Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Brought to you from Ohio based home inspection company of Habitation Investigation. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Site Prep Nightmares
Trust your instincts and never skip the inspection - this crucial advice could have saved one Ohio family significant headaches with their new manufactured home. Their story begins with excitement about upgrading to a newer home on land they already owned, but quickly turns troubling when the installation company prevents them from viewing the construction process.
What seemed like minor ceiling cracks revealed a much deeper problem during our inspection. The site preparation - the critical foundation work that supports the entire structure - was fundamentally flawed. The ground sloped toward the home rather than away, directing water straight at the support piers. Most alarmingly, several piers weren't even making contact with the steel frame, while others used varying numbers of regular (not pressure-treated) wooden shims that were already developing mold. A level survey confirmed the severity - points 1.2 inches out of level across short distances, far exceeding acceptable tolerances.
Manufactured homes offer excellent value and quality construction when properly installed. Built in controlled factory environments on rigid steel frames, these homes can provide decades of trouble-free living. However, they remain entirely dependent on proper site preparation and foundation work. This case demonstrates how cutting corners on this critical phase creates cascading problems that undermine the home's structural integrity. The strange discovery of drywall stacks propping up the furnace further highlighted the questionable workmanship throughout.
The takeaway is clear: regardless of whether you're buying new construction, a manufactured home, or an existing property, professional inspection remains essential. Red flags like builders restricting access during construction should never be ignored. Have you encountered similar issues with your home purchase? Share your experience and remember to subscribe for more real-world inspection insights that could save you thousands.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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Hey everybody, it's Jim and I have Laura here.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone.
Speaker 1:All right, so.
Speaker 2:Interesting week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a lot of stuff going on this week. Good things we had a mastermind meeting that we ran. We hosted it this time, and so companies from Ohio, Michigan.
Speaker 2:Wisconsin and Indiana.
Speaker 1:And Indiana all were here participating in that, which is nice. So I encourage everybody to be part of a mastermind group or set your own up, if you can. But for, as home inspections go, we had an adventure for one home buyer, which they already owned a house. For what? Two weeks? Well, okay, okay, they owned a house. They had a manufactured home Right, which are typically those are built within a factory, in a warehouse. They're built nice, rigid specifics and specifications, to say, and they are solidly built. They're on a steel frame. Maybe they come in two halves and put the steel frame sections together do they get welded on site, then typically they get connected.
Speaker 1:Yes, they get connected, okay and I've seen them where they're wooden frame and I put together and I've seen it on where they're metal frame I would like the frame better yes, either way, they are built in a factory so nothing's getting rained on, getting warped from the weather.
Speaker 2:So so in theory, that should be good.
Speaker 1:They are solid, yes, sometimes a little less expensive, but they're solid Right. There's really nothing wrong with these houses. The wiring is usually really good.
Speaker 2:Almost always. The only thing that we've ever typically really had to do with the manufactured home is making sure that the tie downs were done correctly yes, depending on the loan.
Speaker 1:Yes, we can get that for engineering, but they need a professional engineer certification to verify that it is a permanent foundation. That's tied down well and we could do that for a certain loan. So if you need that, we can get that.
Speaker 2:But we didn't need to do that for this one this was this was an inspection because she was concerned about some things that she was seeing right, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So here's how they. They owned a house, they owned the land already, so they they want to move from that house to this one, a newer one, okay makes sense so they paid a company, the company to do the site prep.
Speaker 1:Site prep, which could be a whole article on itself, is you level it out. You maybe do the slab that you're doing or, in this case, piers to hold the house up for the foundation. That's how you do it. Manufacturers could be in a basement, they could be in a crawl space, they could be on raised piers. They have a skirting like this one. So they pay for the site prep and then their new house got delivered.
Speaker 1:And didn't it almost fall off the truck at one point they saw she said when they were bringing it up it was tipping, okay, but they caught it somehow, or it didn't tip all the way over, I don't know.
Speaker 1:To me that could possibly twist some things, but this has steel frame on the bottom, so it's not really going to not too much overall damage is going to happen, I imagine. So anyway, they live in the house. Actually, when they were building they weren't allowed to see it while they were constructing. The company would not allow them to oh heck no.
Speaker 1:Which is that's a red flag in my head. They moved in. There's all kinds of cracks and damage on mostly the ceiling. There's some cracks which are cosmetic. At this point I understand it's a new house. You expect perfection, but it was. Yeah, you want it better looking than that.
Speaker 1:They did not do a good job and there was a raised area in the center of the house. So here's what I did I. They called me when they want a whole house inspection. Well, you told them they should get a whole house inspection, just know what all is going on. Good thing they did, because just look at the cracks in the roof, the ceiling of the place, no big deal, it's cosmetic, right, but what causes that?
