Inspectors can only inspect what they see. Anything hidden in the walls could be completely out of code compliance and your inspector wouldn’t have a clue. To give examples, a dishonest flipper could easily have run smaller wire gauge wiring on too large of a breaker, red stripe copper pipe, or simply covered up damage to beams, studs, etc and the inspector would never know.
If it’s “some” columns only, were these possibly put in to jack up a sagging floor? You may have rotted wood that needs to be replaced.
Run away from this money pit.
Let your realtor and the inspectors guide you. My brother recently bought a house. His offer was accepted, then the inspector found foundation problems. We all freaked out, of course.
The realtor and inspector assured him it could be fixed. There was a lot of awful back and forth with the current owners, what they would pay, what they wouldn’t pay. It was very stressful.
Eventually, everything was fixed. He loves his house, the foundation is fine, and it was worth the trouble.
If there is anything un-fixable with the house, you should be fine. The bank, the insurance company, someone will put a stop to the sale. All you need to do is prepare yourself for a stressful time. And it won’t hurt to keep looking at other houses online, in case things don’t work out.
No, do not trust the realtor or anyone else who has a vested interest in this sale going through. Even your home inspector probably counts on realtor referrals for business. Inspectors that impede sales do not get repeat calls according to some I have known.
The seller can get a contractor to say and quote whatever, but if you buy the house un repaired you may be screwed. You need a binding contract from a contractor stating that they will make a repair for a price or for the repair to be complete and passing an inspection by a contractor you choose before you should even consider touching this.
Nope. Not cold enough to frost.
it’s unlikely that anyone would build with timber joists bearing on the ground alone, more likely that they are on some sort of blocks , bricks or concrete but that the ground level between supports is too high and leaving the timber in contact with the ground. if this is the case simply reduce the ground level so that there is a clear air gap under the timber between supports.
If this was a professional inspector, he/she will know “bearing directly” vs “dirt has migrated,covering foundation”.
About the only worse box on the inspection form is “active termite infestation” or “structural dry rot”.
The inspections I’ve seen (CA) show a scale drawing of the foot of the house, with arrows connecting circled numbers to a specific area of the house. “Direct Earth/Wood Contact” might be listed as defect #2 - find all the “2”'s on the drawing and see where the arrows go.
Single addition? Just the porch (a common practice in Victorian and Edwardian construction)? Whole place (unfortunately common at the time).
In 2009, I saw a marvelous Victorian in Stockton - 2 stories, 12’ ceilings, 2 fireplaces, double parlor.
Run through that again - 2 stories of 12’ wet plaster. This weighs a bit.
It had 2x8x25 joists on 2’ centers. The single center support was 2 2x8’s sistered together.
There was an attempt at a foundation - it was broken in at least 4 places.
There was not a level place on the first story floor, and the brick fireplace had failed - one side of the wall was bulging out - the other had a false wall built to conceal it.
Anyone opening either wall would have several tons of badly eroded bricks falling on them.
I hope it was disassembled and the gorgeous woodwork was saved.
These nightmares still exist
This is the same house with the incorrect circuit breaker for the AC, right? That your realtor is telling you not to worry about? This is really sounding like the flipper cut every corner possible.
I haven’t said anything about what my Realtor says to worry or not worry about, I believe. I don’t see that as part of his proper role so I’d ignore whatever he said on that topic.
I just bought my second home this summer. My first was a 110 year old fixer upper. My second was built in 1970.
The home inspector can’t really inspect the plumbing and and the wiring. They can tell you if it works right now, but for example the wiring may be improperly done, and a fire hazard. The plumbing may not be done properly using the right fittings and may fail spectacularly. As an example, my contractor hates pressure fittings on plumbing and won’t use them except as a temporary fix. He says that you can probably use them somewhere where the plumbing is exposed, but why bother. Homeowners and amateurs love them.
I would run away. If the addition is unpermitted, and you have already found severe structural issues, what makes you think that they didn’t cut corners or screw up something major?
In the circuit breaker thread:
Got it. Iin any case, as I said, I generally don’t take his proper role to be to tell me what to worry or not worry about–at this point in the process, his incentives make it hard for him not to try to sell the thing to me as hard as the sellers themselves would.
Okay thanks so much for all the help so far.
I hope you can see, from the thread as a whole (and this is born out on the other online locations where I’m discussing this) that from my point of view there is a very wide divergence of very strong opinions. I can’t take anything anyone’s said here as finally authoritative. But there is clearly enough information to know I need to open my eyes a bit wider as I go forward. To that end, there’s this.
The seller just asked for an extension on the home inspection response response. What I want to do is say the extension is granted ON THE CONDITION that they pay all but $500 (IOW we’re volunteering $500, just to make them feel a little better about it basically, and to reduce the chances that they’ll just give up) for complete inspections on the electrical and plumbing systems, and on the foundation (by which I mean the cellar and crawlspace, which seems to be referred to as “the foundation” in a lot of places though I always thought that meant specifically a giant block you build a house on top of), by specialists in those three areas. (I am expecting that to total about $1500 at most but I may be wrong in which case our own contribution amount may change. I’ll have to go get some quotes.)
