Inspector’s Gadgets

Well, yesterday was the big home inspection. Mommy and Daddy brought the kids up to Lafayette and left them with Mawmaw while they headed over the house to meet Inspector Don. What we weren’t expecting was for the inspection to take four hours! Don is apparently nothing if not thorough, and man, was he thorough! Of course, a few things couldn’t be missed.

First of all, the roof: it’s not even up to code! Apparently the manufacturer’s requirements specify a maximum ⅜″ overlap and the builder had overlapped them by as much as 1½″! There was also a missing shingle and a loose one, so those obviously need to be fixed. The denouement of this issue, however, seems to not be so dire: our Realtor® had a roofer go out to the property yesterday, and the roofer claims that although Don was right about all of the problems, they don’t actually constitute a code violation. Don says that’s fine, that he’s going to confirm who the manufacturer is and what code specifies, and if he’s right, the roofer is then liable for any repairs (since he put the bill of health in writing). We shall see….

Secondly, the air conditioner wasn’t working. I mean, it was blowing like crazy, but it wasn’t actually doing anything to speak of. When we got to the house at 10:30 a.m., it was 80˚F in there; when we left at 2:30 p.m., it was 79˚F. That’s not a good sign. Bottom line: an HVAC specialist went out to the property yesterday and, among other things, changed the filter. Between that and whatever else he did, it was 74˚F by the time he left—a much better result, to say the least.

The third big thing is that the top eighth or so of the garage door is literally bent in half, and the tracks it runs on are likewise bent. On the bright side, the sellers knew about this one, so they’re fixing it.

The list goes on and on—we gave them thirteen “action items” to respond to within 24 hours (not to fix within 24 hours, mind you; to respond to), but the rest are fairly minor. What’s probably going to happen is that they’ll sign a contract to fix x, y, z, etc. within t days and escrow the money to do it, so if they don’t actually get it done, we get the money. The selling Realtor® still thinks we can close on Friday, so we’ll see what happens!