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Home Safety Issues: An Inspector's Biggest Concern.
This article is not intended to scare the witts out of someone looking to buy or sell a home. My goal is to hopefully prevent someone from being injured at home whether it is a prospective buyer, seller or current homeowner. My comments are based on extensive experience in home and building inspections.
I find safety hazards in many homes that I inspect, new and old. Here are some of them:
Plumbing: Hot and cold water lines reversed are more common than you think. So are water faucet temperatures exceeding 130 degrees, which is an extreme scalding hazard especially for children. Lower the heat setting on your water heater if needed.
Shower Door: If the door is made of glass that is non-tempered material, you have an extremely serious safety issue that you need to correct immediately.
Electric: GFCI outlets in bathrooms, kitchens, exterior outlets and garages. These grounded outlets help protect against electric shock should someone come into contact with water when operating an electrical appliance. Do you know if your outlets are grounded? Is your service equipment capacity adequate? If you don't know, forget about adding any more electric appliances until you find out.
Furnace: Nice looking two year old furnace in your new home? Good for you. However the furnace filter may also be two years old, which is a potential carbon monoxide issue. Don't assume that the current homeowner changed the filters as required.
Exterior: Uneven patio slabs. I often find that portions of concrete patio slabs have settled while other portions stay intact. This a serious trip hazard that often goes unnoticed until someone gets hurt. Window well covers provide additional security for your home. But if you have a well that is not covered, it is a serious safety issue you need to correct immediately. If someone fell in because you failed to cover it, injuries are likely to occur. When a well cover is in place it locks from the inside near the basement window with a pin type mechanism. If you needed to escape your home from the basement window, would the window and well cover mechanisms release as intended? How do you know? Did you ever test them?
Roof: Feel like cleaning tree branches off the roof of your new home? Before you placed the metal ladder against the side of the home, would you have checked to make sure that overhead electrical wiring is not in contact with any portion of the gutters?
Attics: If for some reason you must venture into this area of your home, one bad step may send you crashing to the ground. The attic floor (which is your living space ceiling) is usually nothing more than a thin sheet of drywall.
Clothes Dryer: Did you know that in many homes the dryer exhaust vent is made of vinyl that can melt and cause a fire? The vent material should be flexible metal.
Exterior Doors: Do you have a nice secure deadbolt installed that you lock from the inside before going to sleep? How are you going to get out of the home should there be a fire and you can't find your door keys? Even if it's during the day, don't leave your keys in the lock. That's what burglars look for if you have a small window next to the door.
Garage Door: Your door may open and close just fine. But would it reverse if it came into contact with someone who might be underneath when closing it? Reverse features sometimes fail and cause severe, even fatal injuries. Test regularly. If you don't have optical motion sensors they would be a very worthwhile investment.
Deck/Balcony Balusters: Are you aware that a very young child can squeeze between balusters that are more than four inches a part?
Stairs: Any stairway with four or more steps without a handrail is considered a trip hazard and depending on the municipality, may also be a code violation.
Stair Railings: They always look safe and secure from a distance. Once I barely touched a railing and it fell off. Are yours firm and securely fastened?
Crawl Space: Besides the long list of maintenance issues that are common especially in unconditioned crawl spaces, many have wires strewn across the ground or dangling overhead. Add a wet ground and you have a recipe for a disaster. Possibly live wires in direct contact with water. Would you have known to stay out of the crawl space? Same goes for the basement. Don't eve go into a basement that's flooded. A fatal charge may await you. Call an electrician and your utility company immediately.
Please let me share some straightforward advice. Don't even think about buying a home without a thorough inspection by an experienced inspection professional. Secondly, if you are thinking of selling you should strongly consider a pre-listing inspection before placing the home on the market.
Being a long time resident of the home, you may have become so used to your surroundings "as they are", that you may not recognize an issue even if you were looking right at it. Not buying or selling? Then if you're a homeowner who has no plans on moving, a safety/maintenance inspection would be the best home investment you can make
Erol Kartal is a veteran home and building inspector in the Chicagoland area who is also a certified building sciences thermographer specializing in infrared thermal imaging inspections.
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