Common Problems First-Time Homebuyers Might See on a Home Inspection Report
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Welcome to your new house, first-time homebuyer. Unfortunately, the doors are out of alignment, you have hail damage on the roof, the windows are unsealed, and you have conditions conducive to wood-destroying insects, but other than that…
Inspection reports give important information, but sometimes it’s overwhelming, so much so that some people — even first-time homebuyers — just opt not to get a home inspection at all. I know, can you imagine??
A home inspection is not meant to sway your decision one way or another about the purchase of the home. It’s meant to educate you about the status of the home’s systems so you can understand what you’re purchasing, so you can be prepared and plan financially for what needs replacing and when. Nobody likes surprises when they come in the form of an HVAC system or water heater.
To help reduce the overwhelm and bring it to a nice, manageable level of “whelm,” we like to go over some common problems every now and then.
HVAC Issues for the Win
You can usually count on houses in North Texas to have an HVAC issue or two, especially a dirty filter. A missing filter with icy conditions is a whole other ball of wax, though.
For first-time homebuyers, here’s a great, brief video that takes you through AC maintenance 101.
Your Basic DIY Doozy
The thing is, most people think they are better at doing-it-themselves than they actually are. Sometimes these epic DIY fails are the result of emergency ingenuity, meaning something bad happened and somebody thought fast and fixed it with whatever they could in the moment. The problem with that type of repair arises when you leave it that way indefinitely. Most other DIY fails are just people attempting a job that they don’t know how to do. I think cutting a hole in your wall and using a garden hose to drain your washing machine falls somewhere in between the two. In any case, it’s not a good look when selling your home.
Wait, Where’s the Water Heater?
People do the darnedest things when they flip houses. But you would want to know before you move into a house if you’re going to have to relocate the water heater, because this is just a bad idea. In this case, whenever you need to check, adjust, or repair your water heater, you have to belly crawl under the air handler, and then… I don’t know. It doesn’t look like there’s room to stand up over there.
For first-time homebuyers, if you can’t access the water heater or any other major appliance or utility, that is a big problem that you need to factor into the cost of the home, either in the negotiation of the purchase or in your expenses after the fact.
You never know what you’re going to find when you’re doing home inspections, and that fact right there is why you should always have one, whether you’re buying a brand new home or an older one, a large home or a tiny shack. Every homeowner, whether they’re first-time homebuyers or many-time owners, should know as much as they can about the home they live in so they can maintain it properly and plan for future expenses.