Speaker 1:So during the inspection found out that when they put up the site prep, the site prep, the ground is not level. Outside the base, the footprint of the house, the ground slopes toward this house, toward the toward, which is basically a crawl space, flows toward that. Water is directed right at the piers, which you don't want to undermine or wash away the soil underneath your support piers. That would be bad. And judging by the various levels of wood shims that they used on top of the concrete, used on top of the concrete masonry piers so it would meet the bottom of the frame of the house. The number of shims and two by whatever they put in there varies. Even if they're only like six feet apart, they vary in the number of shims.
Speaker 2:That's not good.
Speaker 1:So the piers, none of those were level. They're not all the same height. In fact, I found two, Actually I found three support piers that are not making either any contact with the house itself or it's so loose I can scoot it out by just my hand pulling it out that's not good which is why. Which is why they're having some issues. How? Because all things are going to settle.
Speaker 3:Everything's going to eventually like sag down a little bit eventually habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in ohio. Trusted, licensed home inspectors for your needs. From radon to mold to warranties for a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit HomeInspectionsInOhiocom.
Speaker 1:But this house. I did a level survey. I got a tool that measures the elevation of the rooms, the floors, so I took that All right, not a huge structure. I got my zero. I set that right at the front door. Then I went to the four corners of the house, okay, and then one in the center. Actually I have the survey I. I mapped that out. The center was only about 14 feet away from the uh location of the device. The zero is 1.2 inches higher, which is way outside the tolerance, because nothing's going to be perfectly level.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But this is outside the scope and we have other things that are just barely at the level for tolerance. And then the corner where it had the piers not touching that one is down.
Speaker 1:Oh, so that was already starting to well, there's nothing supporting it, so it's right, so it's going to sink it's a steel frame so it's not going to move that much. But it has no support, so the as it moves you you will get more cracking in the roof. I mean the ceilings, and the roof also has some issues. It's a manufactured home. It has some issues that need to be done and actually in front of the house it leaned out slightly.
Speaker 2:Oh, I remember that in the picture. So here's the long and the short of it. If you've got a new build, for whatever reason, if it's a manufactured home, if it is with another one of the large builders in one of their communities, make sure you get it inspected, because the houses are going up fast, they're at the mercy of their subcontractors and who they can get and how much of their knowledge base they actually have, how much much you know. Whatever the case may be, you need somebody in your corner for you?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, the specters, typically they're. We're, we're working for the client right, but overall we're neutral to the whole process right, we don't get anything if it sells or if it doesn't.
Speaker 2:We're there to just state this is the condition of the house at this time, on this day, during this inspection.
Speaker 1:Well, the safest thing for a home inspector is to be factual and accurate. That's the safest thing for them. If they lie or misrepresent either side going toward the seller or leaning toward the buyer they lose credibility. And inspections don't. Nobody wants to get sued.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Actually, in the state of Ohio the lawsuit is limited to the fee of the home inspection. By law it's limited to that.
Speaker 1:Unless you've got really gross negligence and you willfully decide you're going to lie instead of just making a mistake. So actually it's probably safer being a home inspector now than it was 10 years ago, because by law I'm like nope, how much you paid, that's all you're going to get. So, anyway, this adventure for these people, it was they're not happy, but it was a red flag for me when the builder would not let them in until they were completely done with the house Because they were covering stuff up Right. Oh, and the same house, the back of the furnace, had like stacks of drywall between the furnace and the wall.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right to keep it up.
Speaker 1:Or to keep it from rocking back and forth, I don't know definitely not the standard way of doing it.
Speaker 2:I'm saying the only thing is tip over, that's not normal though no, in 23 years that we've been doing this, have you ever seen drywall used to hold up a furnace to keep it from like moving or making excessive noise or anything? No okay, so there you go.
Speaker 1:I think I've seen wood shoved behind one, before which I understand one thing stable right but man, but it was like stacks of like four sheets of drywall, just the smaller squares just showed back there, so I'm not even certain how they're. If you move that, friends are all going to fall the floor, look like we didn't move it to see if they're secure in any way.
Speaker 1:I think they're just wedged in there. But always get it inspected. If a site prep this well, this whole house, as far as I know it would have been near perfect. Except for the roof they did. Whoever did the shingles, little errors up there, but they're easily fixable. Other than there's no ventilation is not right, but anyway, all the other issues are really like pretty minor overall, but the site prep didn't get that thing level.
Speaker 2:That's the issue so how can they do that now? Do they have to go back out and jack up that house and redo that site prep like would that be the best way to do that then?
