I met a home inspector at a foreclosed property yesterday afternoon. When I opened the front door to let him in, I was nearly knocked over by a blast of hot air.
Now I live in the South, and it’s been a hot Summer, so it is not unusual for a vacant house to be pretty warm inside. But this house was more like a furnace.
As a matter of fact, the home inspector was standing by his truck in the driveway and he said that he felt the heat rush past him too!
As it turned out, both the furnace AND the electric oven were running full steam and were stuck in the “on” position and had probably both been running full since the power had been connected.
After we cut the power off and opened all of the windows, the inspector measured the inside temperature at 128 degrees, and that was AFTER the house had cooled down a good ten degrees.
It is a miracle that the house did not burn down.
Even more miraculous was that the inspector completed the job under the adverse conditions without so much as a whimper. What a trooper!
The moral of the story is NEVER leave a vacant house without making certain that all of the system are correctly set and operating properly, and that there is no water running.
The house could have been lost due to carelessness.
Thankfully, it was not.
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