Does this seem reasonably open-eyed?
BTW nothing much came up about plumbing in the home inspection* but I added that in because it seems like the kind of thing where so much goes on behind and under the walls that surface examination by a home inspector is likely to miss serious problems.
*A toilet that wobbles–what was that you guys were saying about amateur renovations?
A toilet that wobbles means it isn’t sitting level on the floor and isn’t securely fastened. If the nuts holding it to the flange aren’t tight, that would make it wobble, for example. More commonly, it wobbles because it isn’t level and wasn’t shimmed. Now, why isn’t it level? Is the floor not level, and if so, why not? (Note that slight variations in the floor are common and may not mean anything significant. If it’s a tile floor, e.g., one tile being out of true can be enough, so don’t panic. However, you should investigate, or have your home inspector investigate.)
It’s often possible to make some good guesses about the state of hidden plumbing just by looking at what is exposed (under sinks, around the pipe entrance, in laundry rooms, etc.). If all of what you can see appears to be about the same vintage and is installed in a workmanlike manner, I’d worry less about the hidden parts than if you can see many different hands at work in many different manners.
Both the columns and the toilet should be firmly planted on something solid. Since they aren’t – and most any truthful contractor will tell you the same – you’re going to have to stabilize them by shoving big stacks of money in there. How much remains to be seen… Budget out what you can afford and count on tripling that.
The only way around this is if you’re handy enough to do the work yourself. Then you can substitute your time for some of the cash. Twenty-six hours a day for the foreseeable future should cover it!
The fact that the toilet wobbles, as I noted above, does NOT indicate it’s not planted on something solid. Something as easily remedied as loose nuts on the flange bolts can make a toilet wobble, and that is both cheap and quick to fix.
There are grounds for concern in this house, but there’s no point to scaring off the OP with imagined worst-case scenarios.
Yes, perhaps a series of worst-case scenarios have made me a bit cynical.
Thought for everyone: This house is 120 years old. Folks who are thinking like this is newish construction ought to recalibrate.
Thoughts for the OP:
Since the OP has never bought any residence before … here are a few of generic clues I suggest you ought to have.
- The seller and all the people who work for him/her are the enemy. This is of necessity a zero-sum game. Every dollar they gain is one you lose. And vice versa. At best they’re simply honestly looking out 100% for their side, 0% for yours. At worst they will do everything possible to rip you off.
- The buyer’s agent and everybody he/she recommends are not your friend either. They *are *on your team up until the moment you identify a house you like. After that they are all about getting the deal done as quickly and as easily as possible for them. Whether that means you overpay or buy junk is not their concern. Not even 1%. 99% they’re looking out for their own interests. Which are NOT aligned with your interests.
They’ll always have plausible deniability if you later try to sue for their non-performance on some issue. They’re experts at sailing close to the edge; you’re a total noob in a game played for serious money.
3. Whenever any issue (major or minor) is discovered with the house NEVER ask the seller to fix it. Instead, get your own contractor to provide an estimate and tell the seller what that estimate is, and get them to lower the price dollar for dollar. IOW, make them pay for you to have the repair done by your person to your satisfaction. You’ll almost certainly have to have the work done after you own the property. Which also means you absorb the risk of *additional *adverse surprises. But that’s better than where you are if they do the work.
Why not let them do the work? Because the seller is perfectly happy to “fix” roof leaks with a coat of ceiling paint, etc. All they care about is getting it looking close enough / good enough that it fools you or an inspector for a couple weeks until the deal closes. And inspections, even thorough ones by somebody truly on your side, are little more than looking at the tipmost surface of the building. They are NOT in any sense thorough.
You’re the one who wants it actually fixed and fixed right. The seller just wants the cheapest possible way to make the problem(s) disappear from sight for a couple weeks.
And do NOT use any contractor or inspector suggested by your agent or by anyone else suggested by or connected to your agent. Why not? See #2 above.
4. Buying a new house, a 10 year old house, a 30 year old house, and a 100 year old house are each very different experiences. Owning each of them is also a very different experience. Advice, choice of contractors, and your expectations need to be tailored to the age of the house. In general, the financial risk and routine daily difficulties only go up as the house gets older. Elderly houses require excellent selection, excellent luck, and excellent care to give good service to their owner. IOW, they’re not good starter houses, and that goes double for folks on any kind of limited budget.
Repeat this to yourself often: “I’m a total noob, completely surrounded by pros, and this is a game played for serious life-altering amounts of money.”
My bottom line: You’re doing very good work by asking questions here. But be cautious and be emotionally & financially prepared to back out of the first half dozen houses you thoroughly inspect. Old ones even more so.
Just for the record, I definitely understand the above two, and in fact even said as much as #2 just a few posts ago.
Again, for the record, though we’re not using our own contractor, what we’ve had them do is not just “fix it” but “have it repaired by a qualified specialist contractor” (or something along those lines, I forget exactly how we put it) and we of course reserve the right to have it inspected afterwards.