# My house's previous owner - DIY horror stories



## Leah Frances

Inspired by the title of another thread I thought it might be fun to find out what sort of bozo things DIYers are dealing with from former homeowners. 

When I moved into my house:
- There was not one single door knob on any interior door of the house
- There was not one single light bulb in a light fixture
- Only two of five exterior doors could close and lock
- The former homeowner drained the oil tank 
- every sink, toilet, and tub leaked (water bill dropped by 70% once I moved in)
- Five attic windows were so rotten they either failed to close or failed to keep out the weather
- A chronic leak at the dishwasher rotted a 2 square foot hole in the kitchen floor (subfloor and all)
- The fridge was so poorly maintained that we had to throw it out
- The window air conditioner units were leaking into the walls
- 100 square feet of carpet pad was glued to the hardwood floor
- I removed FOUR TONS of debris from the house and basement - (Leah + shovel + wheelbarrow + Mom's truck + MANY trips to the dump) 
- We had to remove six trees that were so damaged or dying that they presented a hazard to the house
- The teenage sons of the former homeowner graffitied up several rooms in the house. Some of the graffiti is spelled incorrectly. :laughing:

This is the short list of things that jump to mind. I'm sure there have to be some good stories out there....


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## Scuba_Dave

This house was pretty good
--pool was not closed properly or chem'd - full of leaves & a green algae mess in the Spring when we went to open it
--bought a new pump & filter -all was good
-2 live 20a 240v uncapped circuits at the bottom of the basement steps

Last house: (gotcha beat I think)
-I had to evict THOUSANDS of occupants - discovered the 1st night I went down there & turned on the lights - much to the horror of the girl I was dating - who ran out of the house
-Carpet was a filthy mess - except where the mattress had been on the floor
-Floors were a mess, sticky tiles put down over wood floor
-main wood floor was only stained/finished around the edge of the rug that had been there. The rest was a mess
-I could rollerblade from the front to the back of the house like in a skateboard bowl
-There was a 6" step into the kitchen - due to over 12 layers of flooring
-They had cats/kittens, but no litter box
-See above - the house smelled. I would take a deep breath & run in & open windows, out take a breath, back in open windows, out take a breath & put fans in windows & turn on, outside & wait 15+ minutes
-GF (same one) & I spent 2 weeks cleaning before I could move in
-we thought the kitchen sink & counter were brown, sink was white & counter was blue
-Stove had a 1/2" layer (at least) of crud on it
-sump pump missing from the basement
-bumble bees in the kitchen wall, ants & yellow jackets had nests
-crawl space had collapsed walls - who knew plywood would rot up against dirt
-cat & a skunk got in thru the holes...smoke bombs & firecrackers & they decided to leave (not sprayed)
-Small pieces of sheetrock were put up in the main room - then paneling was installed
-Same small pieces in the kitchen behind the cabinets
-Sheetrock was not sealed behind the cabinets, letting in cold air
-flat ceiling had almost ZERO insulation - used to be a porch
-the above enclosed porch they left the 2x6 top rail on the porch railing & sinply built a 2x4 wall on top. Then put sheetrock across the wall - bowing it to make it fit
-one bedroom door had a latch for a lock in the Main room. Since the windows in the room would not shut right "friends" would come over (in thru windows) & wait in the room for them to come home
-reference above - before purchase there were blankets over every window
-again reference above - neighbors said the Police spent weeks in a van in their driveway watching the house (druggies)
-5 layers of roofing on the house. It would rain then 3 days later the roof would leak (not kidding)
- I bought a 5g bucket of tar until I could put a new roof on
-Rotted plywood on roof & 2 broken rafters
-chimney fell apart
-fridge died the day after I bought the place
-washing machine was still in the house, complete with the last load of laundry in it - that they wanted. I left the whole thing out front
-bathroom floor was rotted as was the laundry closet that backed up to it
-when I checked the PVC pipe (in crawl space) for laundry the entire thing came apart in pieces
-laundry connections leaking
-front door would not shut correctly
-no septic system, just a good ole cesspool/big old hole in the ground

Yard:
Grass was waist high - hid a lot of junk
I spent all summer hauling debris to the dump
I think they never raked a leaf in the 5+ years they were there
There were piles of broken glass in the side yard from old windows
Broken mirrors in the back yard
12" deep rut along the front yard/street - my car would bottom out

Electric:
-Live wire in the lawn, discovered while lawn mowing
-Live wires behind baseboard
-Live wires in attic
-Live wires in basement
-AC was toast (only a 5k - 912 sq ft house)
--I installed a 24k in the main room & a 15k in the bedroom

The Good:
I bought the house for less then my SUV cost (in '97) & I got a good deal on the SUV
Cathedral entrance, kitchen & Master bedoom - which was big
The house was Tax appraised at 3x what I paid for it 
The Neighbors actually cheered when they found out I bought the house & was fixing it up & going to live there

The Funny:
I never would have looked at the house except my GF came over early & it was a rainy day (or I would have gone to the beach)
1st time I had bought a paper to look at houses in 6 months
I had circled a number of houses but did not go to look at any of them
GF saw the house circled & the price & sai dlets go look at it
Once we saw the house (exterior) I was going to drive away. The realtor came across the street in a downpour & said as long as you are here - look inside
It was 12 days from the time I 1st looked at the house until closing
Bank was accepting a short sale - but wanted cash only
I bought the house with Cash Advances against my Credit Cards
The main card I called them & asked if they had any problem with my maxing out my credit limit with a cash advance. I heard cheering & a bell ringing. I was given a rate of 2.9% for 6 months, 2nd card was 4.9% for 6 months, 3rd card was 6.9% for 6 months. House Mortgage rates were 10-12% at the time
At the 6 month point I transferred balances to other cards for another 6 months of low interest. But shortly after that I received the Tax bill & was able to land an equity Loan to pay off the cards (10.5%)

My 1st loan was $45k, I paid off about $5k within a few months, used some $$ to fix things up. Refinanced lower rate (8.25%), bought my dive gear & went on 2 vacations, bought a hot tub, fixed up a little more. 3rd loan - up to $76k now - bought motorcycle, Jetski, another vacation, fixed up some more
Most of the house was fixed up at this point
Started dating my present day wife...no more spending until the house is totally fixed up
So, new unfinished 2nd floor, roof & new septic...rest of house done
Then we sold it for $200k, owed about $68k on it :thumbup:


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## ARI001

I went behind a DIYer who when adding a bathtub to what was previously a 1/2 bath (no permits of course) decided to cut out 3' in the middle third of a floor joist. It was in his way and he could not run the pipes. Lucky for him his wife decided to have someone check up behind him. He was going to leave it that way and didn't realize you had to double up under a bathtub.


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## Leah Frances

Dave "-I had to evict THOUSANDS of occupants - discovered the 1st night I went down there & turned on the lights "

The second night I spent in the house (by myself, DH was still working in another state) I decided to hire an exterminator. DH, by phone, says "are you sure, they're mostly a racket?"

I tell him when I turn on the TV all the bugs are attracted to the light and their are hundreds of them on the screen....:laughing:

I tell people this house doesn't need much work, only four things really: new electrical, new plumbing, new roof, and paint inside and out. Is that five things?

ARI- how did you discover the notch? Remodel?


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## ARI001

> ARI- how did you discover the notch? Remodel?


His wife called me from an add I had in the phone book at the time because she was looking for someone to check up on him. She didn't think it was a good idea to cut out sections of a floor joist. He was in way over his head and really had no idea what he was doing. Not only had he cut out the joist he mixed abs and pvc dwv lines, which was not a real big deal since he didn't glue them.:laughing:


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## Mike in Arkansas

Leah Frances said:


> Dave "-I had to evict THOUSANDS of occupants - discovered the 1st night I went down there & turned on the lights "
> 
> I tell people this house doesn't need much work, only four things really: new electrical, new plumbing, new roof, and paint inside and out. Is that five things?


But as I recall your chicken coop more than makes up for it :laughing:


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## RDS

The problems with my house are nothing on the scale of those described above, but they've given me headaches nonetheless. For the previous owner the place was basically a 'flip' -- he won a lot of money on a game show, bought this old neglected house, put some work into it, lived there a couple years, and then sold it (at the height of the boom, for a huge profit I'm sure).

Their idea of 'staging to sell' was to put wallpaper in almost EVERY room. And not just any wallpaper -- really UGLY wallpaper. The kitchen is like a poison ivy infestation, the dining room was vertical bars of fruit, master bedroom was large pink and white flowers, etc. Three years later, and we are still working our way through stripping it off.

Also, while most of the work he did was permitted, it seems like he did some DIY electrical upgrades, with the result that all over the house I have outlets that give no power, GFCIs that trip the moment you plug something in, and three-way switches where the switch you use to turn the light on has to be the one where you last turned it off.


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## DIYtestdummy

Well, I bought the house so I shouldn't complain! I bought it to help 2 families out. I needed to move badly and couldn't find a house for a realistic price before the "recession." And my now good buddy got a job where I work, took a big pay cut, and got cheesed (yes CHEESE-D) by those stupid refi-super-balloon-bank rip-off loans. This *WAS* a quiet area when I grew up there. Anyway, foreclosure in the middle of renovation. Cheap labor, licensed, still means cheap work. He shoulda DIY'ed most of this, but had no time and was living in a rental miles away.

-Door guy put a security screen door on and locked himself in the house (still haven't heard the whole story), got neighbor to call locksmith, punched hole in T-111 (still there - gotta get to that) when he locked himself out in the rain.

-Tile was done in a rush, 900+ft2 of white porcelain tile on clearance, some didn't match. Floor wasn't leveled, grout not sealed, master bathroom didn't get set - whaaat?!

-Paint, ugh, see above. No primer, ugly GLOSSS colors. "Natural tones are what buyers want..." blecccch!

-Every fixture leaked, valves must've been original.

-Pool was perfect, except for the owner before the previous tried to fix an algae problem with a sandblaster or something.

-Electrical is still not right after the reno. Somebody put 3-switch panels everywhere but where they were needed. Been zapped by lamps. Extra breakers were installed, but I have yet to find out why - probably something special that couldn't be afforded.

-Garage was converted into a livingroom- passed inspections, window leaked when it rained (I hope I fixed it this time!!!!), drywall is curved where garage door was, I think the insulation was short or not installed at all. Metal security door was a bit thin; there were marks where it looked like somebody tried to plane it for some reason. Laundry closet should have been built a little bigger, the drywall had to be cut to put the old water heater back, plywood stand for the HUGE water heater - worked great until the tank was filled...

-kitchen reno - the old WOOD cabinets should have been left in there. Countertops weren't fastened. Stove was rushed in...outlet wasn't changed. Fridge was stolen/missing. Drywall wasn't finished before cabinets were installed and/or someone hit a pipe...

-Fence built with WET Home Depot wood. No center brace, no waterproofing = warped.

-Weeds and neighbors' garbage in the yard. Fill dirt was never replaced after...I don't know!

-Roof was reflective-rubberized over a leak patch next to the swamp cooler (arrgh!) and wherever visible around the perimeter, but not the hottest parts of the roof. Paper wasn't even sealed properly. Soffit vents were sealed and caused the new ceiling popcorn to rot.

-50' porch cover and extended concrete...or whatever the crater-mess is. The cover is catilevered off the house rafters, to code, but is far from straight or square or having anything but custom work done further. The facers warped and no gutters were ever installed.

I could go on. My buddy gets mad every time I DIY something and find out what WASN'T done or done really stupid!


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## Blondesense

I'm not going to try to compete here, but there is one thing I never understood about our last house. When we bought the house the hot water heater (electric) was originally located in the bathroom next to the toilet.
Not necessarily a bad idea in itself but someone _totally_ framed it out and drywalled it. No access to it whatsoever!?!


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## Leah Frances

Mike in Arkansas said:


> But as I recall your chicken coop more than makes up for it :laughing:


FIVE eggs a day, baby.


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## Shamus

Well, I've never actually bought one that was as bad as some have posted but I sure have reno'd a bunch over the years for other folks.

I have to laugh at what some good natured, possibly good intentioned DIY'er has tried, in an attempt to make something work or make something look better and save a few bucks. I just shake my head in amazement. 

I've seen 7 wire runs bunched in a wad in the attic crawl space and the bare ends taped together. Some outlets/lights would actually work, many didn't. In the current home we are working on the previous owner was so frugal he must have actually pulled on each new wire he ran, stretching them taught, after he wire an outlet or a wall switch. You couldn't move a switch/outlet, let alone pull it out far enough to replace. The only option was to run new wires.
The same guy used spray foam throughout the home for anything that looked like it might allow air filtration. He must have gotten a deal on several cases of the stuff. Every wall/ceiling fixture was filled. Every window on the second floor was foamed and painted. Even cracks in the plaster walls were filled and then painted over. The whole house looked like the wall cavities were filled with toothpaste and someone squeezed the outside of the house. It was literally oozing from everyplace imaginable.

Stained glass windows held together with vinyl screen with varnish over the entire surface to hold it together. These were large exterior windows, mind you. Paper-mache used to fill holes in any piece of interior trim you could imagine and then painted over. One guy actually stained and varnished some. 

Then there's the 2nd floor tub drain, the guy didn't have a straight piece of plastic the right length so he used a T and plugged the right angle part of the T with a golf ball he glued in. Well it did work I guess.

Last year an 1890's historic home caught fire because the owner tried to run wiring down his chimney to run a vent fan in the attic on the third floor. That winter he lit a fire in the fireplace forgetting he opened a hole to fish the wires through upstairs. The wires caught fire and then the roof. The home, in very good structural condition and mostly professionally restored on the exterior, burned down to the ground. 

I've been doing reno's for years now and I guess I could come up with a few chapters on "why did they do that?". My concern is always that someone will get seriously hurt because someone saved some money DIY'ing the job.

If you’re not 1000% sure of the job your about to do, ask a bunch of questions before you do anything. Ya might just save someone an injury or even worse.


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## PLAIN O TX

Neighbors told us Dominion Republic Mafia used to live in our home. We had band aids covering bullet holes in the sheet rock, kicked in doors, and piles of "new, pilfered" children clothing and chain link fence in the attic? We bought a repo and are still trying to undo damage. County deputies have stopped by at different times and apologised "you are not who we are looking for, sorry". I am still trying to find the hidden drug money stash! It's got to be hidden here somewhere!


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## Wildie

My story isn't so much a horror story, but unusual in its own way!
I bought the house from the estate of a man that was born in the house, in 1911.
He lived there for all his life.
His parents had the house built just before his birth.
What was unusual about this property was that there were absolutely no modifications carried out in 70 years. 
Now, the roof had work done to it. The original roof was cedar shakes, then someone installed 2 courses of asphalt shingles over this!
When the house was built, it was painted through, and the trim was a natural finished Douglas fir.
What really amazed me was that after being painted originally, it was never painted again. Every wall and ceiling in the place had turned to a dirty grey!
The hard part of restoring this home, was the trim varnish! It had turned completely black and had to be completely stripped and be re-finished.
Of course, it was wired with knob and tube, which had to be replaced, as well.


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## perpetualjon

Wow you guys.. Just wow! Suddenly I don't feel so bad about my OWN problems!! My house I purchased in 2000 from a flipper that got it from FHA after the drug deal what was living in the house foreclosed. Needless to say, the neighbors were also thrilled we were moving in. Here's a run down of what we've been dealing with...

- HVAC system consisted of a massive furnace and swamp cooler that shared ducting (and nothing blocking one from the other). The warmest spot in the house in the winter was the top of the roof and the coolest spot in the summer was at the intake vent for the furnace in the hallway. I had to completely re-wire the furnace our first winter as the mostly used bubble gum after they ran out of wire nuts...

- The ducting was full of gaps that were closed with duct tape ...and probably were good for the first couple of years. But that was 30 years ago... It all had to come down and be replaced with a roof-mounted central air system.

- Gas and water lines were run from a front corner of the house under the slab foundation to the back of the house and then fed inside. 5 years into living there, gas started pouring out of the dirt in the back yard. Just this past month the water line finally failed under the slab. I'm now in the process of running all new utility piping through the INSIDE of the house now and not underground!

- Electrical was done ignoring black and white colors. They just used random choices (hey, you've still got a 50/50 chance of getting it right). An unknown rodent eventually found his way into the outside breaker panel and setup home there. I'm still fishing out bedding material from the wall cavity and box (that I'm soon to replace).

