General Contractor's Visit

Rain, rain, go away......
I finally got the call and we went to meet "our" General Contractor Chris at the house. It was just a light to medium sprinkling of rain at the time, but just enough to be annoying. We showed Chris all the home inspection report and termite inspection report that had been prepared and explained the situation to him. We also told him what areas we were really concerned about and wanted him to concentrate on....mainly the crawl space area and wood damaged area over the garage door. Chris then began his accessment of the situation. I should have taken a picture of him when he reemerged from the crawl space because that photo would have truely told the story. His comment was "There's alot of water under there." He looked like everyone else I had seen come out of that crawl space. The front of his pants were wet from just about his knees down, and 1/2 of the front of his shirt was wet. (Remember there is a vapor barrier of plastic on top of the ground so that is what he was crawling on) The good news, I suppose, is that Chris said that he didn't think that water was coming from any kind of "leak" because it was "too widespread." We discussed several ideas about sources for the water and could really come up with nothing but the broad term "moisture" that is evidently used. Chris decided that he needed to talk to his Heating & Air man and get back with us. He explained that people in the Heating & Air Conditioning field are the "moisture" experts and that he would be the one to tell us if it really was a moisture problem or not. This might mean that another site visit would be required by another expert. (Most human bodies have never seen this many specialist)

During this whole process, I had noticed some neighbors outside on their front porch. Each time I visit the area I was always paying attention to people in the area, and I had been intending on talking to some of the neighbors and now was the perfect time. So I walked over, introduced myself and asked if I could ask a few questions. Of course they agreed and were very friendly. I was really only interested in knowing if they had any "moisture" problems with their house, but I ended up gathering alot of info. No, they didn't have any problems with moisture but their house had a moisture barrier under it when they bought it. The wife asked me was there a termite problem because "the termite company had been out there for 3 or 4 days." (Must have been while installing the moisture barrier and doing the termite treatment) They also told me several things I already knew, such as the house had been a rental for awhile, and that "one guy had done some things himself" to it. They asked was the AC working because they knew that they didn't have any AC over there for a couple of months and had to do something to the ducts or something. That would explain 2 situations - the reason that some ducts look newer than others, and the fact that there is no flashing around the outside of the gas pack. It always pays to talk to the neighbors and particularly in this case!

I found a very good article that discusses moisture problems in crawlspaces and various ways that it is dealt with. This is a serious matter and one that requires some thought. After we hear from Chris and what he has to say, we will sit down with our agent and come up with what to do next. I do believe that the Seller should make some repairs to things that were "discovered" during the inspections, but as to coming up with a list at the moment, that will just have to wait. I am certain the Seller won't mind since our Offer to Purchase was totally ignored for a full week, withdraw, and then resubmitted before it was accepted.