Not A Good Place For Pipes To End
When I saw the picture in Jay's blog, of course I thought of our market.. and we have very few NEW homes being built. Most are resale homes which means something like, if present in a home, would be hidden behind the drywall and a homeowner would never know that they were buying this potential disaster. This concerns me that a contractor would do what Jay has shown in his photo for all of the reasons that he discussed. Thank you, Jay, for always writing such good articles about home inspections.
This is not a good place for pipes to end.
The ending tubes have been called various things. Charlie Buell's recent post called them "dead legs."
Whatever you wish to call them, this is not a good place to end pipes!
This is an exterior wall.
The insulation has been pushed inward, and pushing it in like this significantly reduces it's R-value, or ability to provide resistance against the exterior cold.
The water at those ends is stagnate. It does not move.
As such it is quite a bit more vulnerable to cold, and freezing.
May I suggest that freezing, and cracking, or popping open at either capped end inside the wall will be a disaster.
This second floor location is over the kitchen, with its cabinets and hardwood floor just beneath. And below that is the finished basement.
A leak inside the wall here would not be a slow, drippy leak. It would be a gusher!
The resulting damage will be to wall material, insulation, cabinets, flooring and whatever else.
Buying this house, would you want to be set up for this possible problem? And, thinking further, is it possible or probable?
My recommendation: the pre-drywall inspection is the time to observe this sort of thing and point it out. What can be done at this point? That is not up to me. I am merely predicting a potential problem. My solution might be very different than the builder's. But certainly, those pipes can terminate within the 2x4, with proper support. And that would be quite a bit more freeze protection than what is there now.
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC
Based in Bristow, serving all of Northern Virginia.
Office (703) 330-6388 Cell (703) 585-7560
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