- There was originally a car port that was converted into a room addition but the flooring was 4"-6" lower than the slab (as code requires) so they joisted the floor to match the elevation of the slab. Unfortunately, when people came in later and added a concrete RV driveway and patio in the back yard, they didn't realize that they were pouring the concrete several inches ABOVE this elevation. So for the last 30 years there has been rainwater leaking into the underside of this joisted floor rotting it away. We didn't find it until the hot water heater ruptured and leaked hot water all over this joisted floor....

- The main wet wall in the house uses 6" studs but the sole plate below it is just an ordinary 2x4 --and most of the interior walls weren't anchored to the slab -just floating there.

- The roof was modified after an old room addition created a valley. But no flashing was used and for the last 30 years water has been leaking into the walls of the front kitchen and bathroom (along with a leaking valve for the old swamp cooler on the roof). Simply put, I had TONS of black mold in the wet wall of the house.

I could go on but this is just the major stuff... Still, I just don't feel as bad as I did before I read this thread!!


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## DUDE!

the fella we bought this house from actually did a good job, one thing to comment on though, they had left the washer and dryer behind for us, they had asked and we said okay, when the time came to replace them, I found out that they wouldn't fit out the door of the room they were in. Had to widen the doorway before replacing them.


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## Mom In Charge

*Guess I'm "sort of" lucky -- or wise*

Purchased a 1941-built house because I wanted older charm. Who knew they either had no building codes, else did not enforce them! (my basement stairs are bult with odd width, depth, thickness of scrap wood; steps are not square, level or same sized.)

I cannot afford to really fix up the basement. Have consoled myself that my future selling strategy will be that, although not finished, the basement is free of DIY electrical and plumbing. These postings make me believe I am not so dumb in this matter. I'll offer photocopies of these postings whenever I list it for sale.

An aside: Cannot afford to rewire house. Had licensed electricians install GFCI outlets at __every__ plug (none had third hole for grounding -- could not plug in most items). I figure, at least, wire-fire now would be contained. Good choice? Did I add any safety?


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## Mike in Arkansas

I've been very lucky compared to some of these stories. Our house was built in 1925 and we wanted to buy it 30 years ago but couldn't manage it at the time. Mostly just old and needs to be updated to some extent. One odd thing is that some DIY'er installed a vent in the bathroom that didn't run. Finally ran down the wiring and it was hooked into the (one and only) light bulb socket in the attic and the light has to be turned on with the built in pull switch for the vent to work in the bathroom. Go figure. Except for the kitchen which was redone about 20 years ago the house has knob and tube and replacing that will be my first big project.


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## 794613

I'm 24 years old and bought my first house Nov 18th 2008. The house was built May 17th, 1939. The original work was all pretty much top notch, but I have had my share of trouble too. The house has a basement that flooded pretty badly because of a high water table in our area (failing storm sewers, being replaced this year). I excavated the outside of the house and found that there was an original drain tile in place, but no gravel had been put down at the time of the drain tile and all tiles had filled with pure clay. I've found (2) 15 amp circuits taped up in the wall and live. There was a 10-3 romes line ran to the shed in standard dwv pvc pipe. The DWV pipe in the house was fitted together without pvc glue. The washing machine emptied into the sump pump and then discharged into the sanitary sewer. There were 4 layers of shingles on the roof. And that is pretty much most of the bad stuff. Someone also came through and installed an interior drain tile with corrugated pipe, but they also forgot to put in gravel so it soon plugged up.

1.5 more months till move in time.

- Jim


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## linnibin

*My horror story*

Yep, had problems like you did.....none of the toilets flushed; plumbing leaked all over, including the line to the dishwasher and buckled the wood floor; none of the electrical wall outlets were grounded; garage door nearly fell on me and could have killed me had I been under it; and the list goes on......luckily, we are nearly done correcting all this stuff but I feel like I SO OVERPAID for this property!


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## Xlerb

Boy, I've got almost nothing compared to some of you folk.

Our house was built in 1904 and has 4 layers of shingles on the roof - that's next summer's job. 

Main issues I have are electrical. The former owner (an engineer) was frustrated by the lack of outlets in the main floor so they drilled 1" holes in the floors/walls here and there, then ran extension cords up through them. Looks like some sort of wierd putting green.

Also some former owner insulated the attic floor with rock wool, packed in so tight I don't think it's of any value. In the middle of all that rock wool is the majority of the knob and tube wiring for the second floor. So I've taken up the attic floor and cleared the insulation away from the wires. Found a couple of beauriful snarls where they had tapped into the knob & tube with romex. One of those messes had the electirical, telephone, and tv cable wires all in one big snarl, then there were a couple pieces of sharp edged galvanized tin in the mix too, why? Not a clue. (Yes, I am rewiring, but it's a slow go). And speaking of cable and telephone, there are phone lines/coax running everywhere, no rhyme or reason. I traced one line from the attic to the basement, then back up to the attic, then into a wall and off to who knows where, probably the basement.

When I replaced the ceiling fan in the main bedroom I found it was held in with two sheetrock screws, neither of which when into a joist. One just caught the edge of a lathe, and the other one went into the plaster between two lathes. No wonder the cat always was nervious about that fan. A ceiling fan in another bedroom was literally hanging by one screw and the wires.

Replacing the cheap plastic light switches has also been fun. The house originally had rotary switches. These switches were mounted to a 3/4" board that ran between two studs and that was located just behind the lathe. When they were replaced the person doing the work (I can't believe it was an electrician) simply punched the 3/4" board out of the way with a hammer, put in the new switch, and repaired the plaster damage with a whole lot of patching compound. No box around the switch of course.

The first winter we had trouble with the water lines to the kitchen sink freezing, a little detective work found that the former owner had done some insulation, but did it so that the pipes on the cold side of the insulation.

And then there's the sump pump well, where the former owner framed in a closet, running the wall and door right across the middle of the sump cover, so when the sump pump went out I had to take down the wall to replace the pump. Grr!

So no great DIY horrors, just a bunch of nickle and dime issues that I keep stumbling across.


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## Scuba_Dave

md2lgyk said:


> Has nobody ever heard of a home inspection? If you don't have one done and don't do it yourself, you deserve what you end up with.


Contrary to your belief, home inspections do not catch everything
Some do not even come close to being a full inspection
There was one higher offer on my last house (short sale)
They requested time to setup a Home Inspection & a guarantee that replacing the Septic would not cost more then "X"
Guess who got the house ?
I did my own inspection & knew what needed to be fixed.....everything :laughing:

A HI is a good idea, & many will catch problems
But do not rely on them to find everything

Our new house we had an inspection & they found nothing wrong
I found 2 live 20a 240v feeds at the bottom of the basement stairs
I found signs of water intrusion along the front porch
I also found signs of rot where the back porch met the house, possible sill rot
I found the cracked window & 2 fogged windows, plus broken parts of several lower panes
I noted that the back basement door did not close properly
Also that a section of the front door had been broken & replaced with plywood
And the attic insulation showing thru a gap was only R7

Based on my findings we negotiated a price $20k less then the lower price, in all $40k less then the asking price
A potential buyer basing their view on the Inspection would have paid the $20k less then asking that the seller was willing to accept
And this was when the Real estate market was booming - not recently


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## Leah Frances

md2lgyk said:


> Has nobody ever heard of a home inspection? If you don't have one done and don't do it yourself, you deserve what you end up with.


We paid out-of-pocket for an expert on houses over 200 years old to inspect our home. So, yes, I've heard of them. We used the inspection to rule out 'structural' problems with the house (of which, there were none). 

None of this means, however, that I am not perfectly entitled to complain about the [email protected] way the former owner took care of the house. 

I do all my DIY with this thought in my head: when someone else owns the house, one day, will they curse my name, or praise it?


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## cellophane

Leah Frances said:


> - I removed FOUR TONS of debris from the house and basement - (Leah + shovel + wheelbarrow + Mom's truck + MANY trips to the dump)


jeebus. i thought the two 20 yard dumpsters i filled up was a lot of stuff!


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## Plumb And Light

Great thread.


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## Xlerb

md2lgyk said:


> Has nobody ever heard of a home inspection? If you don't have one done and don't do it yourself, you deserve what you end up with.


Yup, I agree with you, but relying on home inspections to catch it all may lead to some surprises. In my experience with old houses you are better off if you know a much as possible about what to look for yourself.

Every significant issue in our house was known to us when we bought it. But not from a home inspector, but by our poking around in the house. We talked to several home inspectors, and here's what we found:


The inspection wouldn't cover the roof, as it was more than 20' (or so) off the ground
The inspection wouldn't cover the basement walls or foundation, as the basement was finished.
The inspection wouldn't cover the plumbing/ductwork, as the owner had indicated there was asbestos around the plumbing/ductwork (one small spot where a seam in a heat duct had been sealed with an asbestos tape of some sort).
So that and a couple other exclusions I don't remember at the moment meant that we'd be spending $500 just for someone to pretty much say "it's a house".

Nothing against home inspectors, they do good work and are typically well worth the $$$. But in our part of the country anyway there's nobody we could find that specialized in old houses. And I doubt they would have found anything more than we did anyway, as I spent a whole day poking around the place. (I think I probed every sill, and every board in the roof, etc). That was one nice thing about buying a house that was sitting empty. The realtor didn't care on bit how much time we spent looking it over.


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## HandyPete

md2lgyk said:


> Has nobody ever heard of a home inspection? If you don't have one done and don't do it yourself, you deserve what you end up with.


My thought s exactly! (almost)

I'd also like to add how poorly some of these DIY do the inspections themselves. 
_
please do not avoid the profanity censor - Moderator_

____pete

RULE #1 ASK ADVICE!!!! (from multiple sources)


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## rperry2394

And I thought I had it bad moving into my house with only a futon, tv stand (no tv) and a VCR. At least the house was functional. Although I have replaced the roof, garage door and converted the stove and drier to gas. So if, I get solar panels, do I convert the stove and drier to electric? Hmmm...


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## LeviDIY

I live in a 2BR condo built in 1980, so clearly nothing remotely like what Leah, Scuba and the rest of you have had... but my first place and I've learned a lot from it and from this whole site to know EXACTLY what to look for on the jump to a SFH next time... anyway here's my list:

Owner had 3 cats, apparently didn't know what a litter box was, urine/excrement stains all over carpet.. upon getting keys at settlement, that was the first thing ripped outta there.
Cat fur/dander in everything. Replacing all the outlets and switches, found hair back there in the boxes, in all the vents, in the heat pump blower, bathroom fans and even in the walls when we tore out the kitchen and bathroom.
Chain smoker inside.. walls need to be sealed, every surface was a different color (yellowish tinge) than it was originally.
Obviously, cosmetic issues mostly (she never cleaned it as long as she lived there, I'm convinced). 

The comments about a home inspector are spot on. I think valuable money (at least he pointed out leaky valves and we asked her to have them done prior to move in at her expense... that essentially made it a wash right there). While our building is fine, there are so many things our inspector didn't point out, that I had no idea I should even look at (first time homebuyer... I think our real estate agent should have helped at well.. but... my own fault) like the HVAC system's age/health, electric code problems, mold issues, ventilation, improper wiring to washer/dryer, etc.


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## Scuba_Dave

Leah Frances said:


> The teenage sons of the former homeowner graffitied up several rooms in the house. Some of the graffiti is spelled incorrectly. :laughing:


Did you take pics of the graffiti ?


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## Leah Frances

Hmmm. I'm not sure... I'll have to look. It was neither inspired in content or aesthetics. The funniest bit was written in the kitchen hall....it said, 
"I'm taking a bath"

Will wonders never cease.


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## gma2rjc

Maybe the kid didn't have a computer with Facebook, but still felt the need to 'leave a message on someone's wall'.

Hmm... that was supposed to be funny, but now that I think about it... :no:

Barb


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## fetzer85

I was laid off in Aug 09' and my wife got a good job offer, so we moved from Ohio to West Virginia. Couldn't get another mortgage while we still had our old house, so we found a fixer upper for $12k. I've gotta say its a great house for the price, but I've found some scary/funny things in the couple months we've been here.

1) An attempt was made to insulate the gaps around the front door. To do this they decided to staple those fabric softener sheets that go in your dryer all around the door frame. :huh:

2) After my daughters took a bath I found out the tub overflow was set up to drain onto the ceiling below.

3) Two floor joists were totally cut through below the toilet. They used furring strips to help 'brace' the joist.

4) There is a math problem written on part of a hallway wall in pencil - there is some new drywall put up and some missing. The problem goes like this:

11+
7+
14+
37+
19_
91

But the answer is 88. Maybe thats why all the drywall cuts are slanting and not quite long enough.

5) The bathroom sink was draining but pretty slowly, so I used the mini plunger on it. A few seconds later I get hundreds of little pieces of something floating in the sink. I pick a few up and realize it's all burnt up newspaper. I would've like to see what happened there. :laughing:

6) One of the furnace doors and the service panel door is missing.

7) They started digging a sump pit in the basement. The hole is 3' x 6'! I joked with my daughters (7 & 8) that it could be their swimming pool - they weren't having it.

Well, that's it in the first 2.5 months of living here. The house is 106 years old - I wish I could've seen it when it was first built.


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## Scuba_Dave

fetzer85 said:


> 7) They started digging a sump pit in the basement. The hole is 3' x 6'! I joked with my daughters (7 & 8) that it could be their swimming pool - they weren't having it.
> 
> Well, that's it in the first 2.5 months of living here. The house is 106 years old - I wish I could've seen it when it was first built.


My last house is 105 years old now
I actually dug a sump pit in the crawlspace about 32"x60"
Then I tossed the old cast iron bathtub in there
I didn't know what else to do with the bathtub
It actually made a nice sump pit area :laughing:


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## operagost

Despite the fact that my house is 210 years old, comprehensive renovations and additions were made during the 80s and 90s so it is in pretty good shape. My home inspector missed a few minor things, too (like that the water pressure tank was totally deflated, causing my pump to short-cycle like mad), but the biggie was the wiring in the attic. It was a 15 amp circuit that was properly wired into a new 200 amp panel back when they built the addition in the late 80s, but somehow they had managed to over load BOTH of the old receptacles in the attic bedroom. The lights still worked, so I didn't realize it until I went to plug in a fan and saw that the old two-prong outlets (the only ones in the place) were burnt and melted. Looks like the kids forgot to tell grandma what happened when they tried to plug in the space heater  Doesn't really hold a candle to the stuff you guys ran into, though.


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## Leah Frances

fetzer85 said:


> 4) There is a math problem written on part of a hallway wall in pencil - there is some new drywall put up and some missing. The problem goes like this:
> 
> 11+
> 7+
> 14+
> 37+
> 19_
> 91
> 
> But the answer is 88. Maybe thats why all the drywall cuts are slanting and not quite long enough.


This is hilarious! - I also have math problems on one of the original windows it's in beautiful copperplate. Also practicing alphabet. It was in what would have been servant's quarters - and I won't ever obliterate it.


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## Troglodyte

*Previous Home Owner Gripes*

Thought it would be fun to start a thread discussing the worst aspects (and best?!?) of DIY jobs done by previous homeowners.

I'm sure I'll leave behind a few for the poor sap who gets this house after me, but I still am amazed at some of what I have found.

1. We have a woodstove in our house. When we moved in it was sitting on plywood, yup, plywood. Naturally we replaced it, moved the stove, pulled up the plywood. Now the fact it was sitting on plywood was bad, but, the plywood was levelled with about 600 pieces of lego.

2. Every scrap end of wood ever cut by the previous home owner was kept. These were then loosely sorted into tupper-bins and stored in the shed. I'm talking 2 1/2 bins of 2X4 less then 4 inches long.

Anyway, I'll add some more when they occur to me (or encounter more perhaps).


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## capslock

I'd say the next owners of our home will not like the amateur quality of my DIY...but where do i start about the previous owners?

