to be removed so that it can be cleaned effectively.
Now you know. So, get your coils cleaned and start saving some money! Tell 'em Tom sent you!
This is a Buyer's Market .... Let CPOL give your Sellers the Power of Calling the Shots!
Registration is free to all real estate agents! Why wait? Get registered today and have all your listings rated on our Certified Pre-Owned Listing program!
Certified Pre-Owned Listings. The faster way to sell your listings. When 20 or more homes are for sale in one neighborhood, how else will you ensure that your listing sells first?
Give your sellers the advantage, your buyers peace of mind and yourself satisfaction. Search the database for CPOL inspectors in your area, schedule your CPOL inspection and watch your traffic increase!
After your inspection has been conducted, you will be able to log in and print Summary Reports to leave for potential buyers touring the home for sale. These Summary Reports disclose to potential buyers the basic information of the home, any issues that are found remaining on the "as-is" list from the seller, any major defects they should budget for or which the seller has chosen to fix or pay for at closing and better prepare them for making an offer. These reports also offer third-party, unbiased views of the home.
Pre-listing inspection reports will help your sellers see their homes through the eyes of a critical, third-party, thus making sellers more realistic about their asking price! You no longer have to be the bearer of bad news!
Best of all, you can use Certified Pre-Owned Listing to eliminate wasted time and advertising budgets on homes that will never sell!.
I had a call last night from a broker from another state who was in a jam. He has a couple of condos at the coast that have mold and he needed solid information about what to do, FAST! He had tenants coming in a few weeks (staying for 5 months) and needed the condos clean, but also needed documentation for pending legal action. By 7:30 am today he had the info he needed. No charge. Just info. That's cool.
I was glad to help. Good things work their way around the circle, you know.
Some call me "picky." Others call me a "pain in the a**." One guys said he'd heard I was "The Home Inspector from Hell." Common thread here is that these folks are on the "selling" side of the real estate transaction.
Buyers say thing like, "He saved us from making a big mistake." Or "He saved our marriage," Or "He invented the Internet." (Just teasing on that last one. That was Al Gore, of course.)
Bottom line is, as a home inspector, I am an advocate for my client, the buyer. No offense to the selling agent, the listing agent and the home seller, but I don't care about the sale. I CAN'T care about the sale AND do my best job for my client, the buyer. I'm a hired gun... My 100% allegiance is to my boss, my client.
In 12 years of home inspecting sometimes its tempting to take shortcuts, not be so thorough. To combat this I play a little game. I pretend that my client is my cousin, daughter-in-law, uncle, or great aunt. Heck, I've got to do my best job for family! Keeps me sharp and focused.
She didn't complain of headaches or any other of the more common carbon monoxide poisioning symptoms. She was just crazy. She acted like she'd a few too many, but it was too early in the day for that.
I almost dismissed her as another loopy homeowner until I saw the gray stains on the cabinets and the cookware in the pantry. That was my first hint...
Then, in the cabinet below, the black color on the under side of the pantry shelf was another hint.
And here's the culprit... a flue hood that doesn't quite fit over the exhaust opening atop the water heater.
It's enough to exhaust CO into the house. Wow! It's enough to make someone loopy!
Did she have a working CO detector? NO!
Did she have a working smoke detector? "Of course," she said. "What idiot wouldn't have a smoke detector?"
Of course, as I found out a few minutes later, it really should have batteries in it to be effective!
Fall is in the air down here in the Deep South! That mean cool mornings (65 degrees) and moderate days (80 degrees).
I started this morning atop an airplane hanger in Gulf Shores, Alabama as part of my due diligence inspection for a client. It's a tough life. What a beautiful day!
Now for the quiz...
What's this?
It was sitting outside of the hanger. Here's another clue...
Roof leaks can damage inventory, stop production and deteriorate building components, causing great frustration to building owners. In an effort to solve these problems as quickly as possible, it is easy to make erroneous assumptions. Here are some common misconceptions:
Purchasing a new roof system will stop all roof leaks.
Visual inspection determines the source of all roof leaks.
Spreading tar over a large roof area will stop the roof leak.
All flat roofs leak; trusses and shingles are needed.
Roof leaks are impossible to find and fix.
A new roofing system requires no maintenance.
