Buying a home during the summer has certain advantages, because you can see the house functioning under conditions you’ll want to know about when you’re living in it. This week, I asked our home inspectors for their thoughts about things home buyers can pay particular attention to during the summer. Is there a difference between winter and summer home inspections? The AC is kind of a given, so we’ll let that one go for today, but you can read more about summer AC issues here.
Here are a few other common issues to look for during the summer months:
Wait, I’m Supposed To Water My House?
We commonly see a low soil line around the foundation during summer home inspections. Dry soil poses a problem for foundations in two ways. First, lack of moisture causes the soil line along the foundation to drop, exposing the foundation and making it more prone to movement. Second, dry soil contracts and can actually pull away from the foundation, acting as a force in itself.
The remedy for this is to add fill soil around the foundation. In Texas, you never want to have more than three inches of foundation exposed. Earth Haulers recommends using clay select fill soil for this. The clay helps keep the soil in place and retain moisture. Next, it’s important to water the foundation regularly during the heat of the summer. How often? It depends on how well your soil retains water and whether there has been rain – you don’t want to over-water it, either. Damp, but firm soil around the foundation is good.
If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get In The Attic
Remember when we talked about attics and summer home maintenance? At the end of this video, Inspector Adrian says, “There are about 10 other things I could show you as deficient in this attic …” and I cut a couple of things out of the video he made. Y’all need to get in your attics and check things out now and then.
I included this video to talk about a couple of the things Adrian did talk about — insulation and disconnected ducts. Summer is the perfect time to ascertain how well-insulated your home is. You can check the attic and have thermal imaging done on the walls to look for missing insulation. The disconnected duct in the video is just wasting energy and making it that much harder to cool the house. Disconnected, blocked, or sharply turned ducts are incredibly common home inspection finds.
During the summer, home inspectors can’t check the heat unless the temperature is below 98 degrees. So there you have a disadvantage of summer home inspections. And finally, Adrian also found evidence of a previous fire with some pretty significantly charred trusses and roof decking. This may or may not be significant, depending on the depth of the damage to the wood. It could be just discolored, or it could present a danger to the structure. To find out, they’ll want to have a structural engineer take a look.
Termites Made a Summer House in Your Closet
Summer in Texas means termite swarms, but just because you don’t see a swarm doesn’t mean you don’t have active termites. Inspector Brian shows different areas of the home where he finds obvious activity and a prime example of termite tubing in the water heater closet. Termites especially like areas where they have access to moisture — just like everything else, they are looking for a water source this summer.
If you are buying a home this summer, take advantage of the season, and pay attention to the areas of your home inspection report that show where the home is under stress this season: AC, sprinklers, foundation, attic, and wood-destroying insects. If you have questions, you can always ask a home inspector.