1) kitchen had recessed lights..that were plugged in with frayed wires
2) Beautiful hardwood floor in every room including the kitchen was covered by 50 year old (maybe older) carpet (kitchen was covered by 3 layers of linoleum)
3) main room ceiling turned out to be dropped to 7ft, with two additional layers of ceiling sitting above that...this was a fun project...
4) above the main room ceiling, I found live wires just resting, presumably connected to an old ceiling light from one of the previous ceilings above that. The live wires were covered with duct tape
5) unfinished downstairs shower seals. Everything works, but if there is a puddle of water on the floor I can guarantee it will seep down into the basement from where the tub meets the floor.
6) stairwell was only 5'11" from it's ceiling because the prior owner preferred to have a built-in speaker in the ceiling.
7) shed electrical power is plugged into an outlet in the basement. The outlet is powered by a 20amp fuse. But don't let that fool you, the outlet in the basement, the cable plugged in from the shed, and the outlet in the shed are rated for 15amps. In between the plug and the shed is a GHCI plug outside. I wouldn't be surprised if the cable is not rated for outdoor use.


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## CoconutPete

capslock said:


> 2) Beautiful hardwood floor in every room including the kitchen was covered by 50 year old (maybe older) carpet



Sounds like you moved into my house :thumbup:


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## HautingLu

CoconutPete said:


> Sounds like you moved into my house :thumbup:


Sounds like both of your PO's knew my PO's, and all three didn't like hardwood flooring. Other than that, I wouldn't know where to start in making the list.


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## hyunelan2

My house was 7 years old when I moved in. The original owners were not the DIY type thankfully. However, they seemed to be of the opinion that once you bought a house, you didn't need to do anything but live in it. I have been fixing all the drywall pops and cracks, probably from its original settling, and doing all sorts of minor things. Oil the hinges on squeaky doors, reattach the dryer vent ducting in the basement, fix a leaky utility sink, tighten bolts on gates, waterproof/stain the deck - and boy do my fence and cedar-sided shed need some attention.

Nothing is bad, but I just feel like, come-on, these things are so minor you couldn't fix them while you lived here? I think 1 out of every 3 lightbulbs were also burned out. Also, cleaning must not have been their strong suit. When we moved in (1 year and 1 day ago) the kitchen appeared clean, but there were layers of grease caked on TOP of the cabinets, that we literally had to use a scraper to get off. Behind the stove almost made me throw up.


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## Thunder Chicken

I bought a little 640 sq. ft. cottage near the lake. Originally built in 1941, probably only 3 boards in it belong to the original construction. The house was flipped at least 4 times since 2000. 

One of the previous owners wanted to put in closets in the "bedroom" (7' by 5' room - our bed touched 2 walls and we couldn't close the door) and the front room. What did they do? Well, they took a Sawz-All to 9 ft of an 18 ft bearing wall, of course! The closet "walls" were assembled by hanging 2' by 4's from the exposed rafters (which were actually not hanging, but in compression due to the absence of the bearing wall) then *hot gluing* in 1/4" pine paneling. Lighting was supplied by extension cords running through the walls. Anybody need some extension cords? 

One of the previous owners decided that they didn't really need gutters. It is clear that there *were* gutters as all the hangars and screws were left in place. Did I mention that there are cracks in the cinder block perimeter foundation? 

The floors are 2 by 4 joists butting on 4 by 4 beams. No joist hangars, just toe-nailed. Some of the joists ends are 1.5" shy of the beams. As you might imagine, the floors were probably bouncy. So, instead of getting joist hangars, one of the previous owners thought it was better and easier to just get a whole lot of clay sewer pipes, fill them with concrete, and buttress up *every single joist*. Really. Ironically, he couldn't replace the cracked clay sewer pipe while he was doing all of this.

All of the exterior lighting and electrical fixtures were not properly sealed, and were filled with wasp nests. Broken fixtures were abandoned in place. We couldn't figure out how to turn on the front yard light - turned out that the switch for it was in the bedroom. 

The good news - small houses mean less to fix, and there are some good people in the world. I have a great neighbor who is a licensed general contractor (why in the world the previous owners never knew him is beyond me). He basically let me do the demolition and cleanup of the interior paneling and sheetrock, and he did the new framing and electrical, and he then let me handle the insulation, sheetrock, and painting. He still got paid, but he basically played foreman for free for the stuff I did, just checking it before I closed things up. It cost about $10k (we were planning to renovate anyway) but almost half of the house was rebuilt, and it now is (more) safe and correct. 

The floor framing and the crawlspace is going to be an ongoing effort. It would be nice to lift the house, pour good perimeter wall and piers, and then set it all back down and clean up the joists, but I won't have cash for that for many, many years. So we have a nice little cottage sitting on a rather ugly, FUBAR 14" high crawlspace. All I can do is peck at it, install a hanger, replace a joist, start rolling out the sewer pipe "piers". A boy needs a hobby I guess!


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## Leah Frances

Sounds like a fun little cottage. :laughing: I must remember to remind myself: I don't have any structural problems. I don't have any structural problems.....


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## Wildie

Mine isn't much of a horror story.
We bought a house that was 70 years old. it was an estate sale.
The house was built by the previous owners parents when he was 3 years old.
The man lived in the house all his life, even died there.
It was a beautiful house, done by carpenters who were excellent craftsmen.
Only thing was, absolutely nothing was done to the house in 70 years. The paint on the walls was the original paint. Not one second coat, anywhere. All the wiring was the original knob and tube. In perfect operating order, but never the less k&t. Had beautiful antique light fixtures. 
The plumbing probably wasn't as old as the house, because municipal sewers never came along until 1929.


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## Thunder Chicken

Leah Frances said:


> Sounds like a fun little cottage. :laughing: I must remember to remind myself: I don't have any structural problems. I don't have any structural problems.....


Well, yeah. The hope is down the line that this will be a nice little rental property and we can get into a little larger home. First houses are just like first cars, you learn a lot about how cars work when they don't! :laughing:


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## md2lgyk

Leah Frances said:


> Inspired by the title of another thread I thought it might be fun to find out what sort of bozo things DIYers are dealing with from former homeowners.
> 
> When I moved into my house:
> - There was not one single door knob on any interior door of the house
> - There was not one single light bulb in a light fixture
> - Only two of five exterior doors could close and lock
> - The former homeowner drained the oil tank
> - every sink, toilet, and tub leaked (water bill dropped by 70% once I moved in)
> - Five attic windows were so rotten they either failed to close or failed to keep out the weather
> - A chronic leak at the dishwasher rotted a 2 square foot hole in the kitchen floor (subfloor and all)
> - The fridge was so poorly maintained that we had to throw it out
> - The window air conditioner units were leaking into the walls
> - 100 square feet of carpet pad was glued to the hardwood floor
> - I removed FOUR TONS of debris from the house and basement - (Leah + shovel + wheelbarrow + Mom's truck + MANY trips to the dump)
> - We had to remove six trees that were so damaged or dying that they presented a hazard to the house
> - The teenage sons of the former homeowner graffitied up several rooms in the house. Some of the graffiti is spelled incorrectly. :laughing:
> 
> This is the short list of things that jump to mind. I'm sure there have to be some good stories out there....


What did you expect from Eastern Shore inbreds? Two of the worst years of my life were when I had to move to Easton for business.


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## DesignEye

PLAIN O TX said:


> Neighbors told us Dominion Republic Mafia used to live in our home. We had band aids covering bullet holes in the sheet rock, kicked in doors, and piles of "new, pilfered" children clothing and chain link fence in the attic? We bought a repo and are still trying to undo damage. County deputies have stopped by at different times and apologised "you are not who we are looking for, sorry". I am still trying to find the hidden drug money stash! It's got to be hidden here somewhere!


Scary stuff


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## coderguy

This is a current recount of things...



Animals were getting into kneeling attic space. They didn't call animal control or anything; they simply went outside with a two by four and nailed it over the hole. I've removed 3 corpses. I had to pry one off the floor.
Drain was run to the shower; and the metal cover was on the shower but there was nothing between them. A good 1/4 inch gap where all the water was flowing right down to the basement.
3-seasons room built on dirt and attached to the house with caulk; so that one of the inside walls was siding. The door into the house from this room was a scrapped original door. Heat/Cool wise, it was like having a window wide open. They then DIY solved this by spray-foaming the entire door frame; sealing the door closed.
The front screen door had a rail-style mounting system where the hinges fit under a rail and then you screwed them in. The hinges were simply screwed in sitting outside the rail; so the door barely moved and didn't close.
During the fire rehab; they swept the fire debris into the ductwork; and left it there.
They built a retaining wall by half-burying 9 cement blocks in the side yard.


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## ThatDaveGuy

Yeah it can be fun to play "What *were* they thinking???" after you move in.

Y'all have me beat hands down, but a year in I am still running into Huh? things here.

They didn't like the old laminate countertops, so they painted them.......poorly..... with a brush......in a weak attempt at granite-y stonesque swirls that are closer to wino vomit in an alley.

They redid the kitchen floor by using 2X4 pcs of masonite just kind of tossed down w/ smaller bits and pieces to fill in the holes and ugly peel-n-stick tile of the cheapest kind holding them together in a jigsaw of stupid.

Since they painted the bathroom vanity, mirror, window and toilet seat flat black with a cheap brush (or a squirrel, I'm not sure), they needed some other black highlights so they whacked the white tile w/ a hammer to break 'em out enough to glue 4X black granite unchamfered tiles in their place............. classy :thumbup: 

Home Depot was remiss in not following thru with that restraining order that might have kept them from painting virtually every wall a different atrocious color.

At some point one of the front gutters came loose, so of course they reattached it w/ Liquid Nails, y'know, the way the pros do :whistling2:

That worked so well they used the LN to hang light fixtures in multiple places.

The cracked grout in the bathroom was filled with........ well, I'm still not sure, smegma? Some type of gelatinous semi-organic life.

And of course, since that wall was wet inside, and the drywall deteriorating, the only answer was to glue a mirror to it, again with Liquid Nails, the answer to everything, duct tape in a tube!

Some dingdong in years past had screwed around with the ducts so the house was cold (which I figgered when I saw the oversized wood burning stove parked in the doorway between the livingroom and diningroom) so they went to HD again and bought bags of blow in cellulose. Of course, they weren't about to go through all that time consuming installation, the bags were slit open and dumped in a pile in the middle of the attic. Shweet, if you're cold, go in the closet, it has about R-88 in the ceiling.


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## vln

Used duct tape on *EVERYTHING.* Seriously, the HVAC connections were patched with duct tape (to prevent leaks). All electrical connections were done with duct tape. Repairing holes in walls was done with duct tape. Note all the duct tape was extremely old and peeling, thus making almost everything a hazardous mess.

Used grout on everything. He might as well just poured 10 gallons of the stuff all over the showers and baths. 

Used faulty outside wiring outside and covered an in-ground hot tub against code with a dry rotted wood deck.

Covered a old and deteriorated wood shingle roof with aluminum shingles, which cracked and bent at the slightest pressure (Note this was texas were it hailed hard).

The previous owner was an idiot and tried to do everything by himself. I still can't believe what he tried to pull off.


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## coderguy

ThatDaveGuy said:


> Since they painted the bathroom vanity, mirror, window and toilet seat flat black with a cheap brush (or a squirrel, I'm not sure)


That made me to a spit-take. Hilarious.


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## Thunder Chicken

ThatDaveGuy said:


> Since they painted the bathroom vanity, mirror, window and toilet seat flat black with a cheap brush (or a squirrel, I'm not sure)


A live one or a dead one? :laughing:

This thread ought to be a sticky. It is far too easy to be grim about the "WTF?!?" stuff you stumble across in your house. You really need to learn to laugh at how ridiculous it is.


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## CoconutPete

Well ... I recently found out that the "contractor" who redid the bathroom in our house in 2007 (we bought it in 2009) decided it would be a good idea to tie the new bathroom into the same 15A circuit that runs the 2 upstairs bedrooms.

- Added "find way to run a piece of romex from newly isntalled 200amp panel to attic" to my Honeydo list.


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## WillK

Ohh let's see.

Explaining the pictures below:
One picture shows the smaller of two very large birds nests found in the attic above the second floor. No access to the attic existed, I just discovered this by way of tearing down lath and plaster so I could eliminate old building material likely to have lead based paint, and insulate and rewire.

Another picture shows the rafters over one dormer. 2x4 rafters spanning 13'. No ventilation in the dormer. The entire roof system was ventilated by 4 can vents located high in the ceiling (with no vent baffles on the sloped ceiling) all of which were stuffed full of birds nest. The rafters shown are on 24" spacing. The sag is visible. But beyond what the picture shows, when the roof had previously been done, the entire roof was sheathed over with 3/4" OSB. The sag was present on the dormer as evidenced by the presence of 2x4 and OSB scraps between the old sheathing and new sheathing to fill the gap. Upon removal, ALL rafters in both dormers were rotted to the point they could be crumbled in hand.

Regarding the picture showing a ceiling with surface mounted raceway leading to a ceiling light: The light was actually wired through the attic. The raceway contains a single conductor. This conductor connects the neutral of the light to the neutral of the receptacle seen on the far wall. These two things are on different circuits. The raceway continues to the near wall, connecting these neutrals to something in the junction box where the light switch for this light is, out of frame. This was a relatively minor infraction compared with electrical issues in this house.

Three of the pictures are pretty self explanitory. Wires spliced to knob and tube, masking tape over the splice. A closet with a metal junction box, no clamps, lamp cord wire. An outlet falling apart, wired with no clamps - not visible in the picture is the splice to knob and tube done outside a junction box.

I like pictures, so I'll have to continue in another post.


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## WillK

The knob and tube shown in one picture with the insulation mising at a splice... This was at the sight of the larger of two birds nests mentioned in my previous post. The loose wire connected to nothing: It really was connected to nothing and sitting loose in the attic, with all the birds nests which was on top of blown in insulation.

One picture shows a white wall with a hunk of duct tape sticking out of it. Whatever used to be connected to the wire inside the duct tape was there no longer. The wires were terminated inside duct tape, shoved in teh wall, and the duct tape was painted to match the wall. The wires were live.

The light shown was in the water closet. Lampcord was very typical for a lot of things on the second floor.

I couldn't possibly confine my notes about the condition of my house to electrical issues, of course. The house, built in 1917, is on a crawlspace. There are 3 footings under the center beam. If you count that as a foundation system, then that is all there is to count as a foundation system. The rest is typical of the stacks of cement blocks shown. Rim joists rotted away on one side, and all floor joists have been sistered at least once.

Remember how I mentioned blown in insulation? It wasn't black when it was blown in.

The exposed roof structure shown here is actually the good side. But the interior drywall was damaged at home purchase, and this is where I had my first suggestion that I might need to see what's going on behind the.. drywall. Drywall isn't really the right word for what covered the wall and ceiling framing. There were 2' wide pieces of drywall put onto the side walls and parts of the room that were built onto the house with an addition. These were never finished, but rather covered with a fiberboard material that had its joints covered with thin wood strips and was painted. Anyway, the underside of the roofing sheathing on the otherside was worse off - rotted and sagging. This one was just rotted and replaced poorly.


----------



## WillK

But wait, there's more!

The open stand pipe shown here in the crawlspace is where the furnace humidifier drain went. This is where the sewage came out when it couldn't flow through the pipe to the city sewer under the driveway because it had collapsed in 2 places and had tree root infiltration from the tree on the opposite side of the house (which is about 5 feet from the house. Beautiful tree. Probably as old as the house. But we're going to have to remove it to put in a foundation)

Someone mentioned cut joists for bathtub drains. I have that too, but the picture here shows the cut floor joist at the toilet. Along with half baked attempts to reconnect it to adjacent joists, and the fact that the unsupported cut joist is sistered. (the bathtub joist that is cut doesn't have any such attempted reconnections, and is sistered 3 times. I.E. 4 boards thick.)

When the weather turned cold, we learned that not only was the cracked and heaved driveway a tripping hazard that could cause insurance companies to cancel policies, but it also was one way for rats to come in out of the cold. The body count ended at 15. Might've been more, one of them looked huge as if it might have been carrying a litter.

Okay, back to the wiring since this is worth mentioning. The birds nest shown here is where the wires for the switch that runs the electricity for the garage connects in. I couldn't figure out what was going on, so I just disconnected it all and went powerless in the garage. Somehow, this came out in the middle of the garage in conduit that came out of the slab.

Under the kitchen sink, speaks for itself.

I don't really have a good picture to show the gas leak that was present at the time we bought the house, but the pipe shown here is where the gas came out in one of those flexible copper pipes and was connected to the galvanized pipe buried underground to go out to the garage for the heater. But this isn't the leak, the leak was in the crawlspace. We had the seller turn off the gas, I completely disconnected the garage and replaced gas pipe to the water heater, we discarded the gas dryer.


