Thread: This was my day

Inspecting a 2003, 6500SF house today. Finally get to the master bath and start filling the whirlpool tub. After several minutes, I'm getting the feeling its taking longer than usual to fill. Granted it is a big tub, but still.
So I turn off the faucets to see if the drain is maybe not sealed fully.
I hear water running.
Even though I have a pretty good idea what is happening, I run downstairs to the bedroom below to see water coming out of the light fixture/fan, smoke detector, and at the HVAC register, and along the wall. I run to the store room and grab a few rubbermaid bins and then run upstairs to open the drain.
I then call the listing agent to tell them what's going on, and call my client and tell them.
I pull off the pump access panel to find that they never connected the tub to the pump. The water was just flowing out of the pipe on the side of the tub.
AS I am on the phone with the Realtors office trying to get in touch with the listing agent, the fire alarm starts going off. The phone rings, but I don't have the password, so they call the fire dept, and the police.
Pretty soon the fire dept shows up, and I explain what happened. They tell me that since they have shown up, they have to go thru the house and treat it as a suspected fire.
The neighbor comes over with the property owner on the phone. The Realtor and Broker show up. There are 5 fire people in the house, then the police show up.
Once I show the neighbor the photo of the pump, he calms down a little (he was busy blaming me for messing something up), then hands the phone to me so I can talk to the owner.
She admits that she has never used that tub in the 8 years she has lived there. She calms down a bit.
1. The plumber didn't check his work.
2. The builder didn't check the plumbers work.
3. There wasn't any code enforcement there, so thats out.
4. She didn't have a home inspection when she bought it.
5. I bet she has one on the next house she buys.

So that was my day today.

Just calm down.
You do know that tomorrow is gonna be even worse, don't you?
Thats when the HO sends you the repair bills.

hope you checked the gfci's

cvf

So Jack did you clean out those Rubbermaid containers and return them neatly back to where you found them?

rick

Had a day like that a couple of summers ago, but it was on a new house, not one that was eight years old, AND the PD and FD didn't show up.

Million dollar house draining water through the kitchen ceiling and cabinets into the finished basement.

Builder surprised me. Started cursing the "damn plumber" right away instead of me. Cost the plumber a bit of money.

Tomorrow will be a better day Jack.

I remember snaking out a tub in a very old house many years ago, and as I usually do, run the water while snaking through the overflow. Well after a short time, it started draining quickly and I thought great! easy job today, when I suddenly heard a blood curdling scream from the homeowner downstairs. Well, it seems the snake punctured the old lead trap and the sight of this black muck leaking through the ceiling and onto a nice white carpet below didn't make the homeowner too happy.
Some days you just can't win.

Jack,

If it helps you feel any better, I had three of those that I can think of without even trying to remember them:
- One ruined all the cherry cabinets in a very expensive kitchen, along with everything else which was ruined (appliances, saturated the travertine flooring, decorator faux paint, you name it).
- One ruined all the Venetian Plaster which had just been finished being applied (Venetian Plaster is horribly expensive and time consuming to apply ... even more costly to remove and do it all over again as the drywall had to come out too).
- And the funniest one (funny to me anyway) was where the Project Manager quit screaming at me just long enough to call the supt., and then started screaming at me again ... until the supt. comes down from upstairs and says 'Remember that spa tub motor which we replaced last week to close a house and we couldn't get one right away for closing, you had me take this spa pump out and install it in the other house, we were going to replace it later ... ', about that time the Project Manager got off his high horse with me and started calling in all the subs to see what could be saved (water coming from everything in the ceiling throughout the first floor, was running under the master bathroom wall and down the stairs, it was a mess) because that house was SUPPOSED to close the next day ... I doubt the house closed the next day, or even the next next month!

Anyway, Jack, you did your job, and you did it very well! Congratulations!

I gotta say that even if it's not your fault, that sinking feeling in your gut sucks when you start hearing water falling somewhere downstairs when your running a fixture upstairs.

