Adventures in Home Buying

Your House Has More Parts Than Your Car, So Plan For Maintenance

• Jim Troth

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A scratchy throat and a cold snap collide, and suddenly we’re talking about the quiet ways winter punishes a house. We pull back the roof to explain how ice dams form, why pretty icicles often mean trouble, and how small ventilation mistakes turn into leaks, mold, and early shingle failure. If you’ve ever wondered why a finished garage cracks each winter or why your gutters groan under ice, this is your field guide to a warmer, drier season.

We start with mindset: your home has more wear parts than your car, yet most people plan oil changes better than attic checks. That’s where seasonal prep pays off. We walk through simple wins—disconnecting hoses, insulating hose bibs, clearing gutters—and then go deeper into the attic. Balanced airflow matters: continuous soffit intake paired with a properly cut ridge vent, unobstructed by insulation, moves moisture out and keeps roof surface temperatures more uniform. We also tackle the myths, like closing vents in winter to “keep heat in,” and the common errors we still see on new roofs: undersized vents, blocked baffles, and ridge vents installed without the slot.

Maintenance inspections come up big here. Two years after move-in, a fresh set of trained eyes can spot the early signs of condensation, poor ventilation, missing insulation, and construction shortcuts. We share why multi-inspector teams provide crucial backup when life happens and how to protect yourself by scheduling a post-install roof check before making your final payment. Along the way, we offer candid advice on hiring: ask an independent inspector which roofers and agents earn trust in your market. Fewer surprises, fewer leaks, and more life from your roof—that’s the goal.

Subscribe for more practical home insights, share this with a neighbor who loves their icicles, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your roof will thank you when the next freeze hits.

Adventures in Home Buying, the ultimate podcast for anyone navigating the exciting, sometimes daunting world of purchasing a home! Whether you're a first-time buyer, a seasoned investor, or dreaming of your forever home, our engaging stories and expert insights will guide you through every step of the homebuying journey. From decoding mortgages and mastering bidding wars to uncovering hidden costs and spotting sustainable home features, we deliver practical tips and real-world advice to empower you with confidence.

Visit our home inspection website at Home Inspector Columbus Ohio | Habitation Investigation for exclusive resources, and tools to make your homebuying adventure a success.

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Sponsored by a Multi-Award Winning home inspection company Habitation Investigation in Ohio Home Inspector Columbus Ohio | Habitation Investigation

SPEAKER_00:

Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. Jim and Laura here, of course, the office goddess.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_00:

Alright, so I'm not feeling good today. I noticed. Yes, I don't get sick very often, but when I do.

SPEAKER_01:

Holy mackerel.

SPEAKER_00:

All right.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so ladies, I have a question for you. So there's woman cold and man cold. Woman cold. We suck it up. We're getting the kids. We're doing the laundry. We're, you know, we're being us. Man cold. Uh I need snuggles with the puppy. I just I just need to sit in the TV, watch Snuggles, puppy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whimpering every couple of minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

I do admit I I do whimper. I probably sound pretty pathetic when I don't feel good. Yes, you do. But my nose is overall is fine. My throat is a little scratchy, but nothing big. It's my head. So I wonder if I have a sinus infection going on. But I don't know. And does this happen once a year to me?

SPEAKER_01:

About this time.

SPEAKER_00:

Is it about this time?

SPEAKER_01:

Because I usually get it like change of season, like to fall, like fall to winter, and then like spring to summer is when I get hit the hardest.

SPEAKER_00:

No, you have bronchitis. I get bronchitis. Yeah. So anyway. Not a whimper. No, she's not whimper. But so my feeling like crab today made me think that he was thinking. Alright, change the seasons. Because you're gonna get bronchitis, likely, unless you like take real extra care of like echinacea and other things. You're you're you're probably gonna get that.

SPEAKER_01:

And I could just stay in the house and not leave. That would be even better.

SPEAKER_00:

According to you, I get this thing once a year, like a sinus inspection, it just hurts. If I bend over and then stand up the pressure on my head, it just sucks. So I I did have an inspection schedule for tomorrow, but one of the other inspectors is gonna do it for me, which is one of the benefits of using a home inspection company that has multi-inspectors.

SPEAKER_01:

Something like this happens, you get backup.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so if somebody's sick or they're on vacation. Or an emergency happens. Yes, somebody else can fill in. So that's a huge benefit for multi-inspector companies to recommend those. But it also had me thinking about your how and we mentioned this before. Your house has more parts to it than your car does. But yet you expect something to go wrong for your car every year or two. You're gonna expect to change the tires, change the braid. You gotta change the oil every year.

SPEAKER_01:

Oil's like every 5,000, depending on the oil now.