----------



## WillK

Now, inspection was mentioned. Inspection wasn't going to tell us all of this nor was it going to get this fixed. We had an inspection. Our inspector spent 3 hours in the house with us. Our inspector missed things, for example he assumed the new 100 amp panel was installed professionally. Might have been, but it had code violations such as not being bonded to the plumbing, and never through the entire history of this 1917 house had an electrical permit EVER been pulled. 

But the inspection served a purpose. The house was listed at $35k. We used the seller's agent as a dual agent, we wanted to offer $22k but the agent told us they ad turned down an offer of $30k from a flipper who then moved on to another house, so we tenatively offered $32k. After the inspection we dropped the offer to $25k and they took it. Through the inspection we learned that there were electrical problems and no foundation, and as such no bank would ever finance the house and their pool of buyers would be very limitted. They had no liens because the seller inheritted the house from his dad's estate, the family had bought the house in 1973 (for $22k)

The house has a 2 car detatched garage with workshop going for it too, wiring aside the garage was in reasonable condition. The house had new good quality professionally installed windows.

I'll wrap up with some before and after pictures of the roof. With the exception of my brother-in-law helping a lot with tearing off the old shingles, I did the roof myself. I really didn't get enough before pictures though to really show how mad off the roof was, but you can see that I made changes to the structure of the roof over the dormer as part of the work. I've since installed new vinyl gutters, but I didn't get that done before it snowed. I wasn't concerned with perfecting everything as I plan to do the work needed to make the house's structural and electric foundation sound, then pay off the credit cards and land contract, and then get into major renovations - which I intend to have done professionally.

3 of the pictures show the roof before, and one shows after. In case it isn't obvious, the picture showing the house with gable roof over the dormers is after I completed the roof.


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## pete0403

> The main card I called them & asked if they had any problem with my maxing out my credit limit with a cash advance. I heard cheering & a bell ringing.


This made me laugh...

several minor things in the house we bought almost 2 years ago:

-The dishwasher drain was run straight down through the floor and a hole was drilled in the copper stack so the drain hose could be inserted and it was covered with mastic tape.
-several electrical boxes in the basement where connections were made outside the box for some reason
-both fluorescent lights in the basement were wired to the box with individual wires (gnd, neutral, hot) run separately without the sheilding.
-water meter was in backwards (utility's fault) I guess they thought the arrow points INTO the flow?
-Dishwasher supply line was run through an uninsulated cantilever with only 1/4" ply separating it from -20*C nights outside.
-Basement window in slab wall was insulated by a blanket taped to the wall
-aluminum circuit for the downstairs bathroom branched off the outlet for our kitchen fridge which is a copper circuit and a Cu only receptacle. (Reminds me, I still have to fix this *eek*)
-live armoured cable burried with no protection in the back yard to two aluminum sheds
-ceiling light box in our bedroom was protected from the insulation with a plastic grocery bag.
-Extension cord plugged into basement plug and run up through the floor for an electrical connection in the front closet
-the most horrible mess of spaghetti telephone wiring i've ever seen

The worst part: The home inspector missed all of the above.

Luckily I've fixed most of these things. Gonna install a proper outlet in the kitchen for that Al/Cu circuit this weekend to get me by until I rewire the bathroom.


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## ChrisDIY

Still cannot figure this out? Rotated picture of stairs

Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using Android DIY Chatroom


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## Red Squirrel

Wow some scary stuff. I had some issues with mine, but nothing that major. I think the previous owners were more or less handy but there was some sketchy stuff.

-Mold in the kitchen ceiling, suspecting the kitchen vent was blocked with snow at one point and it condensated, or maybe there was a roof leak, either way, the problem is fixed and never came back after replacing the drywall and insulation

-Basement had funny smell, the drywall job was horrible and beyond repair (probably why they put paneling on top). When I removed a part of the basement, I discovered the source of the smell. Lot of mold and rot. Decided to remove everything and go right down to bare basement. They had used tar paper over the blocks, faced insulation, and vapor barrier, as the seal. It could not breathe at all. Not to mention I found out this year that the weeping tiles and outside sealing need to be redone, so there's why it got moist in first place behind there. 

- while tearing out basement ceiling (needed for the network jacks I wanted) I found some hidden junction boxes for lights, though the way those lights were designed I can't see any other way to do it. They were either designed for drop ceiling installations, or back then hidden junction boxes were ok. They were quite old, probably original. 

- some other electrical code violations such as improper breaker size for wire used, and a spot where for some reason, a neutral is shared with another circuit. 


More minor stuff:

- kitchen was super ugly, there was grease and other dirt all over the cupboards and all. In fact overall the house was pretty dirty, so that got redone completely

- Bathroom was pretty nasty as well, so that got redone completely

- This house had a pretty serious spider infestation. Now it's much much better. I think just cleaning up, and spraying inside and out with pesticide every now and then has helped a lot. 

Overall, it was not too bad, but at the end I did end up putting over 20k into it before moving in. Lot of it was more aesthetics than serious issues though, and to speed up the process I got a pro to do most of the work, but I did a lot of the prep work myself like removing the old cabinets and stuff, and my parents helped a lot too. Being my first home I wanted something completed to move into. If ever I get another home I will probably get a fixerupper and do most of the stuff myself.


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## Thunder Chicken

Here's a new one from my money pit. A previous owner decided that he did not like the 20' by 20' concrete patio in the back yard and so buried it under 2-4" of dirt (which wouldn't take grass at all). 

I just had the dirt cleared off and all of the concrete removed and the yard regraded and seeded. Beautiful.

After a couple of rainstorms, a couple of small rocks poked up. No big deal, I just grabbed a shovel and pried them out. What was the under the rocks? *ANOTHER* 20' BY 20' CONCRETE PATIO, buried by an even earlier owner! (If you're keeping track, my back yard was layered like an Oreo cookie, top-to-bottom: 4" dirt, 4" concrete, 4" dirt, 4" concrete, dirt). 

Explains why the grade of the back yard was a full foot higher than the house foundation. I spent an entire weekend driving a 4' piece of rebar into my yard every 6 inches to make doubly sure that was it. It was (WHEW!)


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## Wildie

pete0403 said:


> This made me laugh...
> 
> several minor things in the house we bought almost 2 years ago:
> 
> -The dishwasher drain was run straight down through the floor and a hole was drilled in the copper stack so the drain hose could be inserted and it was covered with mastic tape.
> -several electrical boxes in the basement where connections were made outside the box for some reason
> -both fluorescent lights in the basement were wired to the box with individual wires (gnd, neutral, hot) run separately without the sheilding.
> -water meter was in backwards (utility's fault) I guess they thought the arrow points INTO the flow?
> -Dishwasher supply line was run through an uninsulated cantilever with only 1/4" ply separating it from -20*C nights outside.
> -Basement window in slab wall was insulated by a blanket taped to the wall
> -aluminum circuit for the downstairs bathroom branched off the outlet for our kitchen fridge which is a copper circuit and a Cu only receptacle. (Reminds me, I still have to fix this *eek*)
> -live armoured cable burried with no protection in the back yard to two aluminum sheds
> -ceiling light box in our bedroom was protected from the insulation with a plastic grocery bag.
> -Extension cord plugged into basement plug and run up through the floor for an electrical connection in the front closet
> -the most horrible mess of spaghetti telephone wiring i've ever seen
> 
> The worst part: The home inspector missed all of the above.
> 
> Luckily I've fixed most of these things. Gonna install a proper outlet in the kitchen for that Al/Cu circuit this weekend to get me by until I rewire the bathroom.


 Was the building inspector the previous owner?


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## bigdaddyII

Im new here, but some of these experiences make me feel a bit better about my own situation. The only really serious goofiness is the electrical, and not even to create a new hazard. The house was built in 1959, so naturally it has no grounds anywhere. The panel has been updated to 200 amp service, likely when they bricked in the garage to make a living room. The only grounded outlets in the entire house is the 6 that was installed with the addition. The head scratcher is when I was checking things out. A few circuits were replaced some time ago with romex 12-2. Instead of spending the extra $5 on updated outlets, whoever changed the line stripped the ground wire out of the romex instead of grounding the new circuit. That was the bigger head scratcher. 

The guy we bought the house from lived in it 20 years and never messed with the electrical (from the breaker panel), however he did remodel the bathroom, master bedroom, and kitchen. While he had the walls down he did replace the "daisy chains" with romex and actually connected the ground on a few of them, although the circuit itself is ungrounded. On 2 circuits he redid he just snipped the ground wire off, but did leave enough slack to strip and connect, so when I rewire this will be easier then having to fish "daisy chains". Of course when I do rewire I will change all the circuits to where they make sense so I dont know how much of a favor that really was lol.

The majority of other stuff include:
-No transition moldings on any surface changes. I have since installed for the living room to kitchen and laundry room to living room (ceramic to laminate on both). The hall and 2 bedrooms still have to be redone so I will wait on the rest.
-The crown moldings in the kitchen, bathroom, and master bedroom were all installed upside down.
-The vertical door frame molding around the laundry room door were too short, so he simply installed a shorter piece to make the distance to the floor. 
-Instead of installing a door frame with door in the master bedroom, he installed a breezeway type frame. Not sure what his train of thought was here.
- The kitchen counter tops are ceramic, and has to be the most careless work I have ever seen. At the corner none of the tiles match up, every single last one is uneven.
- The sink was neither clamped or siliconed. 
- When he redid the kitchen he took out the original window that went from kitchen to garage (now living room). This was sheetrocked in from kitchen side, but the hole was still present on living room side. His answer was to cut a piece of cement board and spackle it in. This is on paneling.
- All of the cabinets/ pantries in the house the previous owner custom built. My kitchen has no cabinet doors, not the sellers fault. He intended to add the cabinet doors and my real estate agent screwed me on that by taking it upon herself to give that up in an arguement with his agent over other stuff we wanted repaired. I didnt know this went on until the final inspection to make sure the other repairs were made, we decided to still buy as what it will cost to have these doors custom built was not worth walking out on a house in such a great neighborhood and the price we paid. The bathroom cabinets, bedroom closets do have doors though, but no knobs installed.
- Some doors have 1 piece of molding each that is not painted. No rhyme or reason to this either.
-


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## Marqed97

We had a home inspection in December of last year. Naturally, with my luck, it snowed 7" that day. Wet, heavy stuff. Being a foreclosure, the water was off but strangely they left the boiler on. 

Previous owner buried a gas line under the yard 30' to the garage. Terminated in the garage, no cap, no valve. Only valve is at the meter where the line tees off. 

There is a 220 feed and subpanel in the garage, buried in conduit, all okay. BUT, everything in the garage was being powered by the original wire run, which was 2 runs of 12/2 romex buried 6" under the yard. 

Pulled up nasty living room carpet to find the hardwood stops 12" in from the walls where it becomes OSB. 

Plumbing is an odd mix of copper, abs, and galvanized. The washer, basement bathroom & shower, and laundry tub lack a proper vent. 

They carpeted and paneled the basement walls over known foundation leaks. Yay mold! No sump pump/drain tiles. 

Every junction box lacks any sort of cable clamp/protection, just romex running thru a raw metal hole (about 11 of them). 

Holes drilled above every bedroom door to run cable, phone, and Ethernet cables. Holes in the plaster from wire staples. 

Painted wallpaper. In every room. And the wallpaper is bubbled everywhere. 

A main structural post in the center of the basement was removed to widen the path from the stairs to the laundry room. They put a screw column in about 3' back. You can actually see the beam sagging under the weight of 3 levels of stairs directly above it. 

That's pretty much the worst thing I've found yet. While looking at the old coal cellar, we found this. Decided not to paint over it. Well wishing ghosts maybe...


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## Gymschu

I feel your pain. I'm about 15 years into a similar situation. The house I bought was one of those that had a new owner about every 3 years........no one did a whole lot of maintenance........it was just a holdover house until something better came along. I had the same thing as you......exposed electrical boxes, old fuse box, knob and tube wiring, hacked up plumbing, just a complete mess. I'm just now tackling the roof which was looking bad 15 years ago! There is light at the end of the tunnel. If I can offer any advice it is this: Don't tackle every problem all at once, tackle one or two at a time & you will make some headway.


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## Marqed97

Yep, one or two at a time. Heck that's overwhelming enough. The previous owners were basically kicked out and decided to stick a piece of wire in the toilet tank on the 2nd floor in such a manner that it would overflow the tank once the water was turned on. That was a surprise. It ran about 2 hours between when the utility guy left and me and my agent arrived. No serious damage, but allowed me to bargain another almost 10k off the price! Fine by me. 

Would I buy this place again? Absolutely. Great neighborhood, quiet, nice people, everyone has dogs and is responsible with them. And like other folks on here found, the neighbors were totally thrilled to find out a young couple with kids was moving in, planning to stay, and fixing the house up. They've been great to us so far.


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## Red Squirrel

That pic makes me want to paint my basement walls. There's something about gray painted cinder block that gives it that government secret secure location feeling. Just need a blue stripe or something. :thumbup:


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## kwikfishron

Red Squirrel said:


> That pic makes me want to paint my basement walls. There's something about gray painted cinder block that gives it that *government secret secure location* feeling. Just need a blue stripe or something. :thumbup:


Well isn’t that the basement theme you’ve been looking for RS? :laughing:


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## Red Squirrel

kwikfishron said:


> Well isn’t that the basement theme you’ve been looking for RS? :laughing:


Kinda, that's why I said that. :laughing:


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## Marqed97

I'll try to find the 'before' pictures of the 2nd floor bedrooms. One was fluorescent lime green. No kidding. Over wallpaper of course. And the other was your classic 1960's hospital pale 'sterile' green. Oh lord was it awful. The living room was flesh toned and pretty dark at that. And the kitchen....wow. Top half was sponged on flesh tone over pale pink, then a 12" border featuring hopping bunnies. And the bottom half was a dark pinstriped green. Yurk! They even wallpapered/bordered every outlet/switch plate....7 of them.


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## speedtree

My PO bought it as a foreclosure and did a lot of work to it. Some good and some not so good. 

The electrical is a mess. Some knob and tube in the lighting circuits but so far it all works ok. Fortunately they wired the outlets to new grounded outlets. However, when we went to use the heat the first winter, no heat in middle bedrooms on floors 2 & 3. Found out they ran all the wires up the heating duct for those rooms. Had to re-run wires outside the duct and reattach it into the heating system. PITA.

The garbage disposal only works when the basement lights are on. This is newer wiring too so not sure what happened there. 

Circuits are crazy. I have kitchen and basement and 3rd floor stuff on the same circuit. 

Pulled 9 layers of roofing off the back lap roof. Can't wait to do the main one.

Kitchen has 3 inches of flooring built up in it. Some under cabinets and the last few layers not. Also, kitchen walls had plaster pulled off and then troweled with some sort mud or something and then painted. I would like to take it down to the brick but I'm afraid of the job. It seems like pretty hard stuff.


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## Rob1980

There's a few things that have made me go "huh?" or want to strangle the previous owner/s:

Caulk - they must have got some kind of special deal on it, because it was used EVERYWHERE for EVERYTHING. For example, there were holes in the wood in the stair treads. They didn't use wood putty to fill them though, no... caulk. Everywhere there's a hole, there's caulk.

We found a trowel (minus the handle) behind drywall, being used as a shim!

Everything in the bathroom must have come from a dumpster or something. The sink had a crack in it. The bathtub had a hole (which was high up, so okay for showering, but not baths!) and the toilet was cracked.

When renovating the 2 back bedrooms we found out why the floor seemed a bit uneven and spongy at the doorway where they meet. The joists had been replaced under 1 room up to where it meets the other, leaving the floor at 2 different heights. They cut small pieces of plywood and left them laying there, not screwed or nailed, just loose.

We also figured out why the AC wasn't working very well in those bedrooms. They drywalled over an open vent, so some of the air was going into the wall cavity.

The worst thing, though, is that they framed walls (it's an old house, originally just with brick walls and plaster, so doing this allows insulation and drywall) in most rooms but didn't seem to want to buy 2x4 longer than 8'. This is a bit of an issue when the ceilings are higher than that! So the studs are 8' (or less) 2x4 with a piece of 2x4 cut to make up the shortfall in distance to the ceiling, and sistered together. Surely just buying 10' 2x4 would have been easier?


