Thread: What would say about this, if anything?

Lets say that you are inspecting a home and at the rear of the home you find this covered patio. As a learning exercise lets see what folks would say about it. What would you report?
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I will take a shot. Ledger board attachment is questionable. Not sure what they are tying into. Only nails are used to attach the ledge board, lag bolts should be used.

//Rick

Catastrophic collapse waiting to happen! Do not park vehicles under it. Do Not walk under it.

Originally Posted by Scott Patterson

Lets say that you are inspecting a home and at the rear of the home you find this covered patio. As a learning exercise lets see what folks would say about it. What would you report?

Keep it short and simple ... "an excellent example of how NOT to do things".

Like Jerry, I would keep it short and simple.
This is common for patio covers.
I have found that people do not expect this type of structure to be constructed as the house is.

Missing lag screws in the ledger, missing nails in the hangers. But over spanned 2X4 rafters make the whole thing unrepairable unless they add posts and a beam.

All good comments. I basically said "The entire cover over the patio was built wrong and it should be removed before a strong wind puts it in the neighbors yard."

They nailed into the frieze board and you could actually see the nails just sticking out the back side of the board in the air above the bricks.

Originally Posted by Scott Patterson

All good comments. I basically said "The entire cover over the patio was built wrong and it should be removed before a strong wind puts it in the neighbors yard."

Excellent - short and simple - you could have added some commentary such as " ... in the neighbors yard ... where it would be difficult for you to use", but that just adds a bit of humor to make them smile over something they probably liked and now will need to be torn down.

A couple of years ago I inspected a house that was built in the '60s with a flat roof. Someone came along and decided they wanted a gable roof so they had one built over the house. One side was bearing on the carport roof! The builder had built a knee wall to support the long rafters but instead of putting it 2 feet back on top of the outer CMU load bearing wall, the idiot used the carport which was also covered by the new roof. I looked down on what I was standing on and saw the carport ceiling ledger board pulled mostly out of the CMU wall and got the heck out of there.

That's a lot nicer than most of the ones here. They don't normally bother with joist hangers when they can just toe nail the rafters to the ledger. Heck, they don't bother with the ledger half the time.

We just had a good snow/ice storm pass through last weekend and I was just laughing with one of my buyers this week about patio covers. I told him we need a good snow and wind storm every couple years to "thin the heard" of all the poorly built patio covers and lean-to structures.

I particularly like to see them being "born". As in, on the cart at Home Depot. You can spot the guys from the opposite end of the store. It's the cart with two posts and 20 2X4X16 foot boards..... and a bunch of bright green fiberglass panels (I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled).

All the materials are typically thrown in the back of a 1992 Ford Ranger along with 20 bags of concrete so the rear bumper lands about 3" above the pavement.

While it is nice to keep it simple sometimes, I really dislike inspectors saying something is wrong and not providing any explanation for that. It does the buyer a dis-service since they likely don't know what the hell you are talking about anyway. It also gives the Seller a wide opening to state ' your inspector is full of ____'
To that point, my report would include the following at the very least:
- Roof essentially flat, 2x4's may not hold heavy snow load and collapse
- Joist hangers appear to be installed with black drywall type screws that are not rated for structural loads
- Probable 1x ledger board under aluminum capping usually not very well adhered to brick walls, therefore entire roof structure likely not adhered to building very well
- flatness of roof will allow snow to build up and possible back flow into the chimney flashing and under main house shingles causing water damage and deterioration
I'd write more but I don't know how to click back to the pictures without losing the text or if it would be lost.
I'm up to 3 calls in the last 2 weeks from people who are looking for another inspection after hiring a checkbox idiot and realizing, the pre-printed garbage they got tells them nothing they either understand or can use.

Hey Scott,

I bet in your area its common to have some snow that gets followed up by rain before the snow has a chance to melt. In those cases, even a moderate amount of snow can get really heavy after getting saturated with rain water. A 4" soaked layer can weigh as much as 2' or more of fluffy powder.

Collapse waiting to happen for sure.

BTW Scott, would you feel safe walking on that patio cover? Didn't think so. Ain't that good enough reason to get rid of it? Just kidding my friend....just kidding.

DEFECT - Amateur construction at patio roof structure. Observed inadequate fastenings, Improper design. Structure is subject to detach, fall and may cause property damage and personal injury. Recommend further evaluation and repairs or replacement be completed by a qualified contractor.

Patio roof appears defective; improper construction suggesting work performed without code permit or inspection. Improper attachment to structure, improper slope; water/ moisture damage may result. Recommend repair/ replacement by licensed builder.