SPEAKER_00:

They got better oils now. So every 5,000 miles, you I think I seen one with 8,500 the other day. I don't know if I'd trust that, but change the oil. There are things that wear out, just like your roof on your house. If it's shingled, that's a wear part. Mellow's a wear part, also, but it will like 40 years. 40, 50 years, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

And there's stuff that they can coat it with that can extend it even longer.

SPEAKER_00:

Correct. So change the season, had me thinking about houses and how you for the change of season, you need to get that house ready. And I know something we're gonna be doing because it's gonna be, I think, 20 degrees.

SPEAKER_01:

Monday?

SPEAKER_00:

Monday morning, Tuesday night, somewhere around there. It's gonna be like 20 degrees. It's gonna be a low.

SPEAKER_01:

So which is why Laura was out putting stuff in the chicken cootin.

SPEAKER_00:

Taking care of the chickens, and we're gonna take the hose off the hose bib and then put the insulation thing over that hose bib to help keep it from freezing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So we're gonna do that, but uh but the expansion contraction because it's changing temperatures. A lot of people ask us about like a garage. If it's a finished garage, often there are all kinds of cracks in the drywall in the garage. Well, the garages are not heated or cooled.

SPEAKER_01:

Typically. I have seen some nice ones.

SPEAKER_00:

We have seen some, but if you think about Ohio, that thing's gonna go from 100 degrees during the summers, maybe a little bit hotter, depending upon the ventilation in that garage. 100 degrees down to maybe 10 below. That is a huge temperature swing for that drywall and the joint. So you're gonna expect movement and some cracks in that is not a big deal. But you do need to take care of your house and expect some issues to come up.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's why we suggest having maintenance inspections. You move into your house, you know, you've you've done your real estate transaction, you move in. Two years later, give us a call to come back out. Because let's face it, who wants to go crawling around their call space or you know, climbing up through their attic and not wanting to go through the floor of the attic down into your living room. I mean, that's that that's what a home inspector is for. They they know what to look for, it makes it so much nicer, and then you get your honeydew list.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. And if we did not do that original inspection of the house, we could do it inspection of any house. We've done maintenance inspection for things for the state. Yeah. Some of the buildings they've owned, historical connection, historical connection, yep. So we do not have to have done the home and the building inspection when they were buying the place. It could be a maintenance inspection as well. But yeah, this is the time of year. Get that checked out. Yeah, get things checked out. You might get sick. I got sick. Laura's not feeling great. You got a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm starting that cough that I always get this time of year.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's that time of year, so I'm not doing an inspection tomorrow, but we do have a backup inspector.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Which in this case he's being the backup, but he does a great job.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. He's he's been with us the longest now.

SPEAKER_00:

But you need to take care of your house and expect things to come across and then make sure you have backups for various things that can pop up.

SPEAKER_01:

And we need to talk about um damming, ice damming at some point, and explain that a little bit better for people in a next podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we can hit we can hit that right now, real quick.

SPEAKER_02:

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SPEAKER_00:

So ice damming, when you drive around this winter, or maybe you remember from last winter, you'll see a ton of ice build up on the lower edges of the roof, like just above the gutters, maybe on top of the gutters.

SPEAKER_01:

So you make the really cool icles that drip down.

SPEAKER_00:

They can also, the weight of that, will rip off your gutters. Because all the way anyway, this happens. It's a combination issue. Not enough ventilation and not enough insulation, or some combination of those two things. So because what happens, the attic, because it's peaked, it's warm at the top because warm air rises, so the snow on the roof melts at the top, and it starts running down the roof toward the gutter. Well, as it goes down, the that roof surface is a little bit cooler because of ventilation heat arising to the top, so it refreezes. Assuming your house is right at that edge. Right at that edge. Yep. So it will refreeze, and over time that ice builds up. So you got two days where it melts and refreezes, does that repeatedly? That ice gets built up thick enough over near your gutter, gutter edge, that the water run down, it can't go continue down because it's so built up and flat there that it runs back towards your house underneath the shingles and becomes a roof leak.

SPEAKER_01:

And you don't want that.

SPEAKER_00:

No. So what you should do, if you if you've had this in in the past, get up in that attic, take a peek, make certain you have ventilation, good ventilation in that attic space. It's amazing how many roofers that we've seen, they put on a new roof and they do the ventilation wrong.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, it's it's crazy. In fact, we've got a couple of clients that we did roof inspections for them after a roof install, and they've actually contacted attorneys because ventilation wasn't done right and they had a lot of mold in their house.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So, you know, be careful. If you're doing a roof install and it's a new roof, tell them you're gonna have a home inspector come out and look at the job before you give them that final check.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the house you're talking about, the lawsuit, the owner to the roofer, is they had ventilation. They were way too small. There's no there's no way there's enough ventilation for the and the amount of condensation and mold going up there is evidence that it's just not it's not working right. Not at all, like it should. So you can have have us come out, take a look. So you it could there could be no ventilation. We've seen that no ventilation.

