You read that right: If the wood is pressure-treated, code inspectors are going easy on wood to earth contact. One example, from Bellingham, would be the photo below. Those wood pieces are cross-ties left over after a footing was poured. Because they are pressure treated, the code inspectors allow the builders to leave the wood pieces in place.
I can begrudgingly live with that situation since the wood does not hold the house up. A more egregious situation is the one pictured below, also a photo from Bellingham.
The builder went to the trouble to put the pressure treated posts on concrete piers. Then, so he would not have to pay to haul away dirt that was excavated at the site, he dumped all of the dirt back into the crawl space. Now it has buried the piers and is in constant contact with the posts. Fact is, because that post is pressure treated wood, of unknown quality, the code officials are looking the other way and allow this short-sighted construction technique.
Most pressure-treated lumber that I have found, even the good stuff, provides a 30-year limited warranty against wood destroying insects and rot. If, during that time, the posts fail -- and your claim does not fall through a loophole in the warranty-- then the company will give you new post material. They do not do the carpentry or repair work, they just give you a few sticks of wood. The cost of buying wood for replacement posts is minor compared to hiring the work done. It is my experience that, when you are talking about the foundation of your house, you do not want to build in a 30-year obsolescence.
I described above how code inspectors look at wood to earth contact and pressure treated lumber. However, in this state, the Washington State Department of Agriculture is in charge of tracking wood destroying organisms and wood destroying organism inspections. WSDA has a different view on this issue than the mere code inspector. WSDA tells structural pest inspectors (most of us home inspectors in this state) that we should report wood to earth contact -- a condition that will eventually lead to rot even in pressure treated lumber. The inspector can state that the wood is pressure treated, but the inspector is obligated to disclose that this deficiency in construction will lead to a shorter lifespan for the wood. Isolating wood from soil, in crucial structural locations, is a much better building technique than relying on pressure treated lumber to resist continual contact with soil.
This situation, of code inspectors passing as A-OK an inferior building technique, is frustrating for home inspectors. Builders, misguided as the thought might be, figure that as long as what they do meets code, then that is all that matters.
Those same builders get mad when the home inspector reports wood to earth contact as is required by our regulator, the WSDA. Please remember, legally, the inspector has to inspect to WSDA rules, not to code. In this scenario, the WSDA rules make way more sense than the code. All realtors, and other professionals involved in the inspection process, need to realize that, sometimes, an inspector is obligated by law to point out deficiencies, even if those deficiencies do meet minimalist building codes.
Steven L. Smith
Bellingham WA Home Inspections
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