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Buying a home and/or home maintenance thread (1 Viewer)

STEADYMOBBIN 22

STEADYMOBBIN 22

Footballguy
Ive been helping a couple fellow FBG bros with their questions about buying a home and a few topics came up that I think are worth sharing. I was a home inspector and part time Realtor for ~11 years and this can be a place for questions and/or suggestions. I know we have a few contractors here too. 

Lets try to keep this on topic with suggestions on what to look for when purchasing a home and how to maintain said home. If you have a question about a project please post in the Home owners.....what are your current projects? thread. 

Ill post a few of my followups to PMs I have responded to but I'll edit them to protect the innocent.......

 
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On looking at new home the first bit of advice I would give is.....

The best general advice I can give is - the single most important thing to look for is negative grading, specifically areas with basements. In other words, the house should be sitting higher than the surrounding ground. Not flat, higher. I don’t care if there is a retaining wall, French drain, sump pumps, doesn't matter- WALK AWAY! 

ETA - Also, homes are only required to have 6 feet of positive grading from the foundation wall. A lot of these newly build homes are crammed close together and while they might have 6 feet of positive grading, your basement will still leak eventually if 7 feet away there's a giant sloping hill. That whopping 6' isn't going to save you. 

Secondarily - make sure the gutters and downspouts are in good shape and lead the water away from the house.

Lastly, if you're looking at older homes:

Roof - figure a roof is replaced roughly every 20 years. So if the house was, say built in 1977, the roof was likely replaced around 1997, give or take 5 years. Then again around 2017. So if the roof doesn’t look damn close to new, it likely needs replacement soon.

 
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On keeping insects out of the home....

They’re attracted to moisture and food. 

Its a very good practice to spray the exterior of your house with an insecticide at the foundation and a few feet up. I also do the windows and door frames. It really helps keep the spiders, ants and mosquitoes away. 

I always wear a cheap tyvek suit from Home Depot, dust mask and either swimming goggles or ski goggles. Also, do this when the wife n kids are out of the house for a few hours. 

I like the brand I linked above but I buy the concentrated version and mix with water in a pump sprayer.

 
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General rule of thumb on the life expectancy of some of your main appliances I'll update this list as we go along:

Personal recommendation is to stay away from GE appliances but YMMV

Roof

- 3 tab shingles 20-25 years 

- Architectural shingles 25-35 years

- Most areas allow for two layers of shingles. In other words, when your roof needs to be replaces, you can actually install new shingles over the old shingles, once. The next time you will have to tear them all off. 

HVAC

Heat pumps and A/C units - A good unit should last 16-20 years. A lot of new home builders use off brand or low end heat pumps and they often dont last that long. sometimes they fail just a couple of years in. 

Gas furnace - 20-30 years, again depending on quality. CHANGE YOUR FILTERS PEOPLE!!!!!!!

Water heaters

Gas - 20 years

Electric - 12-20

 
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I just put an offer down on a home. The biggest thing we want to do is ripping down what I believe is a load bearing wall. Im estimating $5k for the job. Is that in the ballpark?

 
Walking Boot said:
I've got a home built in 1949 so who it's a mystery what routine they followed. How can I tell if it's time to replace a roof? It's shingles and I'm getting a lot of the gray/white pebbles on the ground after it rains... is that the sign?

I've had the place 5 years. I had a home inspection done when I bought the place in 2013. The sellers disclosures also include a home inspection report done the year before in 2012, and the roof in that report looks to be in rough shape... I guess they might have just done basic repairs rather than a full replace, though. So, follow up question, once it's determined it's time to replace... how do you find a good guy to do it?
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This is a tough one for me. I'm a do it yourself-er cause I'm cheap and HATE paying out the ### for stuff when I know damn well  it doesn't cost nearly as much as they're charging me. I don't mind paying for good work but the mark up on roofing is redonkulous. With that said, even I wouldn't do a roof all by myself. I dont have the tools and quite frankly, its awfully hard work. 

So if youre gonna pay somebody else the best advice I can give is to ask around locally for people who have had one done recently. You should know that all roofers use subs, nobody has their own crews. They pay their subs about ~250 per square so keep that number in mind when compairing prices. Youre gonna pay more than that but use that as a barometer. Another step is to figure out how many squares your roof is (10x10 areas) and your pitch. There are calculators online ot help with this. As always, youtube is your best friend. 

If youre gonna save yourself $10k-$25k depending on the size of your roof read on, otherwise stop here. 

Your local roofing supplier will help you order the right amount of materials if you take a few pictures and provide all the measurements of your roof. They might help you find a good roofer too. 

