Hello and welcome. This is Nolan Formalarie with Discover NC Homes and Nolan’s News and today I have Tyler French here with me from Catalyst Home Inspections (https://www.catalysthomeinspections.net/).

Nolan
Tyler, thank you for, for coming in and joining us, I appreciate it

Tyler
Absolutely, Thank you for having me!

Nolan
Definitely. We use him quite a bit as a home inspector. Tyler’s very knowledgeable. What I personally like about him is that he takes his time to explain to my clients the things that could potentially be hazardous or wrong with the home that they’re buying. He does a great job with that.

But he is here today to talk to us about certain items that seem to come up in a home inspection no matter what year the home is built, no matter how new or old, what style it is. So thank you Tyler for talking about some of these hot buttons and maybe why they come up in home inspections.

Tyler
Sure. Like Nolan said, no matter the age, no matter the type, all homes seem to have similar issues that are reoccurring: GFCI, which is a Ground Fault Current Interrupter – it is an outlet that prevents arcs from forming, from a water connectivity or exposure to water.

Nolan
I know we see those a lot in bathrooms, kitchens.

Tyler
Bathrooms, kitchens, exteriors garage. So that’s something that we’re always on the lookout for to make sure that those are working and working properly.

Kind of a secondary issue is failed seals. A lot of windows in the coastal area suffer a lot from wind and rain from hurricanes, from just being where we are geographically.

Nolan
Yes, that makes sense. And I think, is it the flex that breaks, like the flex from wind that will break the seal?

Tyler
Yeah. So those are usually two panes of glass and when that wind really pushes against that glass, we start to see cracking and essentially, efficiency loss.

Nolan
And they look fogged.

Tyler
Sure. Condensation is getting trapped in between that glass and it will distort the picture.

Nolan
Okay. So GFCI, fog windows, what else?

Tyler
Let’s see.. Again, kind of in the same lane with wind and rain events, plumbing vents and properly sealing flashing on any roof surface is very important. I think there’s a misconception that just because there’s a downhill slope on a roof, water can’t go up, which is not the case – with the wind and rain combined water can get up and into things. So it’s very important to have those things sealed off and tightened up.

Nolan
Another thing too, that I’ve seen coming up quite a bit, is either the siding is too close to the roof, or there’s not the proper flashing. That seems to come up, whether it’s your company or another company, that seems to come up as a reoccurring on home inspections. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Tyler
Sure. Siding in its nature, it’s designed to keep water, wind and rain away from the sheeting of the house. That’s important to keep that kind of locked in and sealed down, to prevent water from getting behind walls.

That’s where we kind of start to see around chimneys, things like that. If that’s not kept or properly installed, we see those as well.

Nolan
Yeah. That makes sense, I agree. So just to recap again, almost every home inspection I look at, whether it’s your company or anyone else’s, GFCIs come up all the time. I don’t know if I’ve – even on a new home – had one without a window seal coming up. Definitely flashing around bent pipe boots and just in general, flashing on roofs maybe not being done correctly. These are all fairly inexpensive items to correct. Are they worrisome?

Tyler
I think it’s a basic safety concern that it’s a very easy box to check. So I would say it’s worrisome, you always want to keep your home safe, especially on the market, it’s going to help maintain its value when these things are taken care of and just make for a smoother, home sale process. So I think it’s important to stay in front of it and keep your house in great shape.

Nolan
Wonderful! Well, Tyler, thank you, I appreciate you joining us and we’ll talk to you soon.

About Nolan Formalarie

Nolan Formalarie has been in the North Carolina Real Estate Industry for over 8 years and enjoys every minute of it. He is involved in every aspect of the industry including selling and purchasing residential property, home watch services, property management, association management and construction.