Speaker 1:that would probably be the absolute best way is to raise the house and then redo the the site prep and the site prep, yeah but would that?
Speaker 2:have caused permanent damage to that yet, or no, maybe what?
Speaker 1:here's the thing they didn't do a good job on the site prep, so how do we know they did a good job with the footers?
Speaker 1:right as far as I know, the, the footers are just no, they're not big enough, they're not white enough. I have no way of knowing, because you can see evidence where and we're standing water in there. But I can see where water has trickled from the outside across the footers, where the would be and and uh, slowly eroding everything away, at least saturating the ground where it's soft, where the footers could soak down. Now, the best thing for them to do right now, if they can't get this, let's assume the footers are good, they want to, okay let's, let's, let's give them a little boost.
Speaker 1:Let's assume they're okay footers are good, absolutely need to go, and there's no gutters on the house either that was.
Speaker 3:That was an upgrade.
Speaker 1:That was an upgrade to add to the house. I'm like and I told him you absolutely need to get gutters on here Is direct the water and grade the dirt in the back. It's back house was based on this one. Grade it so no water runs underneath the place. Okay, if you do that, the footers, once they all dry out, will stay in place. You don't have to worry about them settling, assuming the ground is all nice and solid like undisturbed soil when they build on it. Okay, they gotta control the water and then, after they know that's all done, then they could go up underneath there and add metal shims.
Speaker 1:Your shims between your piers and your structure should not be wood. I mean, if they're pressure treated wood, okay, that's better, but these are just plain untreated wood. They're all going to rot.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they're already moldy.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at the pictures right now someone has some mold growth on them already, but they should be metal shims. But I would 100, I would want to go back underneath there, get the that would. You almost have to bring a little jack to raise it up slightly. So you pull out the wooden ones, put in metal, metal or in some cases I think you probably could fit some brick in there and re-support that stuff. And then you've got to figure out where's level at on this thing. So you almost have to raise up the house, get the piers all level with new concrete blocks or whatever, and then lower it back down.
Speaker 2:Sounds like a lot of work. They'd have just done it right in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to me that would have been a red flag. The builder or contractor doesn't want you showing up to take a look at their work. That's iffy. That is very iffy to me.
Speaker 2:So anyway, well, we build our house and we were here every week like easily, yeah me.
Speaker 1:so anyway, we build our house and we were here every week like easily, yeah, and we trusted our guy, yeah.
Speaker 2:Then they're taking a look. Yeah, like we still just came here to hang out and and take a look and do stuff. So you know that that's another thing too. Like I've been hearing a lot of people that have had problems with builders in the past month or so and everyone has told me that there were red flags that they saw, that they ignored and that they wish they hadn't. If you see something and it's got your little spidey senses tingling and if you're not sure about it, don't hesitate, follow your instinct either get an inspection or walk from the deal. You know this is going to be the largest purchase basically for your life at this point in time. Like, you may upgrade and move up to another larger one down the road, but to this point in time, this is your largest purchase.
Speaker 1:We kept an eye on our place and there's one piece of wood that our builder put up.
Speaker 2:It it, it as it dried out it split, so I hate this thing split Done the next day and he, he, so I hate this thing, split, Done the next day and he switched it out, which I mean.
Speaker 1:Our builder's name was Dean. He was doing a great job.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But mentioning that toward the beginning, he knows we're keeping an eye on everything.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:So that kind of sets the tone. So if you're hiring a builder man, not nitpick, but call something out early on. They'll go. Oh okay, then they'll take care of it. Now that would that split would have supported forever.
Speaker 2:I don't know, probably probably it was the whole way through, but it was split the whole day.
Speaker 1:I'm like, no, probably, not probably better safe a little split, like I still might, would have called out a little less than I still would have called it out. If it split a little less than that, I still would have called it out.
Speaker 2:Follow your instincts and hire an inspector.
Speaker 1:Yep, double check the stuff. But anyway, never go without a home inspection. Now, this place here manufactured home. I think it was the model home that they had, so maybe they sold it as is, but even then you should do it.
Speaker 1:That they had, so maybe they sold it as is if they did, if they bought it, as is, that doesn't mean the site prep can be shit right in order to wreck the house. So they need to go after whoever did the site prep, which I don't know. That was that same company, or they subcontracted that out, that I do not know. But either way, way, it needs fixed. Biggest thing they can do right now is control the water. Do not let water flow underneath there anymore. That will at least slow down any progression of issues. Minimum. Do that. All right, laura. Any other thoughts?
Speaker 2:Nope.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you everybody, bye, bye-bye.