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## ChrisDIY

Here is another one, yes that's the roof inside the closet.


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## Snav

Funny thread! Over the years we've learned that:

* They 'fixed' the water-damaged and sagging subfloor in the kitchen by adding layers of 1/4" wallboard in between the floor/subfloor to make it flush.
* The self-installed shower in the 1/2 bath was never fully connected to the plumbing - the drain pipe was just propped up to the opening above - catching 1/2 the water from the shower.
* The mirrors that were permanently hung on the hallway wall and doors were there to hide holes - the one on the wall was there to hide a human-size opening that was cut to add in the poorly plumbed shower.
* Everything leaked: I've replaced 10 joists, over 50 studs and 200SF of subflooring due to water damage.
* The septic tank had collapsed and was 'covered over' by a few sheets of plywood - which rotted and fell in on itself.
* There were no P or S traps on the drains.
* Someone didn't have a clue to actually use CPVC glue on CPVC pipe.
* The builders of the home were lazy and couldn't measure, cut or hammer straight to save their lives


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## ChrisDIY

As a result of my first rehab which had many of the issues we share. I told myself to always do a total gut and see behind *every* wall. This house although built in 2005 is just as bad or worse as my first project which was built in 1890.


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## Snav

Absolutely, Chris - that's my approach - down come the walls and if there's any issue - up comes the subfloor.

Even the ceiling, that too - I replaced all bits of the ceiling that had signs of water damage and I addressed the water damaged areas in the attic as well.


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## gspina

ChrisDIY said:


> Here is another one, yes that's the roof inside the closet.


My house has this too!!!! I'm so glad I"m not the only one  :thumbup:


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## gspina

I will add pictures of some of my fun later. The bright side we picked this house up for less than my wifes minivan and the people in the neighborhood were thrilled to see us move in. We are still doing work on the house and still coming across issues. 

Some interesting notes


Roof leaked everywhere, 
Roof vents were instaleld about 4-8" below the openings for the vents
None of the flashing was done
There were 5 layers of sub flooring, every time the floor rotted they added a new layer
the drywall was addative, in some places I had 4 layers of drywall
Where the ceiling leaked the previous owner put up plastic sheeting and hung drywall over it
Electrical was a bit of a nightmare, 
Some parts of the house were seeing severe voltage drops due to poor connectiosn
My 2 year old running across the floor would cause the lights and outlets in the dining room to turn on and off
We still have phantom light switches we are tracking down
2 of our outside doors are intended for interior use only
I have to cut the power to the garage to prevent anyone from getting zapped
Live bare wires everywhere inside and out
The grass hadn't been cut in 3-4 years
somewhere under the earthen buildup and grass was a driveway
Neighborhood cats had made a home (and graveyard) out of the garage
The gutters butt up against bare wood wall
the mast and electric meeter had to be replaced after it fell down taking out the power feed to the block. (Homeowner DIY never secured the mast to the houe)


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## Thunder Chicken

Probably a whole thread topic in itself, but when my wife and I were house hunting, we saw this seemingly cute house up for sale in a beach-side neighborhood. Driving in the neighborhood was nice - well-kept houses and nice cars all over. Pulling up to the house, the outside was a little bland but seemed pretty nice. Maybe we were at the end of our search!

Then the agent opened the door.

We were almost knocked backwards by the smell of mold coming out of the door. Apparently the house had been foreclosed, and the previous owner basically played out a scorched-earth plan to drive the property value through the floor for the bank. They had turned on all of the water spigots in the house and plugged all of the drains, so there was approximately 4 feet of water in the basement (which was finished). All of the drywall under water had fallen to pieces, the rest was black with mold. The water had been pumped out, but it was still pretty wet and squishy down there.

All rooms upstairs had been graffitied with anti-bank slogans and curses on the bank and on any future owners, in gold enamel paint and permanent marker. There was mold all of the way up to the second floor of the house.

We explored out of morbid curiosity. Despite the damage, you could tell that once upon a time this was a beautiful house. Nice fixtures, fireplace with stone hearth, all relatively new construction. All trashed.

I asked if there was any plan for the bank to remediate for the asking price (the asking price would have been a low average value for that property had the property been in undamaged condition). When they said no we shrugged our shoulders and walked away.

It is still on the market, 2 years later, for $10k less then they were originally asking. Somebody at the bank needs to get a clue.


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## ThatDaveGuy

gspina said:


> My 2 year old running across the floor would cause the lights and outlets in the dining room to turn on and off


If this had been my son I wouldn't have been allowed to fix it :laughing:


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## High Gear

ThunderChicken;

I had a similar experience when house hunting a few years ago.

I literely had to run out of the house as the mold was just about to trigger an asthma attack.

The realter wasn't too far behind me ....pricy house too ..

.previous owners should be held criminaly liable for deliberate destruction.


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## TNShutterbug

I had to join these forums just so I could say thanks for making me feel so much better about our house! :laughing:

My husband and I purchased a 1936 bungalow, bank owned foreclosure, last December. We knew mostly what we were getting into but of course surprises pop up when you start digging in and actually fixing things. What we knew before we bought the house.....

1. There was no heat source in the house, no appliances & no bathroom sink or vanity. If it was of value and the PO put it in... they took it out before the bank took it back.
2. The old knob & tube wiring had been updated but not professionally.
3. The kitchen and bathroom were in need of a lot of work.
4. The house had old single pane so not energy efficient windows.
5. The house was structurally sound.
6. The roof was only 5 years old.
7. The laundry room was unfinished, no drywall just bare insulation.
8. Two of three of the exterior doors were relatively new & all 3 were functional.

We never saw the interior of the house in person until after we paid for the house. Family members did all of our foot work for us, sending lots of pictures, before we made the 1400 mile move of a life time. So we arrived to find... 

Vandals had broken several windows. When we warmed the house up all the slumbering wasps that had found their way in.. woke up! 

The bank had gone ahead and had the water shut off as soon as they accepted our bid but they never emptied the pressure tank. Several pipes had burst, outside... in the shed... where the water heater & pressure tank are located as east TN saw one of the coldest winters in history which happened to arrive just days ahead of us. At least it wasn't in the house & the water heater was not damaged so we really lucked out on that one. 

The drywall job was bad. You could (and in a few rooms can still) see where every seam was. Drywall tape was actually peeling up under the paint they slapped on top of it and said good enough. The ceilings in the house are no exception. Popcorn sprayed on loose tape which is bubbled up and or peeling in several spots. 

The carpet strip on the stairs is glued on. The stairs, well lets just say they aren't right! When you turn on my closet light, located under the stairway, you can see the light beaming up through cracks as you go up the stairs. 

Half of the dining room was carpeted, half of it was wood laminate which was not glued, nailed or secured in any fashion. It wasn't even properly installed as a floating floor.

Until we installed a new heatilator 3 sided gas fireplace w/a blower we had to depend on space heaters which led to the discovery that half my kitchen, half my bedroom and half of my daughters bedroom were all run on 1 breaker. The other half of the living room is on its own breaker. My boys room shares a breaker with the dining room. At least we discovered this the first day!

We knew the kitchen needed work and had seen photos but to give you an idea there is only one functional drawer, half the cabinet doors are missing and the wall cabinets are sagging from age. The base cabinets had been covered with a layer of sheetrock. We fully expected to find rotted wood under that but surprisingly we found wood in great shape with butt ugly contact paper on it. I will never understand the thinking behind that one.... I don't like the contact paper in the cabinets.. guess I'll just drywall over it... :laughing: Thats not all. The counter tops if you could really call them that were plywood with wallboard glued on top of it. We have made some temporary fixes, brought in our appliances and so forth but we will need to gut it & bring in an electrician so its still on the list & who knows what is left to find in there.

On to the bathroom. As bad as the kitchen sounds this room was much worse and first on the list of renovations. The shower walls were, drum roll please, cheap carboard wall board glued to sheetrock. The tub was not caulked... it was trimmed with what else? Good ol' wood window trim! Needless to say it was all rotten and molded so we tackled that project as soon as heat was established & windows repaired. Down came the wall board, down came the drywall, then we found a layer of peel and stick laminate tiles, under that was another layer of peel & stick laminate tiles, under that was a material I'd never seen before,under that on one wall was a window! It hadn't been taken out or sealed off on the outside so suddenly my bathroom had twice as much light. We actually took out 7 layers of done wrong before we could start to put it back together, the right way. There were also 4 layers of laminate tile on the bathroom floor under the 4 patterns pieced together to create the top layer.

The exterior needs paint, the front & 2 sides of the house are one color, the back of the house is a totally different color. The yard (3 acres) was actually cut & free of debris.

We bought this house cash, no credit cards or loans to pay for it @ 1/2 the taxable property value & 15k lower than the asking price so technically we could pull a loan to fix it all fast but we do not trust the economy and would rather put aside what we would be paying monthly on a mortgage to save up and take care of one project at a time. That way if for any reason I can't set aside my monthly savings the only thing at risk is our hopeful time line to finish it up. This is my house and I'm not giving any bank even the most remote chance of taking it from me. I may be 40, 50 or even 60 before its exactly what I want but ya know.. I'm ok with that.


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## KyGunator

Major mold problem under the stairs in the basement cellar, covered up by poorly taped wallpaper.

Electrical outlets were mostly wired backwards.

Spring time - water would seep into the basement carpet in many areas.


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## tylernt

Red Squirrel said:


> - some other electrical code violations such as improper breaker size for wire used, and a spot where for some reason, a neutral is shared with another circuit.


Could be a multi-wire branch circuit, actually allowed by code in certain special circumstances (but chances are, yours was not code).

I realize this is an old thread but we just bought a forclosure and have had some adventures of our own:

In the crawlspace, some floor joists are shored up with stacks of wood placed directly on dirt. 

Every exterior faucet (sillcock/hose bib) leaked. When we had someone replace them, they discovered they were plumbed with illegal PVC, which shattered during the removal of the leaky faucets.

The galvanized plumbing pipes are joined to copper and to PVC in places without dielectric unions or bonding wires, so there's some serious corrosion. The whole house needs replumbed.

Either the water heater or washer leaked at some point, saturating the subfloor under the linoleum. The lino is bubbled and squishy. That's gonna be fun to repair.

Leaky bathtub faucet leaked into wall behind the shower surround. Faint smell of mold just walking in the room, gonna need a respirator when we pull that surround out.

When we turned on the clothes washer faucets, they started dripping. When we shut them off, they continued to drip! Had to hammer out some drywall so I could remove the valves and replace them. Luckily this happened just before the local hardware store closed.

The lights in one room only worked when something was plugged into a certain outlet. Unplug it, and the lights went out. (Fortunately, this was fixed just by replacing that outlet.)

The gas furnace was red-tagged by the gas co, as there are bare wires added by the previous owner to bypass a failed component. There is also some charred paper inside the furnace control box. Scary!

Even professionals made mistakes. The circuit breaker panel was professionally replaced by the bank. The electricians fed a 240V outlet with a 30A breaker they labelled "old dryer". Only problem, that 240V outlet was only 20A! Chances are, they left the 20A outlet there because there are some more illegal PVC pipes running right smack dab in front of it, blocking access.

Reading the other posts in this thread, I guess we got off easy...


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## BabsHoney

Hello everyone! I'm new to the site and thought this thread would be a fun place to start!

Our house was built in 1937. Believe it or not, it was originally the living room, one bedroom, and kitchen. There was a later addition of a bedroom and bathroom and an even later addition of a laundry room. The first addition was fine but the second is horrible! 

Most of our problems stem from the fact that it was owned by an older couple that rented it out. All of the fixes / repairs have been done by a landlord that couldn't give a crap less or less than stellar tenants. 
It would take forever to get into all of it, but here's one example:
Both bedrooms have FOUR different materials that make up the walls. !!!

But... we bought it at an auction for 18k. It's our first house and we really wanted a project house.


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## tylernt

BabsHoney said:


> It's our first house and we really wanted a project house.


That may change by the time you're done. 

Seriously though, I hope you have fun with it!


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## ChrisDIY

BabsHoney said:


> Hello everyone! I'm new to the site and thought this thread would be a fun place to start!
> 
> Our house was built in 1937. It's our first house and we really wanted a project house.


Hopefully everything in the walls is on the up in up.


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## BabsHoney

ChrisDIY said:


> Hopefully everything in the walls is on the up in up.


The electrical has been updated but I don't know how long ago. We are budgeting that it will all have to be redone. That way hopefully surprises will be pleasant. 

Thankfully it's a rather small house.


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## mgp roofing

Last year I bought a cottage that was built in the 1930s, had it shifted onto my property. Some of the things I've found:
- The original house is well built, straight & square but has issues due to age & poor maintenance; the laundry & office added in the 1970s are terrible!
- Rafters in laundry roof were 2x4s cut to create the fall on the low slope metal roof, should have been 6x2s. There's not enough fall for a metal roof, either. Should be a membrane type roof.
- Laundry & toilet windows had no sill or head flashings. Every time they leaked, more caulk was added. Someone made a half a$$ attempt at a head flashing on the laundry one using a piece of drip edge left over from the roof, trouble was, the water just ran down behind.
- Someone added a office on one end, attached it to the existing house with caulk and the flashing where the roof joined the original wall. the old siding is sandwiched between 2 walls. That one was a BIG headache for the moving company!
- Original, unsafe, fuse box.
- Doorway between laundry & original house little more than half as wide as a standard door
- Some windows so low you have to crouch down to see out of them
- Rotten floor patched with drip edge offcuts beaten out flat
- Large area of rotten weatherboards filled with automotive body filler, that fell out during the move
- 3x2 bearers under front porch, replaced while house up on jacks
- 2 different makes of shingles on roof (Pabco on front, Certainteed on back)
- Wiring to outside sensor light run part of the way on outside of siding, no conduit or anything.
- No attempt whatsoever to waterproof around replacement meter box.
- Galvanised pipe connected to copper
- Office has thin chipboard instead of drywall, all the joints are cracked badly.
- HVAC installer drilled a nice, neat 60mm diameter hole for the pipes. Trouble is, it goes right through the bracing in the wall!
- P.O. did a really rough job of finishing the barges when he replaced the original concrete tiles with shingles. The cut outs in the original barge boards are visible below the drip edge, creating a weather tightness issue during severe wind & rain.
- Ugly round marks where holes filled in siding after foam insulation pumped into walls, the wood moves with humidity changes, the filler doesn't, creating cracks.
- And I am yet to figure out why the metal roof on the office has a 300mm square piece of butyl rubber roofing glued to it, its just flat on top, not shaped to the profile of the steel so its not covering a hole or anything like that. The roof is installed as badly as the rest of the office is built!


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## Pianolady

We knew all this before we bought the property in 1998 (1964 ranch), so I'm really not complaining, we paid what it was worth, location was great. Also, we knew the history of the house since 1972 (family member to family member sale), so we knew it had potential and also knew it's issues. For the most part, our problem wasn't DIY disasters, but a lack of maintenance. We've lived here 14 years now, so these things have all been fixed (some just this summer).

--70's Paneling installed in basement directly to exterior wall studs with no insulation. 
--Old fuse box, blowing fuses often
--Trash pile in back yard (including furniture), basement was a big trash can.
--Mice remnants & nests in walls removed, lots
--We found studs placed parallel to the top and bottom plate of a load bearing wall upon removing some drywall. 
--evidence of termite damage in garage, rotted to no sill plate, one wall hanging essentially hanging from the rafters
--clogged underground downspout clay drain running under house with corresponding basement mold at that corner.
--antiquated septic system that failed (former owner replaced)
--well pump failure (former owner replaced)
--detached garage attached to house with insufficient roof support
--concrete poured along garage siding, assume they thought it would help water drainage, but it just rotted the siding & sill plate.
--6' retaining wall failure next to foundation of house, dirt washed out next to walkout basement onto siding, water collected at house foundation, siding rotted.
--yard graded towards house instead of away on walkout basement side.
--original single pane windows with lack of glazing
--dog pee in all carpets (luckily I knew there was hardwood under them)
--contractor-built 2nd story deck (9' off ground) with ledger board _nailed _to the house, 24" on center with 4x4 posts with no diagonal bracing, set directly in concrete.  Footings were only 22-30" deep when we dug them out, should have been 42".
--3 layers of roofing on spongy sheathing, holes in garage sheathing.
--garage built on slab, only 2-3" thick in some places, no footings, cracked slab left gaps between sill plate and slab.

