Anybody can tell you that asbestos, UFFI, mold, and a house full of knob-and-tube wiring are issues in a home inspection.

But since the home inspections rarely show you “deal breakers,” I’d like to outline a slew of very common items that I find in home inspections on a weekly basis.

Inspections aren’t like they are on TV with a “pass” or “fail,” and it’s up to the home-owner to decide if there’s a deal-breaker present, or if there are enough small items to convince them not to proceed with the transaction.

Here are the most common items that I come across…

In my opinion, not a single one of these items is enough to “fail” a home inspection.

And even if every single one of these items was present, I still might not consider it a “fail.”

Think of a home inspection like a personal trainer going over your body in great detail.  He might say, “Well you’ve got a build up of fat around your waist, that could be worked on.”  Do you NEED to work on that?  Is it life and death?  No, of course not.  But it’s something that isn’t perfect, while we’re talking about perfection.

I consider home inspections to be the same way.

No home is perfect; not even one that’s brand new.  And when you consider that some houses have had twenty owners, and that some houses were built when coal was still used for heating, it’s no wonder we find issues like uneven pectoral muscles in our chest…..er……I mean, cracks in the concrete…

The following list represents “minor” items in a home inspection, many of which won’t cause you harm if they go unchecked, but nonetheless they are incredibly prevalent:

Improper Downspout Discharge

I see this in probably half of all home inspections I’m a part of.

Water is the enemy of every home owner, and you don’t want water anywhere near the foundation of your home.

Consider that all the water that hits the roof of your house ends up in an eavestrough, and that water flows through the downspout, and ends up somewhere.  If you have a downspout that simply discharges to the ground, all that water you’ve collected from the roof is being poured out right next to your foundation, and eventually it will end up in your basement.

There should be a downspout discharge in the shape of an “L” that directs water at least six feet away from the foundation.

Insufficient Attic Insulation

Standards for attic insulation change about as often as political parties, and as Toronto houses have been built over many different time periods, you’ve got lot of different contractors stuffing pink fibreglass up there!

Some people wonder, “If I don’t use my attic, why the heck do I need it insulated?”  Remember that hot air rises, and it escapes through your attic if it’s not insulated well enough.

The solution is about as simple as buying insulation, opening the plastic, and taking it out, and placing it atop the existing insulation.  Yes – that simple.

Laundry Vent Discharge

It’s very, very common to see the exhaust from the dryer discharge somewhere that it isn’t supposed to discharge.

Most people see the dryer is plugged into a pipe, the pipe goes into the wall, that goes……somewhere, and that’s good enough.

But when that pipe leads into the attic, you need to investigate further.

If the pipe continues through the attic, through the wall, and discharges outside the third storey, into the alley between the houses, then that’s perfect.

But I’ve seen several homes where the pipe simply leads into the attic, and then discharges there!

That’s steam, and condensation, and now it’s running through your attic.  This is how mold forms, and before you know it, your whole attic can be contaminated.

Improper Bathroom Fan Discharge

This is the exact same situation as what’s described above.

A bathroom fan takes moisture, and pushes it out of the room.

So if you have it discharging in your attic, you’ve got a serious problem…

Double-Tapping

Most buyers are concerned with knob-and-tube or aluminium wiring, but there can be issues with existing wiring that’s new, or close to it.

“Double tapped” wiring is when two wires are on ONE breaker fuse, and while it’s not ideal, it’s not dangerous either.

Double-tapping is extremely common in homes, specifically those where there is inadequate service, ie. a home equipped with 100-amp service, where 200-amp would be ideal.  If there’s no room left on the panel, then some home-owners and/or electricians will double-tap the wires.

In lieu of replacing the panel, and/or upgrading service, double-taps can be solved by “pigtailing” the two wires together.

“Fun” With Sprayfoam!

Sprayfoam insulation is more expensive than regular “pink” insulation, and for good reason.  It’s better quality, lasts longer, and it’s durable.

The problem with sprayfoam insulation isn’t the insulation itself, but rather the application.

If you’re picturing a character from Ghostbusters with a backpack and a hose attached, then you’re not far off!

But simply spraying the attic like you’re a fireman is going to cause issues.

Consider that in between every wall of the house, in the attic, and everywhere there’s insulation, there’s also wiring, piping, and venting.

Any time a house is experiencing “cold spots” where the furnace doesn’t seem to be reaching a room, it’s usually because the vent has been accidentally sealed with sprayfoam!  If you’re visiting a home in the summer, you won’t notice that a room is cold, but guaranteed in the dead of winter when that vent is sealed with sprayfoam, you’re going to know something is wrong.

Sump Pump Not Working

Nobody messes around with their sump pump.

A pit of water in your basement – this isn’t something you want to strip down and dive into on a regular basis.

But a sump pump is only useful if the motor works, and therefore pumps out excess water when need be.

