SuburbanHomeInspections
 St Paul / Mpls​

The vinyl siding at this home appeared to be properly installed, but mistakes were found with the installation of the underlayments (behind the siding).  While we do not remove siding during our inspections, seams in the vinyl can allow a visual analysis of the underlayments at isolated locations.  When looking behind the seams above some windows at this home, I was able to view mistakes.
 

This image shows a closeup of the materials behind the siding. The house wrap does not overlap the window flange, which means that water can drain behind the flashings. This would result in damaged / decayed wall materials over time. A similar mistake was found behind a second siding location.  This means that more mistakes are likely present.
 

The only option for repair is to remove as much of the siding as is needed to gain access to all mistakes. In some cases, this can result in complete re-siding.

At rake / gable edges of the roof, the drip-edge flashing should be installed after the underlayments are installed. This did not occur here - and the roof sheathing is exposed as a result.  These areas are especially vulnerable to leakage from wind-blown rain - which can cause leakage into the home.

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Note: This detail is commonly overlooked because roofers often want to install all the drip-edge at once.

The sump pump discharge pipe should terminate far from your foundation to prevent water from leaking back into the sump pit, or basement area.  This pipe terminated directly against the back side of the air-conditioner, which means that draining water will spray against the air-conditioner and pool against the foundation.

In this image, you can see the very small discharge pipe - and how it will drain against the air-conditioner when water is discharged from the sump pit.

There was not enough room remaining even to add an elbow to the end of the pipe.

This image is a closeup of LP-Smartside siding, which is a popular choice of siding for modern homes.  Flashing is needed behind the vertical joints - at seams.  While the flashing is present, it was not overlapped properly.  This allows rain water to drain behind the siding, which can lead to decayed wall materials over time.

Water stains existed above this window - and the homeowners had notified their builder of leakage that periodically occurred.  The builder agreed to modify the flashings around the perimeter of the window, but completely missed the actual source of the problem, which was the lack of kick-out flashing (at a roof / wall transition above this area).  If this had not been caught, major damage/decay would have occurred to the wall structure over time.

In this example, kick-out flashing was present but was improperly installed/positioned.  This also allows leakage to occur behind the wall claddings and will significantly damage the wall structure over time.  Unfortunately, this type of leakage usually goes undetected until the problem reaches an advanced stage.

An inadequate number of bolts were used to anchor this porch ledger board to the home - and the existing bolts also were not staggered at the house connection.  This results in a very weak connection - and creates a serious potential safety hazard (potential for porch to separate from the home).

While most portions of roofing underlayments are not visible to home inspectors, several gaps and improper overlaps were identified at the edges of this roof.  This often means that more (hidden) errors are also present.  The end result of this discovery was a new roof for the homeowner.

Elevated carbon monoxide levels inside the furnace exhaust pipe generally indicate the need for a tune-up, but they can also be an indication of a more serious problem.  In either case, it is unusual for a new furnace to have elevated levels of carbon monoxide.