But, they hired a contractor to fix up the kitchen and update the built-in units in the living room. This *was* a job well done....except the custom built cabinet around their current refrigerator at the time, which is smaller than a modern day refrigerator. Replacing the refrigerator will be difficult, or we'll have to alter the cabinetry.


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## Fishinbo

Sounds like Grey Gardens to me ...


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## operagost

No, it's missing the raccoons.


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## ThatDaveGuy

So it finally stopped raining for more than 12 hours and I decided to try and do something with the leaky porch roof. Previous maniacs apparently noticed the leaking and figured hey, another layer or two of shingles ought to clear that right up! After burrowing through those and the layers of Henry's goop here's what I found.











OSB is porch roof, above that is an adjacent wall. This is right below a valley, I didn't remove any felt, that's where it stops, way off the edge, the edge that doesn't reach the wall. You can still see the edge of the next shingle to the lower left, that's all that was covering it since the randow chunks of flashing tacked on w/ drywall screws didn't really count as covering anything IMO. Sweet huh? I think I taught my 8 yr old a few new words today.


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## angelatc

This is a fun thread!

My house isn't horrible at all. The only head-scratcher I have is the fact that the upstairs bathroom linen closet has two switches inside it. One turns on a big outdoor light in the backyard (down a flight of stairs and on the other side of the house) and the other turns on a big whole-house attic fan. I almost get why that one is there. It's at least near the fan. But why they didn't turn the boxes around and at least have the switches in the hall is something I'll likely never know.


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## SuperJETT

Sump pump and battery charger for battery backup sump pump wired into basement lights. That took me about a year to figure out because of where the light switch and utility room were in relation to each other.

While getting the house ready to move I found out the old door bell transformer was wired into the circuit as well---we had gone remote a long time ago because that one "didn't work".

I can't say much about our new house because the previous owners (and apparently a few before them as well) didn't do a darned thing.


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## Thunder Chicken

I have a 3-switch panel in my entryway. One switch turns on the outside porch light, another switch turns on the outside security light, and the third switch - damned if I know what that does or what it is connected to. I opened the box and the switch is wired in somewhere. I have yet to find a connection or dead-head anyplace in the crawlspace or upstairs, so it has to be in the wall of the entryway somewhere. Only way to find out is to pull all the drywall.


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## SuperJETT

You can put a tone generator on it (dead) and possibly trace it. It would save ripping out a lot of drywall.


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## tylernt

We just replaced the well pressure tank on our foreclosure. The old one was about 10lbs heavier than the new one, because the old one was full of sand. 

The water heater is full of sand too, water comes out the flush valve at a trickle. Sigh.


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## av-geek

Here's the story of the 1951 Bungalow that I bought 12 years ago. I've since moved out, but the house was a great project, and I got lots of experience working on it. The house was an estate sale of the original owner, but was abandoned for 10 years. The old man's wife died, and he then met another woman, moved in with her, and let his old house sit for the next 10 years. When he passed away, the family sold the house.

The house sat only 30 feet from the street, but one could not see the house from the street the yard was so overgrown with weeds and debris. The backyard was much bigger, but no different. I cleaned out the yard and hauled away about 4-5 Econoline Van loads of yard debris to the dump. From the day I moved out I was still battling greenbriar vines encroaching anywhere they could on the property. Upon cleaning out the backyard, I found a rusty old Ford Fairlane sedan from the early 60's hiding in the weeds. While it would have been fun to take on the project of restoring the old car along with the house, I didn't know when I would get to it. The car was sold to the next door neighbor for $2K. He got the car running and passed inspection, drove it around for another year or two before selling it for what he had into it. The car was a great way to meet the neighbor. I also found the house had a storage shed in the back too. The roof had caved in and there was a large family of cats living in the shed. I evicted the cats and put a new roof on the shed. Till the day I moved out if you left the door open to the shed, a feral cat was sure to wander in there! I had a concrete driveway poured in the backyard for parking and working on vehicles, and I also ran electricity to the shed.

I found one (big) problem with the front porch though. As I was walking around on it up there one day, I fell through it. All the ceiling joists had rotted out, and were not structurally sound. I ended up having to remove all the ceiling and pretty much rebuilding it all from scratch!

Okay, now for the inside of the house! The inside of the house looked like the inside of one of those Hoarders TV shows. Everything you could imagine was found in there! I ended up selling some of the stuff in the local trading post newspaper, like a collection of National Geo magazines that dated back to the early 70's. The rest went to the dump. One of the good finds was a large stash of building materials, like extra tongue & groove strips for the hardwood flooring, and plenty of lumber to rebuild the shed out back. The entire house smelled of fuel oil though, and I was trying to figure out why. The old furnace was a wick-type floor furnace that resembled a large Kerosene heater. The heat exchanger however was rusted out, and exhaust was permeating the house. The floor furnace was replaced with a Trane heat pump. The house only had 60 ampere service to it, but according to the neighbors, the old man was an electrical engineer....It showed, as all the wiring was grounded 12 gauge. Quite remarkable for such an old home! All I had to do was replace the fuse box with a breaker box, and the electrical system was better than any new home! The Kitchen needed help too. It had the old metal cabinets in it, and small 3-burner stove from the seventies. I replaced all the cabinetry and the stove. I also moved the laundry hookups to the bathroom closet, and connected the old ones in the kitchen up to a dishwasher.

When it came to outward and inward appearance, I was delightfully surprised at some things. For example, the floors cleaned up really nicely and sanded down to a nice luster....I thought they were done for! The walls though were another thing. there were 3 layers of painted wallpaper on the walls, and it was *quite* a chore to get down to the original plaster and re-finish it. It took me close to 3 years just doing one room at a time working on this project. I would have just ripped out the plaster and re-drywalled, but I wanted the real plaster. The bathroom looked like it had a remodel done back in the seventies where they covered the walls in vinyl and replaced the tile. The vinyl was ugly and moldy! The bathroom was re-tiled with the classic Black & White tile. There were 3 layers of flooring underneath the "frogskin" looking vinyl flooring too. After I removed all the layers though, was a nice looking layer of black & white tile! I then ran into a problem with the height of the toilet pipe after I removed all the layers of flooring. 

The neighbors were delighted all the work I did to the place and the fact that it was now being maintained. I hope the new owners take as much care of it as I did.


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## ThatDaveGuy

av-geek said:


> The neighbors were delighted all the work I did to the place and the fact that it was now being maintained. I hope the new owners take as much care of it as I did.


This is so true, you can inherit a huge amount of goodwill from neighbors thrilled to have an eyesore cared for.


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## Greg_R

It's hard to say whether it was the builder's or homeowner's faults for many of the issues I've encountered.

My brother moved into a home where the water heater had fallen through the subfloor and was sitting on dirt in the crawlspace. The pipes had been lengthened to accommodate the new location! When we went to pull his ceiling, we went up in the attic to push it down. One kick and the entire ceiling (drywall, not framing) came down... all the drywall screws were completely rusted through. He and my dad ended up replacing everything in that house except the framing and utility lines out to the road.

My current and previous houses had numerous disasters with the electrical systems. I've encountered at least nine "wire nuts and a ball of electrical tape" junctions in the houses. My latest one was a very loose piece of romex connected to a 4" piece of romex connected to another piece of romex. I still haven't figured out why they needed that 4" extra piece. Every light switch and outlet in my current home is absolute garbage (switches "pop", I've had 2 outlets burn out, etc.). It's just cheap components. I've been slowly going through and replacing everything with better parts (TR outlets where the kids are, etc.). The home owner also decided to re-wire the entire upstairs (2 full baths, 3 BR inc. the master) onto 1 circuit. I have no clue why he decided to do this... the old wires were still in the wall but I of course didn't want to trust them.

In Oregon, most builders seem to not understand basic insulation (especially in post-1960 homes). Building debris seems to be a popular insulation material. There were huge air gaps around all of my windows in both homes. In the new home I've found some large insulation and vapor barrier gaps (like the entire backside of a staircase). I'm debating whether or not to get a spray insulation kit (a few hundred $$$) or try to wiggle myself in and apply the barrier and rolled insulation. I just went through shoving myself into tight places taping some flex duct back in place (and replacing 1 section).... it was not pleasant. The windows will all eventually be replaced but the cost/benefit is not as great in the new home (the old house was single pane & framed with aluminum).

Another fun item in the new house is the radiant heating system. That's my next major project: converting the in-series water heaters to parallel (or replacing them entirely) and making the system a closed loop system or one that at least pulls cold water through the pipes during the summer. Right now the water just sits in the lines until cold weather hits... not good!


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## danpik

When I bought my current house I noted that there was several, shall we say, miles of ice melt cable on the roof edge. The house is an "L" shape with the entry door on the insidecorner of the "L". Being August, I did not think too much about it, but one night the wife and I were discussing how unsightly the cables looked. We decided to trace back the wires and at least see where they were set up to be plugged in. What we found was all 4 50' runs were plugged in in the garage and in fact still were. 

Thinking back to what the previous homeowner was telling us about her electric bills I decided to see if they were still on. They were, no thermostat on these. Plug them in and they get warm. unplug them to turn them off. Wondering why they were up there I decided to venture up into the attic. Wow, 4 inches of insulation, explains the heat cables. from the outside I noted that there was ridge vents running the length of the roof. Now, I need to change that from ridge vent to ridge cap, as they never cut the plywood open for the vents to work. Now I have some work to do. 

First step is to get 12 more inches of insulation up there. Next day I pick up insulation and vent baffles to install in the attic. while up there installing the vent baffles I noted that I could not see any light coming thru the vented aluminum soffits. OK, need to check that. Get the insulation done and get up on the roof to open up the ridge. Pop off the formed aluminum ridge vents and decide they were of no use so I installed the better shingle-over vents after I cut the openings. Down off the roof and a couple weeks pass I decided to investigate the soffit issue. I found that when the previous owner had the house sided in aluminum siding and soffits, they never removed the old plywood soffits. I had to remove all of the aluminum soffits around the house and remove all of the old plywood ones. 

A couple weeks after all of this I was talking to one of my new neighbors and he was telling me about all of the Ice dam problems thay were having with that house. He was telling me that the entry door in the corner of the "L" was not used durring the winter due to the large pile of ice that would build up in front of the door due to there being no roof over the porch. needless to say, I have not experienced any of these problems


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## Peter683

ChrisDIY said:


> Here is another one, yes that's the roof inside the closet.


That looks like our side attics.. House used to be a one floor and the cut off the top of the roof and built up. You can still see the old pitch roof in both side attics complete with shingles!!


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## TrailerParadise

Mine certainly cant beat some of these, but there were a few horror stories i found. This thread is the reason why people who do not know what they are doing should not ever attempt DIY!
I think the biggest problems were
1. Bathtub not attached to ANYTHING but the drain. Seriously, no screws or caulk or anything. Backed by normal drywall. The mold was unbelievable. 
2. Back door was an interior door, unpainted, and completely rotted.
3. The vanity had five holes drilled into the floor and left uncovered. Ten wolf spiders were living underneath the vanity.
4. All ductwork is gone
5. Master closet is gone, leaving the breaker panel hanging in midair
6. A/C units were installed in the bedroom windows without the plastic accordion things to keep out rain, so birds and mice and rain came in at will and completely rotted out the subfloor and framing under the windows.
7. Instead of fixing things that went wrong in this house, the people would just paint over everything. There was unbelievable amounts of paint on the walls.
I cant resist, check out these freaking holes under the vanity


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## operagost

Uh... what am I seeing through those holes? And how the heck did these people deal with the BUGS flying in through the gaps, let alone the incredibly ineffective cooling and BIRDS?


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## TrailerParadise

You're seeing the ground. Yeah no insulation at all. And i have no idea how they dealt with it. I know for a fact birds were coming in because when i set glue traps for the mice, i found feathers on them.


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## PoleCat

Well, as long as I am replying to every thread (almost) in the general board, I will throw my towel into this ring. As bad as some of the stuff the previous owner did was, some of the stuff I did 20 years ago is a close second if not the winner. I have no defense other than I was young and pretty much broke. These days I claim to be old and pretty much broke. May God have mercy on the soul of the poor people that end up with this place after me!


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## soberjulie

How about my own bad DIY'r boo-boo?
I made a little project a couple years ago.....I tiled a table top that I was going to use outside on the patio. It was winter, so I did the project inside.
I did not know you could not wash mortar down the kitchen sink.:whistling2:
Hubby was not happy.


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## Thunder Chicken

One day I noticed some water on the floor under the dishwasher. Turned out it was just a leaking soap door gasket, a $1 part and 2-minutes with a hex driver to fix.

As I was poking around, I realized that the cabinet kick extended over the lower panel of the dishwasher, which isn't right at all. Tearing it away I found that the leak had been ongoing for years, and it had rotted the endgrain of the hardwood floor planks and the particle board subfloor. 

Instead of doing a $1-and-2-minute fix of the leak, a previous owner thought it was better to just cover it with a kick gorilla-glued to the front panel of the the dishwasher. Now *I* have to figure out how to fix this floor. :furious:


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## tjansen

Thunder Chicken said:


> As I was poking around, I realized that the cabinet kick extended over the lower panel of the dishwasher, which isn't right at all. Tearing it away I found that the leak had been ongoing for years, and it had rotted the endgrain of the hardwood floor planks and the particle board subfloor.


That reminds me of a good one I had to deal with. Our water heater is in a closet that shares a wall with the garage. However, that wall was covered by a large shelving unit so during our inspection we never actually saw that wall.

One day I came home to a flood in our garage. Pull aside the shelving unit and found that there was a huge wet hole in the wall. There was a slow hissing leak in the hot water pipe. Unfortunately those pipes were behind the shelving unit and on the water heater side they were behind a wall of plywood so completely hidden from view.

It must have been leaking for years until it finally burst through the drywall, I wish I had taken pictures before we fixed it.


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## ThatDaveGuy

And the hits just keep on coming.............

Three years in and I'm still discovering "interesting" things here. Two long disconnected duct runs under the living room didn't get my attention before now turn out to be more "Sure, I'm handy!" chop jobs where someone cut out approx. 7' of the floor joists and carved large, jagged holes in the rim rim joist to stuff registers up into an outside wall. As a stopgap I have foamboard/sprayfoam constructions to plug the holes and try to cut the wind blowing through, but my list just got a little longer.

_<sigh>_

HomeDepot should have gotten a restraining order.


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## quackaddict

ThatDaveGuy said:


> And the hits just keep on coming.............
> 
> Three years in and I'm still discovering "interesting" things here. Two long disconnected duct runs under the living room didn't get my attention before now turn out to be more "Sure, I'm handy!" chop jobs where someone cut out approx. 7' of the floor joists and carved large, jagged holes in the rim rim joist to stuff registers up into an outside wall. As a stopgap I have foamboard/sprayfoam constructions to plug the holes and try to cut the wind blowing through, but my list just got a little longer.
> 
> _<sigh>_
> 
> HomeDepot should have gotten a restraining order.


Had one just like this, was working on reinsulating and refinishing the attached 1 car garage on my house and found where a register had been rerouted from the common all into the toe of the cabinet. Instead of getting new HVAC duct he just cut it, smashed the top down with a hammer and stuffed some fiberglass insulation in it. That register was basically heating the wall cavity to the then uninsulated garage....


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## zolakk

Cutting up sod to level the back yard for a cheap above ground pool we discovered that the previous owner apparently didn't like the original tumbled river rock landscaping and sprinkler layout - so they put sod over everything (including sprinkler pops) and installed entirely new sprinkler lines and pops while cutting the original line somewhere we have yet to find. So far in a 6'x10' area we have found approx 2 cubic yards of nice tumbled river rock and at least two redundant sprinkler pops connected to defunct pvc line... I guess on the plus side, it will save us money on landscaping materials lol.

The same people used liquid nails to affix about 1200 sq feet of wood parquet directly to the concrete slab. The tile guys we hired burned out three jack hammers getting it all up - and we learned the more colorful side of the Spanish language in the process. To be fair, we warned them when they saw it for the estimate.


