Photo of the Day . . .
Home inspectors are not just a pretty face in the crowd. They really have to know their craft especially when it comes to new homes and framing inspections. As part of the services we offer for our clients, framing inspections are imperative since far too often, major framing faults and structural failures are hidden forever by drywall.
While conducting a framing inspection for one of my clients in the Brentwood, TN area, I came across this framing fault, which by all intents and purposes, is a failure within the structure waiting to happen. Keep in mind that all structural loads within the property MUST be properly transmitted to the earth. If not, a structural failure is imminent.
I know that this is a little technical, but GOOD home inspectors MUST understand loading and weight transfers. The green arrows indicate horizontal loads imposed upon beams and girders. These loads must be transferred to the vertical supports which are the red arrows. These arrows are the loads which must be transferred to earth for proper stability of the home. In this picture we have a structural failure waiting to happen as the blue arrows indicate improper transfer of the attic and environmental loads to the girder below. This can be easily corrected by adding additional blocking equal to the size of the column above to the girder below. The scary thing is that “the codes department” gave the green light for construction to resume. This is one of several pictures that I have of this property which I will post in subsequent posts as to why this Egg McMansion is a structural failure waiting for a place to happen.
I know that this is a slow economy for many real estate agents, and I totally understand that as real estate agents you do not want a “pesky, pain-in-the-ass” home inspector causing problems for your deal as your pay check rides on the consummation of the transaction. But, had this not been caught now, the home owner would have had to have spent thousands correcting this problem down the road.