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Kevin, Mark, Tommy, Richard, and Ross, you all guys know that we get a lot of emails from homeowners who are thinking of buying a house, which is a nerve-wracking process for a lot of people. They're always wondering, "All right, I'm not going to do a lot of renovations, I just want to know if I should buy it or not." What are the red flags that would cause it to be a deal breaker? From your guys' eyes, what things cause you concern, say, to think twice? Anybody got a well?
One of the things, Kevin, that's going on all over the country in every hot market is people have to skip their home inspection. So they have to do their own, and they miss a lot. That is the professional helping out a novice, and to think that they would forgo that should cause some concern. It's just, yeah, well, like Mark said, they don't have to skip it, but they're skipping it because they don't want to lose that house. They're overbidding on the cost of the house in a tough market right now.
But what are you looking for? When I look at a house, when I get out of the truck and look at a house, I look at straight lines. I look at the roof to see if it's got a little dip in it, and I look at the walls to see if they're crooked. I look at the windows and the condition of the windows. I look at the grade around it: is the water coming into the building, or is it going to be going away from the building? If I get inside, then I look at the foundation. If I see some hairline cracks this way, that's not a problem. But if, let's say, it's a block foundation and there's a big crack this way, that could be a problem, both with the outside grading and inside, and that can be an expensive fix. So when you look at those things, Tommy, are you thinking, "Okay, that's going to cost me this, that's going to cost me that"? But is there anything on that list that says run away?
A lot of people buy a house with the idea that they're just going to put paint and paper into the house, or maybe paint the kitchen cabinets, as opposed to changing the kitchen cabinets. But if they have to renovate the bathroom, or do major wiring, all that kind of stuff can make a big difference. Okay, good. Mark, what are you eyeballing?
When I'm going to look for a painting project, there are a couple of things I check first. Of everything, how old is that house, and how old is that paint job? When you look at a paint job, can you estimate how old it is? Five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago? That goes up, right? The problem is, if a house was built before 1978, you're going to assume they have lead paint on it, right? If we have to paint that house, it's going to be a huge amount of work: preparation, protecting everything, protecting the floors, the homeowners' doors and windows, and the neighbors, and you and me, myself, the boys, everybody. The numbers for a regular paint job that doesn't have lead paint are this much; where that paint is, this big much, right?
In my world, the plumbing world, you get miles and miles of water piping inside any building, and any leak is a catastrophe. So there are some things you'd want to look for. In any building from the earliest part of the 20th century, it might have threaded brass, which was just threaded together with fittings. In the war era they went to galvanized, which was metal with a special galvanized treatment. Either one of those, where the threads are, can become absolutely brittle from electrolysis, so any of the old piping should be a caution. Polybutylene was the wonder product in the '70s, and it was proven to be a failure, so you should worry about that. Richard, what failed: the pipe itself? It was both. It was linear expansion on the pipe, but it was also the connections. That's a tricky thing, making metal-to-plastic connections, that last, correct? The modern PEX systems are terrific, and the connections are really good.
The other thing is on regular copper, there's one callout I want to mention, and that is you can tell the thickness of copper pipe by its color coding. This is red and this is blue, and this is the grade, or sidewall thickness. This is the thicker one, the blue, or the L, and you can see that it's very thin. Now, thin by itself is not a problem, but if you add electrolysis from the loose ground or something like that, you can pit and corrode in that thin wall. If you see the thinner-wall copper, are you assuming you have to replace it? It's not an assumption, but it still has to be a cautionary tale. You're going to say, look, if I'm now going to do a bathroom remodel somewhere in the building, I'm going to replace all that thin-gauge pipe while I'm doing it, because it's cheaper to just do it at that time. You want to eliminate the amount of risk, reduce your risk as much as possible.
That's good to know. Some other things come to mind, maybe not deal breakers, but the age of the mechanical and plumbing equipment. Most equipment has a rating plate on it, so you have the model number, the serial number, and the date of manufacture. That's always there. Yep. With that date you can compare it to the actual life of that piece of equipment. If you know you have a water heater that's ten years old, based on the manufacturer's data, it's probably going to be replaced in the future. Maybe not a deal breaker if you've got old equipment, but at least you go into it knowing you have an expense in your near-term future. That's right.
What about when you walk up to a house, Ross, and you see solar? A lot of houses have it now. Does that cause you concern, or does that make you happy? The one thing I would caution is how that solar is financed. Is it a lease or a power purchase agreement? If it's one of those two financing vehicles for the solar, then I'd be concerned about reading the fine print and understanding the terms you're signing. When you sign the PPA, if the previous homeowner bought it outright, no concern. With those other two deals, you may have a partner on your roof, so just know what it is. A financing partner, in that case. Yep, exactly right.
Who's up? The first thing I want people to be aware of is not to panic over the age of the house necessarily. Our electrical codes change constantly. We're updating them with new materials, new methods, better and safer ways. That doesn't mean the stuff you have is bad or unsafe, or was installed improperly. It was probably perfectly fine when it was installed, and it's still probably good. That being said, you do want to look for a couple of things. If you have a fuse box service with the actual screw fuses and knob-and-tube wiring, that's a big red flag. A lot of places won't even insure you with knob-and-tube wiring still in the house, so you're looking at removing all of that and rewiring. You can't insulate the house either if it has knob-and-tube.
In my business, chimneys get missed a lot if you don't have a professional inspection, and you really don't know what you're looking for. A couple of things I've been seeing for the last couple of years: because they miss it in the inspection, the chimney starts to lean out, which means you have to take it down to where it starts to lean again. You're putting up staging, you have to relay the brick, and you have to find brick to match. There's a multitude of problems that come along with missing that on your inspection.
So it can be scary in some ways, but not so scary in other ways. Houses have been around a long time. Even the worst of these deal breakers might not be enough to stop you from buying that dream house if you finally find it. You've just got to have a budget set aside for it, the rainy day fund. It doesn't always have to be done right now, either. Right. All right, well, thank you all. So what did that cost me, 250 bucks an hour, 175 an hour? Thanks for watching. This Old House has a video for just about every home improvement project, so be sure to check out the others. If you like what you see, click on the Subscribe button and make sure you get our newest videos right in your feed.