Suggestions for the House of Horrors

Looking for suggestions for the House of Horrors. Nothing too obvious. Defects that are not code violations are especially good.

BTW, the deck in that image has 35 defects.

Is that including the Condenser unit?:wink:

Curious, if not a code violation, and excluding poor workmanship or substandard materials, why would it be a defect?

Don’t put ice and water shield or another approved eave protection below the shingles at the eaves (obviously not required everywhere)…

Many defects aren’t the result of a code violation, poor workmanship, or substandard material.

Stuff in the world just breaks, blows away, gets damaged, gets wet (when it should be kept dry), leaks, is misused, is overused, burns, becomes outdated, is unsafe, gets moldy, or simply wears out from age.

For example: Most roofs in the U.S. aren’t replaced because of code violations, poor workmanship, or substandard material. They’re replaced because they got old.

True, but isn’t this project brand new. I guess damage can be simulated though.

Nope, that’s not part of the deck. It is wrong though.

That deck needs a bay sliding glass door/cantilever.

Slap a 90 Day Widget Warranty sticker on it. :twisted:

We just got the HVAC and chimney done today. Lots of age-related issues. This house is so fun, it should have been titled “InterNACHI’s Fun House.”

I’ve been wondering how HOH can simulate active moisture intrusion issues.

Inactive are easy of course, you just make a moisture stain.

Active are difficult, they can originate from a variety of sources and be intermittent.

I did a house this year that had issues originating from interior plumbing, exterior siding/flashing and HVAC as well. Some signs were quite subtle.

Change the name - too scary/alarming.

I really don’t like the idea of associating our organization and its members with scariness, by using such a derogatory term like horror. Since this is a public forum/site, a real estate agent may see my beloved organization using house and horror in the same sentence and they’ll likely look elsewhere for a “qualified” inspector who doesn’t associate a house with horror and/or is properly trained in a non-scary/alarming environment. How about the “House of typical, minor, slight, maintenance issues and honey-do items that can easily be addressed and simply corrected, after closing escrow on the house.” This sounds much better and non-alarming, don’t you think?

We’re installing a laundry today. It’s amazing at how many issues you can come up with for a laundry.

Including the lack of a ventilation fan. Quite/most often our laundry rooms are in unfinished areas of a basement.

Why does a laundry room need ventilation?

In fact, most dryers are essentially acting as exhaust fans when they run because they take air from the room and exhaust it outside.

I Usually recommend a laundry room have a fresh air in Port.

Very nice hoh.

How about bad smoke detector placement. I find detectors installed against the manufacturers specs all the time.

You Yankees I swear your confused. A chimney has nothing to do with a furnace a chimney is associated with a fireplace. So did you install a brick chimney on a gas furnace, that would be a trick in its self.

Hows about some real life defects as observed in the field,

  1. Liquid refrigerant line smaller than the MFG stub out on the condensing unit.
  2. Supply air plenum constructed of wood.
  3. Supply air trunk line to many drops for the size of the trunk line.
  4. Improper size of the supply duct for the size of the room supplied.
  5. Supply air duct with no insulation in a non-conditioned space
  6. Flex supply and return air duct improperly supported
  7. Ridge supply duct improperly installed from the supply register to the take off at the supply air plenum. Metal duct is required to be installed starting at the plenum and traveling to the register. The crimp on the duct always flows toward the register to prevent air flow restriction
  8. Improperly sized return air air duct and or register. Improperly sized duct will have excessive noise
  9. Low voltage wire to the exterior condensing unit traveling in the same conduit as the 240 volt circuit
  10. Exterior condenser fan motor rotating backwards. I will stop at 10 defects