Coming from a distance I arrived about 45 minutes early to my inspection.
The house is a ranch tucked into the wood, near a large body of water and off the path. I liked the house immediately.
Nobody was home and my client hadn't arrived, so I helped myself to the outside and the large crawl space. It was nearly 100 degrees outside, so the crawl space might be a bit more comfy!
I say crawl space, but much of it is belly space. But I digress.
From the opening I could see lots of duct work with its insulation coming loose. And I got a blast of cold air in my face! The system is air conditioning the crawl! Well, at least it won't be 100 degrees while I'm bellying around in there! That's good! It'll be real comfy!
My client will be pleased to know the system she is intending to buy is heating and cooling the crawl space!
I also saw something else. It gave me pause.
There were four small, metal, telescoping support posts!
Uh oh! My client might not like that! I needed a closer look.
It was worse than I feared. Each of the four columns was haphazardly "supporting" a cut end of two floor joists!
The ends of the floor joists were about 2' apart!
The columns were merely sitting on concrete blocks and not attached in any way to the floor joists.
There was also lots of new insulation shoved into place covering what was substantial previous leaking, and sub floor replacement, and plumbing "repairs."
Snapping numerous photos, I was sure my client would be very interested in seeing this!
Stained and rotten sub floor was abutting newer material. There were brown wood shavings and crumbs all over the place! I really, really wanted to see inside.
My client arrived just as I had finished hosing off from the belly space experience! From the opening I could show my client the bottoms of the posts. Not good! She has been on enough home inspections to know what that means! There were a dozen other problems down there, which I quickly described verbally.
I showed her some photos. My client was not impressed.
Going inside I found newer engineered hardwood flooring and a remodeled bathroom with new ceramic floor tile. We could also see that the floor was bending downward toward the bathroom and furnace/water heater rooms, which were side by side.
The famous marble test revealed that the flooring in that area was sinking substantially toward those rooms! Once it did a complete 180! The floor actually bounced under my weight (250)! Not good.
Those cut floor joists were somewhere under the bath tub and water heater, which were separated by a wall but nearly abutted.
My client did not want to go further with the inspection.
Her daughter arrived and was described the problems, and looked at the photos. She was not impressed!
While my client really liked the house, as did I, she said that there had been a previous home inspection and the buyers were scared off by not being able to cut down four trees near the house they wanted to eliminate.
Really? That's it? You sure? Get real.
All in all, my client decided to terminate the inspection. I thought it wise. Unfortunately the house ended up
to search for another property to buy!
The home inspector was glad she did.
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