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## eieio_2

Mom In Charge said:


> Purchased a 1941-built house because I wanted older charm. Who knew they either had no building codes, else did not enforce them! (my basement stairs are bult with odd width, depth, thickness of scrap wood; steps are not square, level or same sized.)
> 
> I cannot afford to really fix up the basement. Have consoled myself that my future selling strategy will be that, although not finished, the basement is free of DIY electrical and plumbing. These postings make me believe I am not so dumb in this matter. I'll offer photocopies of these postings whenever I list it for sale.
> 
> An aside: Cannot afford to rewire house. Had licensed electricians install GFCI outlets at __every__ plug (none had third hole for grounding -- could not plug in most items). I figure, at least, wire-fire now would be contained. Good choice? Did I add any safety?


You replaced all the outlets with GFCI plugs? That may have been more expensive and a bit of over kill. It shouldn't hurt -- I guess that kind of make a built in fuse box. Code usually only requires a GFCI if withing 3 feet of a water source, like the kitchen or bathroom faucets. I had a pool that also required GFCI plugs. 

Otherwise, you could have just replaced the plugs with three prong, interior plugs in the house, and pigtailed them for the extra ground. It is a lot cheaper to do but a bit of a pain. You trade labor for material costs.

My 1940 house had about two original circuits and very, very few outlets. It now has a new box and is filled with circuit breakers (and additional plugs through out the house for convenience). 

One day, I was horrified when my wife would try to make coffee and use the microwave at the saem time. One half of the house woud blow and there would be no electricity. That is when I made a map of the place -- for wiring wise -- and got under the crawlspace and started running new romax. The crawl space is no ones favorite place to go but since there was a peer and beam house, it wasn't all that bad. 

Fortunately, one of my best buds and neighbors is a master electrician, so everything was up to code. Saved me a bundle but it is a dirty, spooky, tedious task.


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## eieio_2

Well, after getting the electrical wiring fixed in the house, we decided to splurge and put in granite counter tops. I thought, "I can put the sink and plumbing back in after the granite is installed.

After all , the stainless steel sink and faucet looked new. When I started to put in all new drain traps, hoses, garbage disposal connections, etc., I noticed something I had never noticed before. My drain pipe ran up hill! 

Yep. My house was built in the 40s. Back in those days, the sinks were much shallower than they are now. When the newer stainless steel sink was installed it lowered the level of the outward drain about 2 inches -- therefore making the water have to run up hill.

Not knowing exactly how to fix the problem, I moved on to replacing the faucet only to find the faucet was much older than I imagined. The added thickness of the granite and the old water pipes that would extend though the top of the counter ALMOST would not thread and become tight enough to keep from leaking. 

Once I got that all fixed, I haven't been able to make myself revisit the uphill drain. Anyone have ideas on how to fix this? If you want, I will take a picture!


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## danpik

eieio_2 said:


> You replaced all the outlets with GFCI plugs? That may have been more expensive and a bit of over kill. It shouldn't hurt -- I guess that kind of make a built in fuse box.


GFCI recepts do not act as fuses/OCPD. They will not trip as a fuse will on overcurrent



eieio_2 said:


> Code usually only requires a GFCI if withing 3 feet of a water source, like the kitchen or bathroom faucets. I had a pool that also required GFCI plugs.


Current codes are more involved than that. 



eieio_2 said:


> Otherwise, you could have just replaced the plugs with three prong, interior plugs in the house, and pigtailed them for the extra ground. It is a lot cheaper to do but a bit of a pain. You trade labor for material costs.


You can not replace two prong recepticles with three prong if there is no ground wire present. GFCI recepticles are permitted for this purpose but should be labeled as "no equipment ground present". Not sure what you mean by _"and pigtailed them for the extra ground" _. I suspect you might mean create a bootleg ground.



eieio_2 said:


> My 1940 house had about two original circuits and very, very few outlets. It now has a new box and is filled with circuit breakers (and additional plugs through out the house for convenience).
> 
> One day, I was horrified when my wife would try to make coffee and use the microwave at the saem time. One half of the house woud blow and there would be no electricity. That is when I made a map of the place -- for wiring wise -- and got under the crawlspace and started running new romax. The crawl space is no ones favorite place to go but since there was a peer and beam house, it wasn't all that bad.
> 
> Fortunately, one of my best buds and neighbors is a master electrician, so everything was up to code. Saved me a bundle but it is a dirty, spooky, tedious task.


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## operagost

I think eieio_2 is about to find out how serious we are about sticking to code around here. And not electrocuting ourselves.

Pigtailing to a metal box only provides a ground if armored cable (aka BX) is in use. Obviously, if two prong receptacles are currently in use it's likely that the BX wasn't grounded anyway (or else the installer would have used it), and this would have to be confirmed before using the pigtail method.


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## eieio_2

*Seriously?*



operagost said:


> I think eieio_2 is about to find out how serious we are about sticking to code around here. And not electrocuting ourselves.
> 
> Pigtailing to a metal box only provides a ground if armored cable (aka BX) is in use. Obviously, if two prong receptacles are currently in use it's likely that the BX wasn't grounded anyway (or else the installer would have used it), and this would have to be confirmed before using the pigtail method.



I know you didn't read my other post about pulling all new romax (with ground wire) under the house and adding a new circuit box. Yes, I understand all that you are saying about code violations and although I did most of the dirty grunt work myself, namely pulling the wiring under the house, up through the flooring, to the new scoket locations -- I had a master electrician wire the box, a permit, with inspection and passed (in my town you need them). Did you get a perment in the backwoods where you can replace all you pos/neg, two-prong, rat chewed, two wire, wiring with GFCIs? As far as water within 3 feet of a GFCI, you are right, the code is a little different that that simplistic description and only a generalization. By the way, what else are you trying to do with all the GFCI plugs (GROUND fault circuit interrupter) except keeping a short circuit from burning you out of house and home? It is not a replacement for a breakerbox and I was trying to be nice. No, I was not suggesting setting up an illegal ground to the box -- there has to be a real earth ground to safely pigtail. You spent a lot of money on expensive plugs that are nothing but rubber gloves protecting you from a leaking fountain pen. Someday, you should rewire -- and wire correctly with grounded 3-prong plugs a suffient breaker box and a permit with inspcetion. Just my $.02.


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## operagost

Thanks for the spiel, but I wasn't the OP.


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## eieio_2

operagost said:


> Thanks for the spiel, but I wasn't the OP.


 
I am so sorry about that. I certainly do not want to blast an innocent bystander. I am new to the bboard and felt a little on the defensive ... all the BS about ... eieio_2 doesn't know how much we are sticklers for code ... or something to that effect. I wish everyone was a stickler for licenses, code, and inspections but they are not all that way. I have been a DIYer for a long time and know when to stop. I have also learned the first thing to do when getting new property is to get an inspection from a qualified, licensed home inspector. Then, unless the property is a steal, before the sale, get as much fixed as the seller will allow. At least we alll know what we are getting into and none of us would be in some of the pickles we find ourselves. GFCIs that shorted as soon as something was pluged in! SheeshI Operagost, I wish you all the best. Please accept my appology.


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## pockypimp

I feel better about the small money hole I purchased.

1) The kitchen was a mess. 70's stove and dish washer that had grease all over them. The cabinets were refaced with white but the interiors were dirty and full of roach traps/poisons. I ripped the cabinets down and in the spaces between the shelves there were hundreds of dead roaches. The faucet for the sink had been leaking for so long the drywall and cabinet were both rotted out. Someone had painted over the glass for the ceiling light fixture. The range vent hood had some "special" wiring done. They had cut an extension cord, wired white to white and black to ground. Then wrapped the whole thing with plastic packing tape.

2) Downstairs powder room had a rusted sink. Lots of clear caulk around the vanity, like 1/4" worth. Pulled the sink out along with the vanity, my friend pressed his thumb against one of the rust spots and his finger went right through. Oh and a coax cable runs though the room from the garage to the front closet to the front room, presumable for cable.

3) Upstairs room has a exterior hole. Another cable installer drilled a 1" hole through the stucco and interior wall. At least there's a nice plastic grommet that fills the hole and passes the cable through. I've got a thread submitted on advice on fixing that issue. The floor in this room slants towards the front of the house. I pulled up 2 of the floorboards and found that the 6"x12" beam is warped about 1/4" raising the floor in the middle of the room while the down side is actually LOWER than the rest of the room by about 1/8". Looks like crappy track housing construction so I can't blame that on the previous owners. They just hid it by having a bed there so I and the home inspector couldn't feel the drop.

4) They hid a hole in the wall by putting wallpaper over it. The hole was through the existing wallpaper, they just put another strip of the same wallpaper from floor to ceiling over it.

5) Trash - This was basically a foreclosure home so they left a lot of crap behind. We demolished 2 couches, 2 love seats, 3 or 4 end tables, 1 child's bed, 1 sofabed, 2 dressers, 2 entertainment centers, 1 table and some other odds and ends. Plus they left behind clothes, about half a closets worth. Along with family photos and karaoke cds.

6) Surprise dead things in the floor/wall. I took off the faceplate in the kitchen to find a lizard skeleton inside the box. Same with the floor in the aforementioned room.


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## oh'mike

Wowthat sure sounds like a lot of fun----out with the old---


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## fa_f3_20

Our previous house wasn't terrible but there were a few things. It's always amazing how sometimes someone will go to a lot of trouble to do something the wrong way when doing it the right way would have been easier. A few examples:

* All of the downspouts were too long; there wasn't enough room to put an elbow on the end. So what did they do? Dig down next to the foundation! Every place where there was a downspout, the area immediately around it sloped towards the house. Oh, and to make it "perfect", the splash blocks were all turned with their open ends towards the house. :huh: Wouldn't it have been easier to just cut a few inches off the downspouts so there would be room for the elbow? Why, yes it would. Which is exactly what I did, plus dump in fill to make the grade slope away from the house. And I turned the splash blocks around. :yes: No more water in the crawl space.

* The home inspector had noted two drain lines under the master bath that were sagging. The PO said he'd fix it. And he did, sort of... when I checked, he had built some preposterous circus-balancing-act pillars out of rocks, broken brick pieces, and wood scraps to prop up the pipes. Took me all of ten minutes to knock those down and install a few pipe straps. 

* I had noted when we moved in that there was a two-pole breaker in the box that was not labeled and didn't seem to go to anything. Because I couldn't figure out what it was for, I left it on... first mistake. One day a few months later, I got curious about a hole in the garage wall near the (gas) water heater. I stuck my finger in... second mistake! 240 volts and one tingly finger later, I knew what that mystery breaker was for... an unused circuit for an electric water heater. For some reason the PO had cut it off and stuffed the end back into the wall, and somehow did so without electrocuting himself. Wouldn't it have been easier to simply shut it off, nut off the end of the circuit, and leave it alone? Since it was now cut off too short to be usable, I disconnected it, removed the breaker, and marked the circuit inside the panel abandoned.

* Two ceiling light fixtures in bedrooms had been replaced with ceiling fans. Of course, the boxes were plastic and not fan rated. One of them was coming out of the ceiling. When I investigated, I found that the PO had put in byzantine constructions of wood shims and scraps to try to get the boxes to stay in. It was, again, a ten-minute job to replace both of them with proper fan boxes, since they were easily accessible from the attic.


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## rhictha

Bought a house built in the 70's one of the basement windows was two door hinges with plywood and plexy glass taped together with packaging tape. Then two metal latches that locked into holes drilled into the cement foundation. I think a 40 dollar window from menards would have been less trouble.


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## javan

*hmmmm*

House 1:
-Modular built in the 60's on block piers. The tub would not drain properly, so I crawled under and found the tub outlet connected to a 1-1/2" galv elbow, then to a 1" reducer, then a 1" 90 elbow on it's side, then back to 1-1/2", then another 90, before connecting to a 1-1/2" black poly tube that ran directly to the septic tank.

House 2:
-Built in the 50's, front to back split level. The lower portion of the house had major rot that was hidden in behind the ceder lap siding (they added on a sunroom, so they did not notice the rot). I ended up ripping out about 1/2 of the wall studs and replacing when doing a "simple" renovation project to convert the sunroom into a living room.
-After a week long rainstorm, the basement had 4" of water in it (sump could not keep up). Sellers disclosure said they never had water in basement. Neighbors said they had water in basement for the 1st time in 50 years. With so much water in basement and ground saturated, the toilet on the lower level would not flush. The lot had a large farmers field sloping towards it and the setpic tank had flooded.
-House only had a 60A elec service and was grossly overloaded. I counted 5 ceiling lights and 15 wall outlets on one circuit.

House 3:
-finished basement with suspended ceiling. Found (2) 4' shop lights laying in the ceiling grid with no other support than the wiring.

House 4 (current):
-Built in many phases starting in '57 and ending sometime in late 80's. House has a 30' x 40' basement along with (4) craw spaces. One crawl space is only accessible from the outdoors. When doing some reno work in the room above it, I had to modify the electrical from above (removed carpet, subfloor, etc.) as the crawlspace had a dirt floor that was so dry that when I opened the trap door to access it, the breeze rushing in created such a dust storm, I could not dare to enter it.
-Basement had so many wall leaks from the outside at the base level (lot of water penetration), that the previous owners created their own french drain around the interior perimeter by chiseling out a trench. The end result is a scalloped trench that holds tons of water.


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## jimn

Oh why not.

1. Improperly vented attic above renovated kitchen including openings through firewall into garage.
2. Badly installed sheet vinyl flooring in kitchen (edges not done right, peeling and curling) which was also glued directly on top of asbestos vinyl floor tile. 
3. Replaced main panel with used circuit breakers and improper neutral connections (didn't t discovered the neutral issue until years latter when I had the panel replaced ).
4. Amateur electrical additions including junction boxes with too many wires, 14 guage cable on 20 Amp circuits, unsecured junction boxes in basement for kitchen renovation, badly wired and badly mounted outlets in conduit in basement, three wire outlets installed without ground, stove wired with parallel 10 guage wired rather than single 8 guage. 
5. Termites 
6. Improper attic venting on main house and improper sealing of scuttle holes. Resulted in extensive ice dam damage in 7 rooms on both floors.

Yes all of this was missed by my home inspector and some not found till years later when the problems crept up or doing other renovations. At least I will be able to tell the new buyer everything in the last 25 years has been done to code and inspected. Your own your own for the prior hacks.,


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## adgjqetuo

Previous owner finished our basement on his own - I'm always finding something done half ass down there.

This one takes the cake though - I'm not even sure how this could be classified as an accident. Even worse, it was buried in the insulation. 

Basement coax cable ran directly through 12/2 wire running up to my kitchen. Burned out, but had no symptoms prior to the find.


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## Msradell

jimn01 said:


> 2.....which was also glued directly on top of asbestos vinyl floor tile.


Actually, this is perfectly acceptable and one of the recommended solutions for asbestos vinyl tile. It encapsulates the asbestos-containing floor preventing problems.


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## Derek83

adgjqetuo said:


> Basement coax cable ran directly through 12/2 wire running up to my kitchen. Burned out, but had no symptoms prior to the find.


wow, the circuit wasn't even tripped?!? I don't see how that's possible. :no:


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## Bob Sanders

Wow. Getting a laugh out of this thread. I can see myself getting written up in here if I ever sell my house! 

I have a home made 1100 gallon indoor/outdoor hot tub which has crossed the code line on a number of points.

When I converted my heat from gas to electric, I didn't replace the furnace. I simply ripped out the gas guts and stuck electric ones in, so the furnace is not csa approved.

My DSC alarm system is completely self installed (self monitored through auto text massage) and is a little unorthodox. The low house temp warning is simply the old mercury bulb type thermostat set at about 60 degrees which trips one of the zones on the alarm. I even have my door bell connected to the alarm (silent, non latching zone) so I get a text massege when I'm away and someone rings the door bell.

I love DIY! I'd much rather take on the challenge of building it myself than buying it in a store. Now, I'll probably take a 10 thousand dollar hit if I ever decide to sell the house.. but hey.... hobbies cost money and I had fun doing it. That to me is worth a lot.


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## Thunder Chicken

My 10' by 20' shed was intended to be a hot tub house by a previous owner, but they gave up that idea when the floors bounced just by walking across. We'll get into why the bounce so badly in a minute. The entire shed is off the ground, supported on concrete filled steel posts on two beams running the length of the shed, and the bottom isn't closed in. 

Anyway, they insulated the whole thing, even the floor. The interior is nicely finished, but they thought that it would be good enough to stick the insulation up into the floor joists and just cover it with some tacked up landscaping cloth, vs. plating it with plywood. 