Little different issue (I know all you grizzled inspectors know this ), but for you new inspectors out there, if you haven't already learned by trial and error, never leave sight of a sink you are filling with water. Not even for a a few seconds. Even if you walk away for a second or two, chances are you will get distracted by some issue in the next room (or the client will show up with a question, or whatever...) and you will forget about the sink long enough for it to run over the top and to areas below . And DO NOT EVER depend on overflow drains on sinks and tubs. They often do not have the capacity to keep up with the water flowing into the sink.

Another thing I have learned to do is always look under a sink to make sure the drain pipe is connected before running water in it or filling it. Just a good habit to get into to.

I think I already posted this somewhere but this is a better spot.

I always run the water in every fixture throughout the home for quite a while. I monitor the flow for a short time and when I see no problem I go about my business doing other thing and come back in a very short while and shut everything down.

I bet everyone is wondering just how much water can overflow a sink when the stopper slides down and shuts the drain off in just a matter of minutes.

Well, I say about thirty beach towels wrung out along with over to full wet vacs containers that hold almost ten gallons apiece ..................... and running out beside the vent in the hall of the first floor.

The sinks being the modern kind have no overflow drain toward the top of the sink. Luckily there was no damage other than wet carpets but I spent a serious amount of time sucking every drop out of them extending the inspection a couple hours. It was 103 outside and just about that inside due to the air not being on for a while. I lost about every drop of fluid in me in that heat and humidity cleaning the place up.

I have done this for years and years but admittedly I never let the water run unattended with ut me popping right back in and checking and shutting everything down.

Guess what I no longer do. I still run the water in the tubs and showers for some time but the sinks get a short amount of water down the drain and I shut it off immediately. This could have been a disaster. For what I went thru for the clean up ..... it was. I also have two wet vacs in my garage ......20 miles from that inspection, so I had to put out 65.00 at the Orange place for yet a third.

I now carry that one in the truck everyday.

Ted, some of those new glass bowl sinks will overflow in less than a minute, if they've installed a drain plug and a honking big faucet. I advise people to remove the mechanical drain plug if there's no overflow built into the sink. The smart plumbers already know that. There's at least one in this town that does.

Condo inspection, the dishwasher wasn't working. The client and realtor show up and I break the terrible news, no DW, then realtor pipes up, "Well looky there under the sink, the valve's turned off!"
Ok so I'm a dumbass, turn the valve on, try the DW, listening for water, nope, wait a minute or two, now a puddle spills out from under the new fridge, oh great, the icemaker hasn't been hooked up yet and water is pouring out of the supply pipe. Yeah, and the dishwasher still didn't work.

Originally Posted by Eric Shuman

Another thing I have learned to do is always look under a sink to make sure the drain pipe is connected before running water in it or filling it. Just a good habit to get into to.

Eric,

I did just the opposite ... Ii didn't care whether or not it was connected, *I* was checking for leaks, and if it turned out not to be connected, well ... ... "then it leaked" and I done my yob purty darn good.

While on sinks ...
- If the sink is an undermount sink - fill that sucker to the top of the countertop ... it *should not leak* at the joint where it is undermounted to the countertop - if it does *many do* then you've found a leak.
- If the sink is a steel sink with an overflow, especially a metal overflow, fill with *hot* water and it will probably leak. And if a plastic overflow, it still may leak, but at least the overflow and sink will not be rusted out.

I made it a habit of finding leaks by letting water run, not by looking for potential leaks first.

I feel better now. Last year I had one when I pulled the panel off an air handler and the cheap *ss contact switch that shuts down the system quit working. I finally got it to restart after some "McGyver" type work. It was a Saturday evening in a really bad rainstorm. The owner of the house was a true bi (you fill in the rest) that would have been real difficult to work with trying to explain why her AC wouldnt work. The guy that was buying the house was great, followed me the whole inspection and understood the issue with the switch. That's the worst problem I have had yet.


JP
Why would clean water ruin cherry cabinetry?

Originally Posted by imported_John Smith

JP
Why would clean water ruin cherry cabinetry?

