CB-
Sheer wall - The anchor bolts are good for securing the wood stud wall to the foundation but don’t help much with the type of racking you might encounter during an earthquake. Plywood sheathing would help with that but I would assume you already have that on the outside. Sheathing the inside would probably make it extra resistant to racking. Did the buyers ask you to add that?
Spark arrestor/damper - There’s probably a cable that goes from the chimney cap down into the fire box. One just has to remember to open it prior to lighting the fire! It should prevent a lot of heat escaping though the chimney, aka chimney effect.
The buyers inspector found ONE thing…apparently there were carpenter ants in the basement only…in one spot…YEARS before…probably long before we bought the house. He insisted that we have the house treated…so we did.
Our inspector said it was true they were obligated to find at least one thing that looked like a “big deal” and a few minor things (caulking around the windows cracking, showerhead clogged, stuff like that). On the house we pre-inspected, she said the “big deal” list would have been too long… when the inspector recommends calling a structural engineer and an EIFS guy, big red flags go up!
I remember the three things that were found in the old house we sold; two were minor and the “big deal” one was to call a special inspector to certify that the siding was not LP. Thankfully, we bought the house new and had papers, so produced those and that was it.
The shear panel request is for the crawlspace under the original bedroom wing that did not have any structural modifications. We added bolts and strapping to connect the base plates of the cripple walls to the concrete foundation. We also added big plates to strap the top of the posts in the center of the crawlspace (which are imbedded in concrete footings below) to the floor joists. This helps with the up and down motion of an earthquake. Shear panels and/or strapping are an additional precaution to help with the sway or side to side motion of an earthquake. They were not required when the house was built.
Every other part of the house, including the basement, have plywood shear panels either inside/outside the basement or outside the entire new area of construction, per the structural engineering requirements. Shear is not required 100% on every wall, only where the engineer determines that there is ‘shear’.But, it’s basically 100% around the new construction, especially tying the floors together and lots of strapping of old to new
@BunsenBurner , that fake stucco is very common here and I haven’t heard of major problems, but in Dallas we don’t have the winter moisture issues that you have in the Seattle area. The bigger issue here is that it can get trashed in a hailstorm.
If you have never seen this technique, here’s how it went on houses in my neighborhood (built late 90’s). After the sheathing was installed, 4x8 sheets of 1/2" styrofoam were somehow attached all over. Then architectural details were built up with more foam. Then the foam was carved into smooth curves on the trim and scratched with a rake like tool to give the stucco something to adhere to, then the finish coat of stucco was applied over all the foam. The raking generates huge amounts of individual little styrofoam spheres that fly all over the neighborhood and end up trapped in your pool skimmers and under your shrubs and washed into the creeks.
That kind of install is apparently not allowed here. The install would require a large plastic “bag” around the house to trap the styrofoam crumbs. Ditto repairs and remodel. Major pain and $$$. The siding is not common and was often installed improperly (like on the house we inspected). We could have gone with an EIFS inspection to see if the install could have been mitigated and at what cost, but we bailed.
Are the styrofoam panels supposed to provide even more insulation?? Why don’t they just stick the panels on the interior for increased insulation? I have seen those styrofoam trim pieces but they aren’t too common except some tract homes.
I see that stuff on commercial buildings because it is easy to build interesting profiles and shapes on the outside of the building. Never knew it was used on houses.
If the styrofoam is thick enough it could add some meaningful R to the outside walls, but I would guess the main benefit is that it stops air infiltration, and maybe acts as sound insulation.
This stuff supposedly was designed to create the stucco look on wood framed homes at a lower cost. It does provide some decent spindproofing (the house we looked at was on a busy street but was silent inside - without special triplepane windows). Wiki has a good summary of EIFS problems. After seeing what could go wrong with it IRL,we are not touching it here… Wood or Hardiplank all the way, or real stucco, but no one does it here.
I always wondered how the foam ages because lots of foam gets brittle as it gets older, especially with UV exposure. I also wonder about off gassing and can’t imagine that would be good for occupants.
Those are not really problems with the siding. Styrofoam is one type of plastic that is indestructible, and off gassing, even if there was some, would not be an issue with the material on the outside of the house. Trapped moisture is a huge issue though if this stuff is inproperly vented, and this led to many lawsuits, including this notorious one - involving a rotted out… courthouse!
I’m very happy to report that the Buyer has released the Inspection Contingency and we are moving along fast to close escrow.
There are about 9 things I need to fix that I agreed to. Stupid small things that we missed, or we knew about but we don’t have the parts yet. For such a large house and such a complex build, I am really proud of my team!!! It’s all about the details and we nailed it and worked really hard over the last couple of weeks to get it all done.
Here are the small things we need to fix:
Stopper on sink not working
Pocket door not latching properly
Two pieces of wood need to be applied around one of the tempered glass panels
Caulk the bottom of toilet to floor (this was in the women’s restroom where we just forgot, probbably because I wouldn’t let any of the guys into that bathroom - it was forbidden!)
Cabinet handles on master bath vanity
Extend the water heater discharge pipe outside the house
Add extra screws to laundry room cabinets into wall
Make 5 window screens for the windows missing screens. I explained in my response that these screens are going to be white and not match the tan windows.
Secure powder room vanity to back wall
And, I agreed to a $500 credit for chimney company to do spark arrestor, damper and repairs to brick cracks. I didn’t want to be responsible for those things. I guarantee there is going to be a cosmetic issue because the guy will repair with white mortar or something and the repairs will be really evident against the newly painted black fireplace box.
What I declined to fix:
Remove all dirt around original deck pressure treated posts. The dirt is up against these posts because they were set in the 1990 building permit and the concrete footings are about 2" below grade. I asked the termite inspector to specifically look at these posts and his answer was that dirt against pressure treated lumber is OK. So I pushed back on that request
And, I pushed back on the request to shear wall the entire crawlspace.
Thursday February 2nd. A full 30 day escrow would have taken it to Friday, but I personally won’t allow an escrow to close on a Friday… from a Seller’s viewpoint. A lesson learned for you all… if an escrow closes on Friday, the proceeds will not be disbursed to the Seller until Monday (or possibly Tuesday if you are not on top of them). That means that I have to pay interest on all the debt I am carrying until disbursement. Also, any investor I have who is recorded does not get paid off from escrow until the following week. Not acceptable to me
As a buyer, if you close on a Monday your lender will ‘fund’ the loan on Thursday or Friday before and you are paying interest on those funds while waiting for the escrow to close.
No they are not. But the cabinet doors and drawers won’t open without handles, no lip to grab. And the handles were called out in our sales agreement contract. They were not noted in the inspection report.
Today we are clearing out all my personal staging stuff and fixing everything on the list. Vacuuming and cleaning every single cabinet and starting our touchup paint.
I had set out about 10 cabinet handle choices in master bath and buyers selected the black handle. Who would have thought?
Loan approval and full contingency release is due tomorrow night. Not sure if the lender is going to get through underwriting by tomorrow because we had to issue a credit through escrow yesterday (fireplace stuff) and that causes the final statement to be revised for underwriting
