Inspection Process

This weekend we had our house inspection. The inspector, Dave, was fantastic. Overall, houses in general are a lot of work! We have a lot of little things to do. Dave also noted we should get a structural engineer. In the basement, there a couple of potentially larger issues.

Allow me to briefly outline those for you. Issue #1 is the crawl space behind the laundry room. It appears that the original owners (the owner previous to us moved in in 2006 and the house was built in 1991) tried to dig-out the ground in the basement. They obviously didn't complete the project and then added a couple 2x4x10 beams across the space to apparently brace the wall. Our inspector said there would not be an issue, but we should have a structural engineer look into it and provide a report. Issue #2, we have a subfloor, so there is the dirt/foundation, then a space, and then the floor. These days, it is highly recommended that you have a vapor barrier that keeps humidity down. Along the same lines there is a sump pit in the corner that we could not access because of the carpet. So we will have our structural engineer look into that too to see if there is any moisture and we would need a sump pump put in. 

Other things that came up: leaks in a couple sinks, we will need to trim back a tree and bush since they put debris in the gutter, the microwave (above the stove kind) does not work, the water heater is pretty near the end of its life span, the window wells liners need to be replaced, etc. So those are the types of things we need to fix when we move in or within the next couple months.

We also have things that we will need to work on in the next couple years like the windows are all 20 years old and they usually last 25 years max, we will need to add a french drain or angle the back yard so water that runs down will run not into the house, we need to tighten the railings on the deck and add a handrail to the deck stairs.

We also had our sewers inspected, and that went great.

It was definitely an eye-opening experience. I learned a lot about our house. The majority of the items that came up made sense since my parents house is about the same age and they are at similar points in their house. 

So we will be busy these next couple years. A lot of big and little projects.

Hopefully our list of items we sent to the seller will be approved (namely the issues above) and the structural engineer stuff goes well (if we have an issue, the seller will need to take care of it or we will potentially not go through with the house) and we can be on our way.