Buyer Be Wary!

If you like television series CSI, you'll enjoy this.

This inspection was of an 11 year old single family house that showed well...no, better than that, it was spectacular!  Tremendous upgrades, granite, ceramic tile, hardwood floors, the works.  It was also almost vacant, but tastefully staged, when I saw it. It had been the object of investor greed, changing hands several times in the past three years, and most likely without inspections. While the house had been rented several times, no one who had owned the house had actually lived in it...which partially explains why the seller was so suprised by what I found.

I started thinking something was fishy when I found a portable AC unit in the storage space under the stairs. Why would this house need a window AC? Hmmm.

The main electric panel "sparked" additional questions. There were 5 HVAC breakers...two labeled "AC," two labeled "Furnace," and one labeled "Heat Pump." All were hooked up! That seemed like alot of horsepower for this house and all I had found was the 8 year old heat pump compressor outside. Now my curiosity was in high gear. I went looking for the missing pieces.

The attic, at first glance, was unremarkable. No furnace. No AC. But when I brushed away the blown insulation I found a work platform that is required for an attic HVAC. Little else remained except the furnace shut off switch which was still connected to a wire. The emergency condensate pipe, sans pan, was also under the insulation.

The spaghetti like flex ducts serving the upper floor were connected to a plenum which looked OK until I picked it up and found it was connected to nothing. Further testing revealed that there was no ventilation to the upper floor, the two systems had not been interconnected.

I found more clues and in the end I surmised that for some bizarre reason, an early owner, or perhaps one of the rentors, had removed the attic furnace and AC. The other AC was upgraded to a heat pump and the other furnace was converted to serve as a dual fuel emergency heat backup.

This was going to be an expensive problem to fix. HVAC is required for the rooms on the second floor. Either the Furnace and AC would have to be re-installed in the attic or the two HVAC duct systems would have to be connected and engineered to properly serve the whole house. This would probably require a new, larger heat pump for the larger load. At any rate, I called for the HVAC experts to figure out the best solution for my client.

The lesson of this inspection for investors and, of course, all homebuyers is not to get too confident in one's own skills at "reading" a house. Get an inspection every time. A situation like this one can fool you, as it fooled alot of people. It can cost alot of money to fix and without a pre-sale inspection the buyer is probably the one paying the bill.  

It's a good idea to have me inspect your client's prospective home. You never know what you will find.

Sincerely,

Home Status Inspection Company

April 8, 2007 Copyright Home Status Inspection Company, LLC