Many sump pumps throughout Toronto haven’t been checked in years, and something as simple as two dead AA-batteries for the motor can cause the system to not work properly, and risk flooding your basement with water.

Anything To Do With A Chimney

Chimneys are a disaster, plain and simple.

And as I said at the onset, water is a home-owner’s worst nightmare, and chimneys can allow water to penetrate the inside of a house.

The most common way is through the flashing that surrounds the base of the chimney.  An inexperienced roofer, who knows how to nail shingles to the plywood, might not know how to deal with the area surrounding the chimney.  It’s quite easy for water to penetrate a roof when there’s nothing to stop it from doing so!

The second most common way is through a deteriorating chimney cap.  Some chimneys in Toronto are 100-years-old, and owners who don’t use the fireplace, or have covered it up, don’t give the chimney cap a second thought.  But what if the brick is crumbling, and there’s a major rainstorm?  Now you’ve got water running down the inside of your house…

Missing GFCI’s

A “Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter” is a device that shuts off an electric circuit when it detects that the current is flowing through an unintended path.

You can look around your house and see that some outlets are different from others, in that they contain two buttons – one red, one black, between the two sockets, and these are GFCI outlets.

These should be present anywhere there’s water, so in your bathroom, or in your kitchen.

If you don’t have a GFCI in the outlet that’s directly above your sink in your bathroom, I can guarantee it’s going to be flagged in a home inspection.

Lead Supply Pipe

Believe it or not, there are a still a lot of homes in Toronto that have a lead water supply pipe coming from the street.

You rarely see lead piping left in houses, but when it’s buried underground, and it’s out of sight, and thus out of mind.

The City of Toronto will pay for a good portion of the replacement, but many home owners balk at the estimate of how much it will cost, plus, they don’t exactly relish the idea of digging up their front lawn…

Shingles, On Shingles, On Shingles….

The rule of thumb is that you can put new shingles on top of old shingles, but it ends there.

Having said that, I believe the record for shingles-on-shingles is SIX, from what I’ve seen.  SIX!

That’s crazy, and it’s also quite lazy.

Any roofer can show up and hammer shingles onto an existing roof, and do it again, and again, and perhaps again after that.  Stripping shingles off a roof, patching holes, replacing rotted boards, and property installing and sealing a new roof is the tough part, and some home-owners won’t pay for it.

If you’ve ever seen a one of those “quintuple burgers” on “Man vs. Food” or “Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives,” that’s kind of how five layers of shingles looks as you stand on the second floor deck and wonder what the HELL is going on.

Inadequate Clearance Above Wires

This is exceptionally common, and again, the reason more people don’t fix it is because it doesn’t affect them directly.

If you found water in your basement, yes, you’d do something about it.

But if there were tree branches growing over the electrical supply wires, you might not even notice.

I was at an inspection last year where there was an 80-100 year old tree, growing out of control, that had never been pruned, and the electrical wires were threaded through the branches like fingers through a game of “Cat’s Cradle.”

My clients bought the house knowing full well that they’d have to spend $5,000 on an arborist, which of course they factored into their opinion of value.

Cracks In Stucco

Ask any home inspector, and they’ll tell you that stucco is a great finish.

The price is attractive, it’s long-lasting, and it’s durable.

But it does, however, crack from time to time, and it requires the home-owner to caulk the cracks with silicone to ensure that our evil enemy – water, doesn’t find its way through the crack, and into the walls of the house.

Caulking cracks in stucco isn’t expensive, and it’s nothing more than a minor inconvenience, since you need to borrow your brother’s ladder, and he always gives you crap about returning it on time…

Holes In Floor Joists

This is very common, but there’s a good reason for it.

When a house was built in the 1880’s, they didn’t have TV, phone, Internet, and their electrical supply was minimal, thus they had no wires to run.

Today, we have wireless for much of our technology, but think about how many wires we had flowing through our houses in the 80’s and 90’s.

What people commonly did, and still do today, is drill holes in the floor joists to run the wires through, and that can weaken the structural integrity of those joists.

This isn’t a major issue, unless you have a guy running a dozen computer servers in century-old Victorian, who has cut a thousand 2-inch holes in his 25 floor joists.

But once in a while, I’ll see a home where there’s a joist that needs to be replaced, or where the inspector suggests that a new support beam or column be installed because the joists have been cut and chopped all to hell.

–

As I said at the onset, none of these items is a reason to walk away from a home, and if a home had EVERY one of these items noted in a home inspection, I would say that the house has issues, but nothing serious.

You can think I’m crazy for saying that if you want to, but I would argue that you’ve never owned a home, or that if you do, you have no clue what’s going on in your own house.

I’ve attended over one hundred home inspections, and some of the items in the above list would be present in 80% of houses!

In the end, every home-buyer is different, and it’s up to them to decide what’s palatable…