Buyer wanted nothing to do with water saturated wood cabinets, not at the price they paid for "new" everything. That would be like buying a new car, leaving the car at the dealership for detailing and to pick it up "tomorrow", the dealership suffers a flood, your brand new car is up to the seats in water, and them trying to dry the car out so they can give it to you. Wouldn't you want a "new" car and not that flooded one?

Warpage. Everything got saturated, I had the spa tub running and was in the attic when I heard the agent running around the second floor screaming something about water running down through the ceiling.

By the time I heard the screaming, figured out what "water" meant (couldn't understand much of her screaming), made it back all the way across the attic to the access opening and downstairs ... it was like Niagara Falls in the kitchen.

Finding leaks is just part of home inspections. Trying to find leaks before you turn the water on is time I spent doing other things finding other things wrong ... and if there was a leak ... well ... there was a leak ... and it was not *my* problem.

Jerry, in most cases I agree with your positions. However, this time I believe you are either wrong or ornery. In my opinion, "first do no harm" applies to what I do as an inspector. This justifies a reasonable amount of time visibly checking drains, etc prior to running water. The net time investment is zero since I need to visibly inspect drains anyway.

Darrel Hood
DILIGENT PROPERTY SERVICES

While I don't see it often, I do find sinks that are missing drain pipes under them. Maybe a half dozen times each year.
However, after the first time of turning on the faucet and having water splash all over the inside of the cabinet, then having to scurry around to try to dry things out, I decided to take a look under the sink BEFORE I turned on the faucet.

I do it mostly because I hate to waste MY time cleaning up a mess that could have been avoided.

I felt like an ignorant fool for not attending the running water for so long. If I did not see if a trap was attached before I turned the water on then I would have felt like a moron and I would have deserved the 2 hours of water clean up.

This was a first for me, at least as far as I know.

Inspected a vacant house where the seller was also a contractor.

Ran the dishwasher with no problems, no leaks. Anti tip brackets screwed into counter to prevent movement.

House closes a couple of weeks later and the new home owner runs the dishwasher for the first time and water leaks out all over the floor.

There is a hole in the dishwasher tub and when her husband checks the dishwasher it flops around because there are no anti tip screws anywhere.

Now, either the dishwaser was switched after the inspection, or someone for what ever reason punched a hole in it and stole the screws.

Which one seems more likely?

Problem is, I can't prove it was switched since I didn't write down the serial number.

Client told me the seller seemed shady to her without going into much detail and she knew that I did my job and was not responsible.

Originally Posted by wes owens

This was a first for me, at least as far as I know.

Inspected a vacant house where the seller was also a contractor.

Ran the dishwasher with no problems, no leaks. Anti tip brackets screwed into counter to prevent movement.

House closes a couple of weeks later and the new home owner runs the dishwasher for the first time and water leaks out all over the floor.

There is a hole in the dishwasher tub and when her husband checks the dishwasher it flops around because there are no anti tip screws anywhere.

Now, either the dishwasher was switched after the inspection, or someone for what ever reason punched a hole in it and stole the screws.

Which one seems more likely?

Problem is, I can't prove it was switched since I didn't write down the serial number.

Client told me the seller seemed shady to her without going into much detail and she knew that I did my job and was not responsible.

Photos, photos, photos. Digital pics are just about cost free. I take pics of exterior, interior, water dripping from racks, oven lights and elements on, dataplates on all appliances.

Had nearly the same happen a while back. Inspection with new top of the line, big name, stainless appliances. All were fine, installation instruction and owners guides were in the cabinets, got pics of those also.

A little over a month later the buyer called just to let me know that the dishwasher did not work. Claimed that when she had the DW checked she was told that it was never connected. I opened up the folder with the inspection photos, found the appliances and read the serial number off the Bosch dishwasher, and was told quickly that her kitchen did not have Bosch appliances and that I had the wrong photos....

Turns out that the seller swapped out the high end stuff with appliances of much lower price tags. Fast forward another couple of weeks and the new owner called me back to thank me as she now had all her top of the line, big brand appliances back in her kitchen, courtesy of her attorney and the former owner