Not all roof leaks are caused by a deteriorated waterproofing materials. Many other building components can leak. Vulnerable HVAC equipment, masonry walls, plumbing fixtures, condensation lines, skylight frames and metal fascia systems are often mis-diagnosed as roof leaks. The mystery is compounded by the fact that many leaks only show up in severe weather conditions (violent thunderstorms or freezing rain). Also, roof leaks can "travel" from the actual penetration point 40 or 50 feet before falling to the building interior. These many variables make leak investigation and repair a tricky process.
Repairs or Recomendations Sometimes the water test research process reveals that upgrading the roof assembly is the only solution. Typical upgrades are a perimiter base flashing replacement, or roof drain installation.
I found this great artcile about the relationship between window and air conditioning that I wanted to share. Here is an excerpt:
HVAC Windows Pave Way For HVAC Innovation High-performance glazings plus radiant heating and cooling can be a cost-effective combination
By Geoff McDonell
A high-performance glass unit offers superior thermal resistance (R or U value) and infinite variations in low-e coatings, tints and ultraviolet light control, along with solar energy control. High-performance glazing can reduce energy use, benefit lighting design and improve comfort. What's more, high-performance glazing can help reduce the size of the HVAC system.
So why aren't high-performance glazings more widely used? The main barrier is the long payback for the premium cost of the glazing. And that issue arises because virtually all HVAC systems in North America are conventional all-air heating and cooling systems, which must do two things: control space temperatures and ventilate space.
With an all-air system, high-performance glazing often shows a long payback period. The reason is that, no matter how well the glass performs, there is an infrastructure cost for all-air systems; they require a certain amount of equipment, building volume and servicing, no matter how efficient they are. Likewise, costs for energy use, maintenance and operations level out at a nearly base-cost level. After all, even on the most efficient all-air systems, filters need to be changed, fans and bearings need to be maintained, and controls on each terminal device need to be maintained.
For the last 20 years, European HVAC engineers and building designers have been using building mass with radiant cooling and heating and a high-performance building envelope to produce superior indoor comfort with very low energy use and minimal operating costs. The key is to decouple the cooling and heating functions from the ventilation function by using a hydronic-based radiant cooling and heating system.
The advantage of that approach is that, for heating and cooling, it takes a lot less energy, space and equipment to transport water around the building than it does air. What's more, with radiant heating and cooling, the air handling system simply has to provide 100 percent outdoor air for ventilation at a rate of 20 to 50 cfm/person or so at a relatively constant temperature to ensure good indoor air quality. Indoor pollutants are 100-percent exhausted using a general exhaust system serving point-source exhaust terminals at washrooms, photocopiers, and similar areas. An air-to-air heat exchanger may provide virtually energy-neutral ventilation in many climate zones.
The use of the high-performance glass allows enough daylight in to help reduce lighting loads and to eliminate the common interior and exterior thermal zones. And perimeter areas will not experience the transient heating and cooling loads associated with conventional glass units.
Imagine 30-40 gallons of water over your head at this very minute; enough to fill a normal size water heater. One more drop and it'll be too heavy. One more drop and it will burst through the ceiling onto your desk, computer or sensitive electronic equipment.
The picture below is that nightmare. This is the bottom side of the metal roof of a metal building. The roof has been leaking since it was new. Not a lot. Maybe a few cups of water every time it rained. The water became trapped on top of the vinyl coating of the roof insulation. And the water stayed there. And more water came. And it stayed there.
Fortunately we found the problem before it became a catastrophe for the business owner. What's in your attic?
Another recent inspection you might find interesting.
I received a call from a homeowner concerned about mold in their home. Their AC filters were turning black and there was black material around the HVAC registers in the ceiling. And, get this, there were black stains on the plastic liner of the dishwasher and the refrigerator and black stains on the plastic storage containers in the pantry.
After a THOROUGH inspection including an Internet search for "black stains on fabric" I reached the conclusion that it was the candles that the family burned regularly that were causing the black stains everywhere INCLUDING the dishwasher, the refrigerator and the Tupperware.
Funny thing... The homeowners admitted a mold allergy, but were not experiencing any symptoms.
Stop burning candles. Clean the AC system. Problem solved.
We all live in one, but just how much do we know about the house we live in?
The articles posted here may help you understand your house better.
As always, feel free to add a comment or ask a question. I will answer your email.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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