  1. Figure out how many squares you have, add 2 squares for waste and future repairs
  2. Measure the entire perimeter of the roof for drip edge
  3. You'll need Ice & water shield at the edges and if you have any valleys you'll need it there too.
  4. Find some local roofers and chat them up on their lunch. Ask them to give you an estimate and tell them you will do the demo yourself and provide all the materials and you'll pay them cash. They don't care about you providing lunch or taking breaks. they only want cash. Most of these guys don't even eat. 
  5. Check out the weather and find a good stretch of dry weather. You'll want to make sure you have at least 2 days, but ideally 4. 
  6. Rent a Dumpster. the company will ask how many squares your roof has and provide an estimate. 1 square = ~250lbs
  7. Hire some grunts to do the tear off. This is the single worst part of the job. IT SUCKS! Ive done two large roofs myself with helpers and its god awful. Don't skimp here. The more men you get the faster it will go. At least 4-8 guys depending on your roof. 
  8. Make sure your roof decking doesn't have any weak spots and replace with the appropriate plywood (thickness that matches what you have)
  9. Call in your roofer.
  10. You will want to supervise. Read the instructions on the shingles or watch the videos every manufacturer have on youtube. Biggest thing to look (actually listen) for is how many roofing nails they use on each shingle and the location of the nail. Again, EVERY manufacture has installation vids on youtube.    


Now I know a lot of people are gonna give me some #### here. They will say what about liability? What if somebody falls off your roof? What about a warranty? Spanish dudes don't fall off of roofs and EVERY roofing company only offers the manufacturers warranty. Well youre gonna save enough money to replace your roof twice this way. 

Id also suggest having your gutters upgraded to 6" and 3"x4" downspouts if your dont already. 

FLAME AWAY !!!!!!

 
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Walking Boot said:
I've got a home built in 1949 so who it's a mystery what routine they followed. How can I tell if it's time to replace a roof? It's shingles and I'm getting a lot of the gray/white pebbles on the ground after it rains... is that the sign?

I've had the place 5 years. I had a home inspection done when I bought the place in 2013. The sellers disclosures also include a home inspection report done the year before in 2012, and the roof in that report looks to be in rough shape... I guess they might have just done basic repairs rather than a full replace, though. So, follow up question, once it's determined it's time to replace... how do you find a good guy to do it?
Click to expand...
Very hard to know exactly. If you wanna send me some good pictures of your roof, both far away and a couple up close I wouldnt mind speculating but it isn't easy to give an exact age. 

 
shadyridr said:
I just put an offer down on a home. The biggest thing we want to do is ripping down what I believe is a load bearing wall. Im estimating $5k for the job. Is that in the ballpark?
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After you figure in flooring, electric, paint, trim, drywall and demo its prolly a good rough estimate but I would need pictures to give you a better answer. FYI the header might be visible so consider the aesthetics of that. 

ETA - Does the home have a basement? If so, are there visible beams and or columns for support below the wall in question?

 
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STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:
After you figure in flooring, electric, paint, trim, drywall and demo its prolly a good rough estimate but I would need pictures to give you a better answer. FYI the header might be visible so consider the aesthetics of that. 

ETA - Does the home have a basement? If so, are there visible beams and or columns for support below the wall in question?
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It's a high ranch. The wall separates the kitchen and living room on top floor. The bottom floor is above ground. 

 
shadyridr said:
It's a high ranch. The wall separates the kitchen and living room on top floor. The bottom floor is above ground. 
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TL/DR

Look in the basement. If there are posts (sometimes hidden behind walls or pillars) below the wall in question that wall is load bearing. 

Look in the attic. If the ceiling joists that tie into the rafters are run all the way across without any cuts and rest only on the perimeter walls than that wall is load bearing.

Long version.

Looking for pictures I found this article to go along with the picture I wanted to use to show you. 

Good luck Shady

 
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Curious what anyone thinks. It’s been cold in Wisconsin and snowy. Yesterday I leave my house (6:45am) and all is well. I come home (5:15pm) open the door to the garage and I hear, what sounds like a snowblower. No big deal. I get to my door and see my water faucet is turned on, on the outside is spraying water. There is ice, of course, and I turned it off right away. Water in my basement that leaked through a window near the spout. My basement is a basement so no damage, to my knowledge. Water drained just fine in the basement and I salted the walkway. Turned the water lever in the basement so the water should be shut off now. Never had this happen. So, what happened? 

 
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Getting a new roof in 3 weeks.  I asked the roofer I am going with about subs and he stated they do not sub out work at all.  They have a 12 crew rotation.  This is FL fwiw. 

 
STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:
On looking at new home the first bit of advice I would give is.....