SPEAKER_01:

Like on new builds, like this was like a one-owner house, and the the builder never put insulation in in his attic. That was just within the past two months we found that.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, I do remember that. You remember that? Yeah, I didn't do that in Spectre, but yeah. So you could have not enough ventilation where the vents are not big enough, or they shoved insulation and they blocked the vents, or the baffles are blocking the vents. You can have that as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Or do you remember the really nifty system that the guy built with the pulley system to open and close the ventilation?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you all right, just because it's winter, you should not your attic space should always be vented. It should always bring always vent it out. I know you're thinking like, all right, let me close this.

SPEAKER_01:

Let me close this up.

SPEAKER_00:

Let me keep the heat up inside here. And first theory, first level thinking, that's a good idea. Let's keep the heat in here. No, no, because you're also trapping moisture, and that roof surface is gonna be very cold during the winter, especially at night, and that's where you're gonna get all kinds of condensation forming up there, which then leads to mold and rot, and you totally screwed up your roof system.

SPEAKER_01:

So don't do that.

SPEAKER_00:

Also, let it breathe. Yeah, let it breathe. Also, we've seen roofers, they will add a ridge vent, but they didn't add soffit vents. They they they left the gable vents. Gable vents and soffit vents are not a good combination.

SPEAKER_01:

You said gable and ridge vents are not a good combination.

SPEAKER_00:

Correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You you didn't say that. You said gable and soft are not a good combination.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that would not be a good combination. But usually what we're seeing is a ridge vent and they have a gable vent. No, the gable vents aren't aren't good. You only got that one little space at that top of that triangle, looking at the end of the building, end of the house. It only goes that one little space up. Good soft vents are on all the way on the underside of the lower edge of the roof, and you got pretty uniform air flowing in, going up all the way underneath the roof surface, and then going out through the top. Gable vent kind of shorts circuits that good ventilation type. So it's so the type of ventilation you have works as well. I've also seen roofers put the the ridge vent on top of the roof, but they never cut the gap for the air to actually flow out through the root roof vent. They just I don't know, they just lazy forgot. There's no way you can forget doing that.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. I'm trying to be nice. Well, we saw one not even long enough. Like, aren't ridge vents supposed to be almost like a foot from either end of the peak?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, some of the manufacturers do recommend the ridge vent be pretty almost the whole entire length, like a foot or so off the edge is is good. Some of the builders are going by, yeah, we we need just one square foot of ventilation for every 300 square feet of attic floor space. Not that is not a good standard. I mean, it depends on the area you're at, but here in Ohio, that is not enough. That is not enough. One square foot for every 150 is better. But I think it also changes because of the type of roof you have. If you have a gable vent, all right, you got two roof planes. If you have a hipped roof, you got four roof planes. You got a lot more surface area to collect the heat. And if your shingles get hot because lack of ventilation, they'll get hotter, they're gonna age quicker. And here you and you just lost three to five years worth of use of your uh roof.

SPEAKER_01:

But on an up note, the roofing company gets another job three to five years sooner.

SPEAKER_00:

Possibly, but they should not. No, they shouldn't. That's why you should always hire a home inspector to take a look at it. Because we don't do repairs, we're unbiased. Our our best benefit is to tell you exactly what's going on with the house, which is exactly in a home buyer's best benefit. Or a homeowner. Or homeowner. Believe it or not, if you're a home buyer, some agents do not recommend the most thorough home inspectors. So vet your real estate agent well. In fact, I recommend you contact a home inspector. Go, hey, I have these three agents I'm considering using.

SPEAKER_01:

What do you know?

SPEAKER_00:

Do you have anybody you would immediately strike off your list?

SPEAKER_01:

Or somebody you would immediately recommend?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, like that could be done as well. So I'd recommend doing that. That that will be the new thing for home buyers is to ask a home inspector who they recommend.

SPEAKER_01:

We see it all. We see the good, the bad, and the ugly from buying and selling, and we hear all the stories. So your best bet is to call a home inspector.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. All right, I think that's about it. Can you think of anything else, Laura? I'm kind of done, my head's hurting.

SPEAKER_01:

That's no, why don't you be done, baby?

SPEAKER_00:

All right, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go actually I gotta upload this, edit if I need to, and then I'm gonna go whimper on the couch and watch TV, is what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01:

You snuggle with your puppy and you go whimper.

SPEAKER_00:

I am, I'm gonna snuggle with a dog, and that will be it. All right, thank you, everybody. Bye. All right, bye bye.

Contributor

Jim Troth

Host
Contributor

Laura Troth

Host