Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/12/alarming-supercut-of-home-insp.html
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I am SUCH an LED bulb with an incandescent dimmer…
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I’m seeing some amazing cross-promotion potential with There I Fixed It!
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My first house had at least four of the things shown here, plus more. Which is funny because it passed a home inspection. I was never able to get a refund on that garbage inspection. I ended up fixing all but a few things myself before selling it. And clearly documented everything in the disclosures.
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I work with natural gas but this recommendation is applicable for electric appliances as well:
If possible schedule maintenance/cleaning for your water heaters, furnaces, dryer vents, etc for every year or every other year. It will catch problems as early as possible, maintain your appliances working at their peak efficiency and will prolong their life. Depending on where you live you might get rebates or discounts for doing this through a program with your utility or elsewhere. For other home issues i’m not very knowledgeable but figured i’d share the little bit i’ve picked up through my work.
Another tip is if you’re low income, disabled or over 65 there are programs that can help with home issues and getting them fixed.
Also when it comes to natural gas or propane don’t be cheap. Hire a reputable plumber and have them test for leaks if your home is old. Doesn’t matter if you smell gas or not.
PS: Circling back to scheduling maintenance on appliances, depending on the appliance you can schedule it during off-seasons. For example people don’t use furnaces during the summer so A/C companies often have deals to get your business during those times.
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As a homeowner, I say thanks for tonight’s nightmare.
The home inspector missed a bad downdraft on the gas furnace when we bought the home.
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Houses are an albatross around your neck. Shitty construction of cookie-cutter houses often mean these types of inspection issues originate with the builders themselves. I’ve seen brand new unoccupied houses fail inspections just as much as 30 year old houses with Tim the Toolman DIY owners.
The “You Can Do It” advertising of Home Depot doesn’t help either.
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By my work there’s a nice neighborhood of older homes from the 50’s, smaller than current homes so occasionally a developer comes in razes one of the homes and builds a giant 2 story expensive monstrosity that doesn’t match anything else on the street. The homes look generic in the way that says “we think this is what millenials might want”, and everything about them looks cheap. Often i start to see external water damage on the homes as soon as they’re done being built or within the year of it being finished.
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But owning a house is the American Dream™! Or so I’ve been told my entire life by people who think renting is the biggest waste of money imaginable. And here I thought I was paying for a place to live.
I still want a house
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It’s normal and natural to want to own your own home. Problem is, unless you’re extremely wealthy or lucky, you’re never going to “own” it. Bankers and lenders “own” it and you’re just funneling money into their revenue stream. Not much difference from renting except you’re also responsible for maintenance and upkeep.
Yes, you get the upside potential of positive equity, which if managed properly, can actually build wealth over time. However, that “wealth” is locked into the asset which you need to actually live in. So unless you’re willing to liquidate or borrow against it, you’re never going to realize those gains. If you liquidate, you still need to live somewhere so you’re just as likely to just transfer that equity to another mortgage. This also doesn’t even take into account that positive equity can just as quickly turn into negative equity when the economy takes a dump - just like it’s doing now.
It’s all a trap that we’ve been suckered into believing. Doesn’t help that we’re force fed the “American Dream” fantasy about home ownership that just doesn’t jive with reality. I’ve owned homes for most of my life and I can’t ever say that I’ve considered it a dream - until recently when fortune and circumstances aligned and was able to totally liquidate and downsize to a place that I now actually own outright.
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A new block of apartments was built last year not far from where I live. As is typical with many contractors the work was stop and start (they overcommit, so work a week or two at one site and then do the same at another - enough to stop the GC screaming at them) and they sheathed the building in OSB and then left it in the rain for days. By the time they came back to wrap the building in tyvek it was covered in black mold. Which they wrapped and put siding over.
So, good luck to the people who live in those apartments
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Delightful footage, makes me happy to be a renter.
I hear what you’re saying. I’ve heard many of the same arguments from the people I mentioned. I assume they all mean well. Mainly, I just want to live somewhere with no shared walls. I’ve had enough of neighbors.
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Not surprised, i see stuff like that on the reg here (not the mold but it being left out in the rain for extended periods of time). The apartment i just moved to is quite nice and there’s a lot to like but i can also notice just how cheaply certain things were built. Everything has a thin veneer of looking modern and nice but i can tell the kitchen cabinets were placed with minimal thought (odd spacing/wasted space), cheap lighting fixtures that are meant to look nice but that will be damaged easily (one of the lighting fixtures in the kitchen actually wasn’t working when we moved in), improperly sealed baseboards (we had a roach problem when moving in and i could see baby roaches sauntering in and out of the baseboard. Roach problem has been fixed with much effort). Etc, etc.
I can’t wait to be able to buy a house next year. Might not be able to afford a nice house, but will certainly try to upkeep it properly.
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This is why I rent…
Renting in various places on the east coast, we had all sorts of mildew and mold problems from inadequate ventilation. Now, living in CO, the drier climate means towels don’t stay damp for days, even with crappy bathroom fans. If only the rest of living here hadn’t taken such a dive in the last couple years. The climate is great, not that it makes the quality of construction any higher. I work as a consultant in architecture, and the corners cut are horrifying. I’d never buy anything made in the last 30 years, unless I designed it myself.
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There’s your problem.
--Jamie Hyneman
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My wife says to me, “We are never going to be able to find a house that you approve of.” My response is always, “No we just can’t afford a house I approve of…”
My favorite in the HGTV shows are the “open concept” make overs…like interior walls don’t matter just knock that shit right on down. Oh wait that was a major load bearing wall and now we need an extra heavy beam we can’t hide in the ceiling and additional footers, that’ll be an additional $10k. (You want it hidden, another $30k).
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Rental properties have all of these same issues, only you have to wait for the landlord to fix it instead of just doing it yourself and getting it done with.
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Yeah this cost cutting is industry standard. On a pure numbers game i get it because profit margins on construction (from what i hear) isn’t great, but putting subpar housing on the market en masse is not just a scumbag move, it shouldn’t be allowed but such is the world we live in. I would also like to be in the financial situation to have a house built for me but living in Austin that’s something i could never swing unless i won the lottery or moved approx an hour away.
