From DIY fails to totally disgusting issues, to crazy-dangerous situations, to just plain weird stuff, home inspectors see it all — and we love to share it with you in our weekly Upon Closer Inspection dispatch.
This week, we collected some pictures and videos that had our inspectors asking, “What were they thinking?”
Is That Toilet Paper?
In some of the outlying suburbs and more rural areas, we do septic inspections.
If you’re not familiar, rather than pumping waste through sewer mains to a central sewage treatment facility, a septic system pumps solid and liquid waste from the house out into a drain field and underground septic tank. If you have a septic system, you need to have the tank pumped every couple of years, depending on the size of the tank and the household.
Inspector Derek: “The agent told me they hired a service to pump out the septic tanks. Looks to me like they just opened the cleanout and let it flow.”
Ew.
Yeah, That’s a Bomb
In this image, you see the temperature-pressure relief (TPR) valve on a water heater.
That will expel water if it gets too hot or the pressure gets too high but in this case it is welded shut, so the pressure has no way to release, basically turning the water heater into a potential bomb.
Mythbusters actually put this to the test on an episode.
Vent Stack DIY Fail
You might see a PVC pipe like this on your roof. It’s called a plumbing vent, or a vent stack, and its purpose is to let air pressure release through the plumbing system. Clogging the vent stack can result in — you guessed it — clogged plumbing lines.
So Many Questions
We find a lot of beer in a lot of places, but this time we have questions. Here we have an empty can of Keystone Light attached to the roof in the attic. How? Why? What happened here?
