All -
Looking for some advice. I'm currently under contract on a foreclosed prop= erty. The property has been winterized. The inspection has been completed = except for inspecting the water pipes/system. My realtor and I were at the= home when the company showed up to de-winterize the home. They were unabl= e to de-winterize as the pressure test indicated no pressure.
What can be done? I don't want to buy a home without fully inspecting the = water system.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:797b9f3c-b2f5-46a5-b6d0-718e05120269 @googlegroups.com:
property has been winterized. The inspection has been completed except for inspecting the water pipes/system. My realtor and I were at the home when the company showed up to de- winterize the home. They were unable to de-winterize as the pressure test indicated no pressure.
First thing I'd check is to make sure that all faucets are closed, including any outdoor faucets. It's pretty hard to pressure-test the system if there's an open faucet somewhere
-- and it takes only one.
d property. The
for inspecting the
showed up to de-
est indicated no
g the water system.
ing any outdoor faucets.
mewhere -- and it takes
You would think that the company that was there to de-winterize it would have checked the faucets. But you'd also think that the next step after trying to pressure test it would be to find out where air is leaking out while they were there.
If it were me, I'd use an air compressor with the appropriate fittings to tie into the system, put some pressure behind it and find out where the air is going..... If it's coming out you should be able to hear it. If OP can't do that, then certainly a plumber or even a handyman could. If you don't have an air compressor, you could buy a small one for what it would cost to get someone to do it for you.
You have your attorney [who is familiar with buying foreclosure properties] talk to the seller's attorney. If that is the same guy-- then run, get your own attorney and start over.
Some sort of agreement about who pays to find out what the problem is-- or how much comes off the price for you to buy a pig in a poke- has to be reached.
That is smart---- but if the seller offered to take 10K off the price if you took it 'as is' would that sway you? Only you know the right answer to that one. [It would not sway me today--- but 30 years ago it might have.]
Jim
Is the water maybe shut off out at the street? As in possibly shut off for non payment?
Erik
How does that explain the house failing a pressure test, prior to turning the water on?
property. The property has been winterized. The inspection has been completed except for inspecting the water pipes/system. My realtor and I were at the home when the company showed up to de-winterize the home. They were unable to de-winterize as the pressure test indicated no pressure.
As Doug said, make sure *all* faucets are closed. Leaving the silcocks open in a winterized house is a good idea so it's likely that they did.
One thing to watch; make sure the water heater is *ALREADY* turned off. Do this before you do anything else. If it's not, demand that the water heater be repaired. This happened to us when we bought an ObamaHouse. The only reason that Obama paid was that we showed that the house was improperly winterized (presumably they went after the property management company).
" snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net" wrote in news:15516a22-1ccf-4582-8968- snipped-for-privacy@h9g2000vbk.googlegroups.com:
Yes, well, you would think that a home inspection company would be able to light up a furnace in August, to see if it works -- but when we sold our previous home, the buyer's inspector said the furnace didn't work, when the only problem was that the inspector couldn't figure out how to operate a digital setback thermostat. Same inspector thought the sump pump didn't work -- "float switch is broken" -- because he didn't pour enough water into the sump pit to raise the float high enough to turn the pump on. And a few other things, too, that fall into the category of "You would think that..."
Yeah, you would think that. But you might be wrong, too. :-)
And it takes only one faucet to open the entire system to the atmosphere. If there are several exterior faucets, or a lot of interior ones, it would be easy to miss one. In my currrent home, there are two tubs and seven sinks with single handle faucets, three sinks with double handle faucets, and four outdoor faucets -- making nineteen different points at which the system could be open.
Easy to miss one, I should think.
operty. The property has been winterized. The inspection has been complete= d except for inspecting the water pipes/system. My realtor and I were at t= he home when the company showed up to de-winterize the home. They were una= ble to de-winterize as the pressure test indicated no pressure.
e water system.
If you want to full inspect the water system, then get your own people in t= here to fully inspect the water system. The bank should agree to this no pr= oblem.
news:15516a22-1ccf-4582-8968-
inspector couldn't
water into the
things, too, that
one. In my currrent
points at which
Particularly if even ONE of them has a hot cartridge on the cold or vise versa - so it operates backwards.
But don't get me started on "home inspectors". In my experience most of them are worse than brain dead.
Or use the outlet of a vacuum cleaner. Or even the sucking end of a shop-vac. If it holds air it will hold water - and if a tap is open you will hear it.
property. The property has been winterized. The inspection has been completed except for inspecting the water pipes/system. My realtor and I were at the home when the company showed up to de-winterize the home. They were unable to de-winterize as the pressure test indicated no pressure.
Fuck home inspectors. Most of those guys are unemployed/failed real estate agents. They don't know shit from Shinola.
Before I signed on my home, I had real inspections performed by an electrician, a plumber, HVAC guy, residential building contractor, and an engineer from the local architectural firm. Yes, it cost me a couple grand but it was worth it.
inspecting the
water system.
any outdoor faucets.
somewhere -- and it takes
I'd add one thing to that,...make sure the toilet stops are closed, otherwise the air just passes through the toilet tank.
Gil wrote in news:PvCdnQr3kaTlL4zMnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
Good catch!
news.com:
hire a plumber to inspect the plumbing system......
of course you could pa to have the water turned on, any leaks will be instantly located
This is Usenet. You're not supposed to read things before you answer them.
While I wouldn't go to the extreme outlined above, hiring a home inspector usually pays off. They charge you $500, but they usually find enough stuff so that you can go back to the seller to recover that $500 or more. If you yourself see things wrong that the inspector doesn;t, you can point those out to the inspector while he's doing the inspection and get them into the report too. Having it in the inspection report there is less chance the seller is going to balk, then if you personally tell them an item needs correcting.
In the above example, unless the house was a mess, you probably would not get back the money to pay for all those experts.... I'd call in those only if I had reason to believe there were issues, eg old house with cobbled together DIY wiring.
Why would you pay for the buyer's inspector?
The inspectors for my last two houses were pretty useless. The last one wrote down some really silly shit (burned out light bulbs). It's probably still worth the couple hundred bucks to have another set of eyes on the property before purchase. I'd even hire one if I were to buy "as-is".
What would you expect from a government employee?
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