SuburbanHomeInspections
 St Paul / Mpls​

The ledger board is anchored to the home and is the primary support for the deck.  This board was cracked completely, which has significantly weakened the connection to the home.
 

The crack has completely penetrated the board - and this crack extends across the entire ledger board.

Holes were made in this shingle during installation and were simply patched.  Shingle replacement is the only option here.

This air-conditioner turned on while the thermostat was set to "heating mode".  While the correction was simple, this condition was intermittent and was not obvious.

Noticeable / advanced granular loss had occurred at several isolated shingle locations.

Damage like this is most commonly caused by improper foot traffic / handling of the shingles during installation, or from a manufacturing defect / lack of rejecting defective shingles during installation

Note: Granular loss exposes the base portion of the shingles.  This results in a shortened lifespan where granular loss has occurred.Replacement of all affected shingles is needed.

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.