This last winter was mighty cold, and the local squirrels found that A) landscaping cloth is really easy to get through and B) R-19 fiberglass filled joists make great nests for the winter! This spring after the snow melted off, there was about 500 lbs of sodden fiberglass, leaves, and landscape fabric (and some still occupied squirrel nests) piled underneath my shed. Two days of low crawling to drag all that crap out, dry it out, bundle it into bags for the trash. 

Now that all the insulation is out of the way, I was able to figure out why the floors were so bouncy. There are 2 parallel beams that run the length of the shed. Unfortunately, one of the beams is about 2 inches lower than the other (because the posts are 2 inches shorter, or settled 2 inches). Anyway, the shed rests on one beam just fine, but hovers about 2 inches over the other one - it doesn't touch at all! How is it supported? Well, when they discovered their error, they just cut some 2" by 4" blocks, rested them on top of the beam above the posts, and rested the nearest joist on them. So there are 4 of these blocks, nearly crushed to pieces, holding up half of this big shed. I quickly fixed up some cribbing and screw jacks to take the load off, so now I get to figure out how to fix this. 

I'm a nice guy normally, but I hope whoever did this to me dies in a fire.:furious:


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## Thunder Chicken

And the hits just keep coming folks. One of the previous owners (I bet it was the same nitwit as above) put a dryer vent in the wall, but the duct was two inches short (it vented into the wall instead of through the wall). The air vented, but not before swirling around inside the joist leaving all of its moisture inside the wall.

Again, I'm trying really hard to be a nice guy, but he still needs to die in a fire. :furious:


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## ThatDaveGuy

So what you're saying is that the guy that committed atrocities on my house moved on to Massachusetts..............interesting


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## Dak Man

Bob Sanders said:


> Wow. Getting a laugh out of this thread. I can see myself getting written up in here if I ever sell my house!
> 
> I have a home made 1100 gallon indoor/outdoor hot tub which has crossed the code line on a number of points.
> 
> When I converted my heat from gas to electric, I didn't replace the furnace. I simply ripped out the gas guts and stuck electric ones in, so the furnace is not csa approved.
> 
> My DSC alarm system is completely self installed (self monitored through auto text massage) and is a little unorthodox. The low house temp warning is simply the old mercury bulb type thermostat set at about 60 degrees which trips one of the zones on the alarm. I even have my door bell connected to the alarm (silent, non latching zone) so I get a text massege when I'm away and someone rings the door bell.
> 
> I love DIY! I'd much rather take on the challenge of building it myself than buying it in a store. Now, I'll probably take a 10 thousand dollar hit if I ever decide to sell the house.. but hey.... hobbies cost money and I had fun doing it. That to me is worth a lot.


 
Diy it yourself does not mean do it complete and utter nitwit. 
If your house does not burn down before you ever put it for sale I'd be surprised. But have fun!


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## Thunder Chicken

ThatDaveGuy said:


> So what you're saying is that the guy that committed atrocities on my house moved on to Massachusetts..............interesting


The thing that really burns me is that most of the crap I've had to fix was caused by something that, had the previous owner spent 2 more minutes doing the job right in the first place, everything would have been fine. It's like they had this amazing amount of energy and enthusiasm to do a lot of work, did a wonderful job for 99% of the work, and when they accidentally miscut something at the end of the day, they just decided to say " it, close enough", stuffed it in, and guaranteed that their job would rot or collapse. 

This house has been the starter/flipper house for probably 20 different owners since it was first built, and so a lot of stuff was made to just look good enough to pass inspection for sale. That seems to be one of the meanest things one can do to someone you have never met, sabotaging someone's house before selling it to them.


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## Brainbucket

My dad bought a house when I was around 10 years old. It was about 1.3 acers in southern IL. We had to clean the place for 2 weeks before we could move in and there was a famliy living there when dad bought it. Here is what I remenber doing to clean it up. First was to pump out the well because we found a dead rat in there so dad pumped out the well and cleaned junk out of it. I remember a bicycle being fished out and part of a old time washing machine with the rollers on top. We poured bleach in there then we had the water tested. 11 rats ( not mice. foot long rats) were caught in the house. We had a trailer which was an 8 foot truck bed that was cut from a truck and a hitch put on it. 12 loads from the yard went to the dump. 8 loads of trash from the back yard went to the dump. I guess they just took the trash and dumped it in the back yard. The pile was around 20 feet long and bout 6 foot high. Man it was nasty. 3 loads from the upstairs 2 bedrooms. We just parked the trailer under the window and shoveled it out the window. I don't remember how many was taken from downstairs but it was nasty. The kids fought a lot so there were big body sized holes in the walls all over. But dad bought the house for a song so he couldn't pass it up. I'm not making this up. I lived it. But after it was said and done, it was a nice place.:thumbsup:


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## 1995droptopz

I have had a few houses over the past 15 years, and while none of them were as bad as some of these, there was a fair share of bonehead DIY and professional "repairs"

One house they put that plastic fake brick over the drywall. There was a light switch that was in the way that controlled an outlet around the corner, so they took out the switch and twisted the wires together. When I opened it up I found the metal box, missing a cover, and one of the wire nuts had fallen off and was sitting on the bottom of the box.

Next house was a new construction that I bought 4 years after it was started. Seems the concrete guys poured the slab too big, or the carpenters made the house too small. Either way, the house was about 6" too short front to back, so they built a stud wall next to the basement wall to hold up the house and built a deck across the front of the house resting on the foundation.

This house they also forgot to run cold air returns upstairs, but they ran heat ducts. They did put in the cold air return registers in the wall, so it looked legit.

The guest bath vanity was installed too close to the doorway, so they notched the casing, but the door only opened up 2/3 of the way.

They installed the sliding doors backwards, so the screens were on the inside and the storm doors were outside.

Finally, the house I am living in now is also new construction. Originally, there was a small house on this land that was condemned when the elderly occupant passed away. When I moved in there was a severe drainage issue because the sump pump dumped into the center of the backyard. I had to send the outlet to the creek in the back and trench out the low spot and create a French drain. In the process of this I found out that the old lady like to collect glass bottles, jugs, vases, and anything else you can think of that is made of glass. When they dozed her house it all went into the ground, where I had the pleasure of digging it up. I don't know if you ever tried to navigate a shovel though glass, but its terrible.


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## adgjqetuo

Here is a sample of our basement framing from the original owner - I'm truly at a loss for words


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## Thunder Chicken

Yet more stupid found at my house, but I was expecting this.

The shingle job on the wall adjacent to my entryway (first picture) was a giveaway that something was wrong. Anybody need some paint sticks? :laughing: The shakes were apparently the leftovers from someone else's shingle job, probably Craigslist freebies. Single first course, no tar paper, nailed up with about 17 different types of nails or tacks (6d, cut nails, brass brads, finish nails, roofing nails, you name it; probably got all those used as well).

Since the wall was 8 ft wide, the genius who built it decided that obviously two 4' width panels would be perfect, never mind that the wall studs were not 16" or 24" on center. I could push in the wall at the free ends of the panels, reach around the sheathing, and grab some insulation.

Pulling the shingles off, I found that the "sheathing" was 1/2 inch T-11 paneling :huh:. So now I know this is the same genius that built my magically levitating shed (yep, sheathed in T-11) and "renovated" my kitchen (yep, that is ALSO paneled in T-11, painted gloss blue). I guess Home Depot was having a sale on T-11. The panels were cut to height using (to my eye) a dull butter knife. The cut was not square - the height varied 2 inches side to side, but the cut made a big arc across the top. That's why trim boards are 4 inches wide, right?

Also found that the band joist was rotted, so genius decided to just tear it out and replace it with the ledger for the half-assed mudroom/deck. He stacked a couple of 2" by 6" PT boards up the wall, but didn't flash them, so they were rotted out too. All I can really do is call the ledger the new band joist and go from there.


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## Thunder Chicken

Exorcising some more stupidity from my house tomorrow.

One of the previous owners, who I now call Mister "I don't need no stinkin' 2x4s!", thought it was just fine to have the tub surround screwed to ... nothing. He just slipped the surround into place, put some sheetrock over the lip, and called it done. I can push on the surround and pretty much get my hand into the wall. We discovered this when we tried to install a push-rod shower curtain and it punched through the wall on both ends of the shower.

So again, I'll be spending a day tearing everything all out, just to install the $3 stud (yeah, I splurge and get the good 2x4s :thumbup that should have been put there in the first place, and rebuilding the whole frappin' thing.

Trying so hard not to hate, but !


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## Thunder Chicken

Seriously, Mister "I don't need no stinkin' 2x4's!" really had a deep mistrust of lumber. Maybe a tree fell on him or something:


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## Cullen

Grander and not as dangerous, at least from the outside.


This was found on the inside,

Might be legit, insofar as homemade extension cords go, I'm not sure.

What was of particular note was the cord that was cut off, fed through a hole drilled into the garage wall, fed into the "shed," (wife and I referred to it as The Bait Shack) then spliced to another wire in the open air. Bumped my head on it when I would go in there.

It's torn down now, this is how it looked about an hour and a half ago. The slab has proven useful...


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## Thunder Chicken

Cullen said:


> It's torn down now, this is how it looked about an hour and a half ago. The slab has proven useful...


Sometimes the best renovation is demolition :thumbup:. You probably have a pretty sweet little patio now and the backyard probably seems a LOT bigger.


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## adgjqetuo

Duplicate


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## javan

Not so much a horror story as it is a lack of disclosure. 
Bought the house in July. Home inspection was fine. Here I sit today, waiting on tomorrow when the new heat pump system is installed. Old system, original to the 18 year old house), has failed. Several leaks detected. Tech I hired to check the system out due to lack of operation found it almost out of refrigerant, then put dye in system to find several leaks at the coil inside and many more at the compressor. The condensate pump from the unit was plugged solid. He said that there was no way the home owner could not have know there was an issue and most likely just had the system topped off before being sold. 

oh well, good opportunity to upsize (needed) and get a more efficient unit (VFD AHU and 2 stage compressor).


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## rjniles

javan said:


> Not so much a horror story as it is a lack of disclosure.
> Bought the house in July. Home inspection was fine. Here I sit today, waiting on tomorrow when the new heat pump system is installed. Old system, original to the 18 year old house), has failed. Several leaks detected. Tech I hired to check the system out due to lack of operation found it almost out of refrigerant, then put dye in system to find several leaks at the coil inside and many more at the compressor. The condensate pump from the unit was plugged solid. He said that there was no way the home owner could not have know there was an issue and most likely just had the system topped off before being sold.
> 
> oh well, good opportunity to upsize (needed) and get a more efficient unit (VFD AHU and 2 stage compressor).


Honestly, you should have realized an 18 year old HVAC system was on borrowed time.


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## Thunder Chicken

Let's visit my shed, found at the corner of High Energy St. and Stupidity Lane.

An access "hatch" was cut into the shed attic. This hatch looks more like a desperate prison escape attempt than an organized remodeling effort. No tape measures or carpenter's squares were utilized. The cuts are a lot out of square, possibly done with a sharpened spoon smuggled from the prison mess.

Once up in the attic of the shed, could they manage to deck the _exactly 8' by 8'_ floor sections with a couple of plywood boards and deck screws to make it a useable storage space? Nope, that was too hard. Much easier to attach random 2" by 6"s, particle board and plywood odds and ends all over the place, with a combination of stripped drywall screws, 10d nails, and picture hanging nails(?). Some of boards didn't fit so they simply overlapped them. I'm 99% certain that the 2" by 6"s are intended to be cross-bracing for the joists, so this will all have to be replaced in sections.


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## spaceman spif

Nothing quite as bad as the previous stories, but one house I owned the previous owner's wife left us an 18 page history of the house. 18...hand...written...pages. And the author referred to her husband as a "Renaissance man" for all the amazing work he did. After living there a few months, I referred to him as something else. :devil3:

Any drywall patching he did, he would plop on too much mud, place some mesh tape on top of the mud, and then voila! No sanding, no smoothing, no pressing the mesh into the mud. It looked like a big wart with a mesh band aid on the wall.

Another room he installed sconce lights. There were no fasteners holding the lights up as there was no outlet box behind them. The only thing holding the lights in place was the wiring, which I discovered when I went to change a light bulb only to find I could pull the whole fixture about a foot away from the wall.

Lots of other stories, but you get the idea.


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## ChuckF.

Maybe a good spot for this: 23 Totally Cringeworthy Home Inspection Nightmares:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/hom...e-inspection-nightmares-that-really-happened/


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## Thunder Chicken

ChuckF. said:


> Maybe a good spot for this: 23 Totally Cringeworthy Home Inspection Nightmares:
> 
> http://www.popularmechanics.com/hom...e-inspection-nightmares-that-really-happened/


Man, those home inspectors are on the ball, catching all those code violations _my grandma could have seen from the street_.

Of the long line of people who took money from me when I bought my house, I begrudge what I paid the home inspector the most. Couldn't (or wouldn't) look into the crawl, at the roof; pretty much had to drag him around and point out stuff _to him_. Absolute waste of money.


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## jeffs55

Was that the last house on earth? Why would you buy it?


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## Thunder Chicken

jeffs55 said:


> Was that the last house on earth? Why would you buy it?


It was my first house, I'm not a construction foreman, and I didn't know a lot about what to look for in a house, code compliance, etc.. _hence the home inspector_. I was working two jobs and new to the area, so I had very little help and guidance. I've learned a lot since then, the hard way. Had I known then what I know now I would have negotiated the price a lot harder than I did. I knew going in that there would be some renovation involved, but I found some serious structural and electrical issues that should have been caught during the inspection but weren't.

The inspector walked through the house like he was going through an art gallery, flushed the toilet a few times, and then held out his hand for his $400 check. I asked a bunch of questions, pointed out several concerns, and he just said "looks good, it's fine". Well, the missing bearing wall was _not_ fine, as there was no beam - only think holding up the roof was the roof decking on the trusses. 2 minutes with a tape measure showed that there could not be a beam in the ceiling. Yeah, I didn't think to do that at the time, _but neither did the home inspector_. The circuit serving the laundry was undersized (breaker tripped if you tried to use the washer and dryer simultaneously). 

I was a rookie from out of town, he saw that and exploited that. $400 for 30 minutes of time, didn't even have to bend his knee or get dirty. Not a bad gig. If a buyer has to know the IRC chapter and verse just to verify that a home inspector is doing his job, what is the  point of a home inspector?


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## spaceman spif

The current house I live in the owners removed a stud in order to install the furnace. They never replaced it. I found out when my older son was casually leaning against the wall and suddenly his arm went through it.


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## spaceman spif

Thunder Chicken said:


> It was my first house, I'm not a construction foreman, and I didn't know a lot about what to look for in a house, code compliance, etc.. _hence the home inspector_. I was working two jobs and new to the area, so I had very little help and guidance. I've learned a lot since then, the hard way. Had I known then what I know now I would have negotiated the price a lot harder than I did. I knew going in that there would be some renovation involved, but I found some serious structural and electrical issues that should have been caught during the inspection but weren't.
> 
> The inspector walked through the house like he was going through an art gallery, flushed the toilet a few times, and then held out his hand for his $400 check. I asked a bunch of questions, pointed out several concerns, and he just said "looks good, it's fine". Well, the missing bearing wall was _not_ fine, as there was no beam - only think holding up the roof was the roof decking on the trusses. 2 minutes with a tape measure showed that there could not be a beam in the ceiling. Yeah, I didn't think to do that at the time, _but neither did the home inspector_. The circuit serving the laundry was undersized (breaker tripped if you tried to use the washer and dryer simultaneously).
> 
> I was a rookie from out of town, he saw that and exploited that. $400 for 30 minutes of time, didn't even have to bend his knee or get dirty. Not a bad gig. If a buyer has to know the IRC chapter and verse just to verify that a home inspector is doing his job, what is the  point of a home inspector?


Which makes me wonder - if you had that bad an experience with a home inspector, is there an agency you can report them to?


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## Thunder Chicken

spaceman spif said:


> Which makes me wonder - if you had that bad an experience with a home inspector, is there an agency you can report them to?


They get registered and licensed through the state, like barbers. I suppose I could have complained, but it's a he said/she said situation. The "report" he provided to me was so nebulous and had so much fine print on what he could and couldn't inspect that he could pretty much argue anything. Pretty slick.

Never again, that's all I've got to say.


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