Buying a home is an immense task and we all have different intensions of what we want to get from that home prior to going into the open house.
When it comes to an open house inspection this is your best opportunity to look out for any potential defects or faults prior to making an offer on the home. If you were not aware pre-purchase property inspections and timber pest inspections don’t cover all bases but are critical when it comes to getting a full comprehensive report on the condition of the home. But as a potential buyer you will still need to check a number of items that don’t get covered under your property inspection.
Let’s start with the home’s services as they don’t come under the scope of a building inspection and move into some more general items.
- Mechanical equipment
This relates to things such as your heating and cooling units and exhaust systems in the home. Ensure you ask first at the open house their condition and then test your self prior to making any offer. If you find the homes mechanical equipment is faulty such as your split system are leaking or exhaust fans that don’t work. It is not just a cost to have them serviced, you may be up for a whole new system which will put you thousands out of pocket.
- Electrical equipment
Flip the lights on and off, check that all equipment is at least getting power to it. Do yourself a favour and take a picture of the switchboard, call up an electrician, meet him on his jobsite or send the picture over and you can simply ask if he can see any issue with what is currently installed. Some may have not been upgraded to meet today’s standard and are missing safety switches or simply have non-compliant wiring etc.
- Plumbing
Turn the taps on and off then check that the water runs in the wastes, especially in your shower recesses. Toilets flush and you don’t hear any water hammer in the walls. Water hammer sounds like a horrible humbling noise in the wall when the water pipe vibrate through the structure cause noise.
- The Crack
Cracks in walls, brickwork, ceilings, flooring, skirting and around windows are some key signs of movement in the home. Some may simply be related to general shrinkage and are no concern. Some maybe footings falling away causing cracks to appear as the structure slowly falls apart. Be mindful of the covered crack, the one that has been painted over or behind that beautiful piece of art you get distracted by as you walk through the home.
- Uneven floors
When you go from room to room you may feel the un even floor and be able to determine if it dips and dives. This is an indicator of stumps dropping, footings falling away or simply poor construction to begin with. Another indicator is look at the skirting on the wall and check if the floor is coming away from the bottom of the boards. Re-stumping and underpinning give me shivers as the cost associated can be outrageous and if access is horrible ma result in floor being removed to proceed with rectification.
- Squeaky floors
Get on your toes and give the floor a little jump, try find that squeak. It may be footings falling away, someone removed some subfloor structure or even timber rot or decay.
- Water run off
Water is the main killer of homes, too much water usually promotes the sinking of footings, rising damp, termites and wood rot. Picture it raining and see where the water would run off to, does it get captured and sent down the storm water? or does it just go straight under the house causing all type of issues?
- Staining to surfaces
Staining means water damage, for something to stain that means A LOT of water has caused it. Water leaks can be the hardest things to diagnose as water tracks and makes it way through everything and everywhere, even when the conditions are right the water can go uphill with our old friend capillary action in play.
- Garden beds and paths
These items are a destroyer when they are located against a home. 80% of the time they cover the ventilation required for the subfloor system and attract moisture to the building. Some people think bricks are water tight, but they would be wrong. If you have something against brickwork that holds water such as plants and soil the mortar will continuously suck that moisture causing mouldy surfaces and rising damp. Just be mindful.
- Termite treatments signs
Termite control companies put a sticker in the meter box to indicate they have been, usually they come to get rid of termites. Just keep that in mind when walking through, they may be gone by now but you never know what they may have left in the return.
Jot down these headings on your next open house inspection. If you need a professional independent pre-purchase property inspection carried out, we offer building and timber pest inspections visit us.