The best general advice I can give is - the single most important thing to look for is negative grading, specifically areas with basements. In other words, the house should be sitting higher than the surrounding ground. Not flat, higher. I don’t care if there is a retaining wall, French drain, sump pumps, doesn't matter- WALK AWAY! 

ETA - Also, homes are only required to have 6 feet of positive grading from the foundation wall. A lot of these newly build homes are crammed close together and while they might have 6 feet of positive grading, your basement will still leak eventually if 7 feet away there's a giant sloping hill. That whopping 6' isn't going to save you. 

Secondarily - make sure the gutters and downspouts are in good shape and lead the water away from the house.

Lastly, if you're looking at older homes:

Roof - figure a roof is replaced roughly every 20 years. So if the house was, say built in 1977, the roof was likely replaced around 1997, give or take 5 years. Then again around 2017. So if the roof doesn’t look damn close to new, it likely needs replacement soon.
Click to expand...
Your drainage/grading comment is very good.  Our house didn't have many of these things when we moved in.  It was our 1st house - I knew a lot, but not everything I should have known.  

Our saving grace was that 6 months into living there, we had Hurricane Irene - MAJOR rain.  Our power went out, and our sump pump too...Basement filled with about 8" of water pretty quickly.  It was a godsend because we had very little in the basement, but it was our wake-up call.  Nothing got ruined.  

Over the next few years I:

-Installed a battery back-up sump pump, bought a back-up main pump and flex fire hose for emergency pumping if needed.  I also replaced our 2" sump drain with 4" with an air-gap because it froze up during a few cold winters.  

-Got a generator and a transfer switch

-Buried all my downspouts and re-routed them downhill, 10-15' away from the house

-Re-graded the ground under my deck, where it was sloped towards a corner of the house

-The last thing I need to do is when we re-do our driveway, I want to install a french drain that drains under the driveway.  our current driveway is really cracked because I think there's ground-water movement gradually eroding under the driveway.  

It's a LOT better now, but I still perpetually have some water in my sump pit.  Our basement is finished now, so the stakes are higher if we ever have issues again.  I'm downhill from the rest of the neighbors - Nothing will change that.  There's a massive town-installed drainage pipe uphill from me that handles a lot of the heavy run-off during big storms, but it's still not fun.

 
ChiefD said:
As soon as you get your first hail storm in the spring call the first roofer on google and tell him you think you have hail damage. 
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And if the roofer and your insurance adjuster disagree, get them both on the roof at the same time, and remove the ladder until they agree.  I did this once, (with a threat to remove the ladder rather than actually removing it).

 
Mario Kart said:
Curious what anyone thinks. It’s been cold in Wisconsin and snowy. Yesterday I leave my house (6:45am) and all is well. I come home (5:15pm) open the door to the garage and I hear, what sounds like a snowblower. No big deal. I get to my door and see my water faucet is turned on, on the outside is spraying water. There is ice, of course, and I turned it off right away. Water in my basement that leaked through a window near the spout. My basement is a basement so no damage, to my knowledge. Water drained just fine in the basement and I salted the walkway. Turned the water lever in the basement so the water should be shut off now. Never had this happen. So, what happened? 
Click to expand...
That is strange.  I live in a cold climate and never heard of this issue.  I'm assuming you have a frost-proof spigot. 

Assuming you actually had to turn the spigot off, then someone must have turned it on.  I don't see any way this ball valve just opens by itself. 

 
One thing I would recommend if you absolutely have to get work done by someone else is to get 3 quotes. It is amazing the range of service and cost for the same job.

 
Buttonhook said:
That is strange.  I live in a cold climate and never heard of this issue.  I'm assuming you have a frost-proof spigot. 

Assuming you actually had to turn the spigot off, then someone must have turned it on.  I don't see any way this ball valve just opens by itself. 
Click to expand...
When I turned the faucet handle off, I turned it about a quarter turn. When I turned it, no way it was loose. So, the only conclusion is that someone turned it on. But who? By the amount of ice, and there is/was plenty, the water wasn't on all day. It may have been on for an hour or two, I'd say. The ball valve was not closed. It did not open up during the day. The ball valve is closed now though. I was baffled and hopefully no one tried to enter my house but it is weird.

 
Our house has a great crawl space. Almost tall enough at the very back to walk under. I was under there the other day with a plumber and learned so I do t need to call him again. But I wondered if there is any type of maintenance or Prevention I should be doing under there? 

 
Clown Car said:
Our house has a great crawl space. Almost tall enough at the very back to walk under. I was under there the other day with a plumber and learned so I do t need to call him again. But I wondered if there is any type of maintenance or Prevention I should be doing under there? 
Click to expand...
I don't know what you plan on doing under there, but given the number of kids you have, I absolutely recommend prevention.

 
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