Mid efficiency furnaces started cropping up in the 1970’s.  Generally a mid efficiency furnace is 80% or more efficicient.  So for every dollar spent, 8o cents or more is actually being used to heat the home, while the rest escapes up the chimney.  Mid efficiency furnaces are still used and installed in homes today.  Often times they are used in milder climates and places where the winter months are shorter. 

A furnace that is 90% efficient or greater, is designated as “High Efficient”  One way to determine if a house you are looking at has a high efficient furnace is to look at the flue pipe.  PVC piping is used to vent the highly efficient furnaces.  The reason being is that because so much of the heat is extracted from the natural gas, the exhaust gases cannot rise fast enough on their own through a brick chimney.  Instead, an induction fan motor is used to pull the cooler exhaust gases through the PVC pipe and is usually vented through the wall to the exterior.   

If you are looking to buy an older home, say one that was built prior to 1960, take a look at the furnace and try to determine if it is a low, mid or high efficient furnace.   If it is of the lower variety, replacement in the near future is likely going to be needed.  For one, a furnace that is still in use after 20 or more years is living on borrowed time.  Also, the amount of money you could be saving every winter on your gas bill is significant, making the payback or return on your investment sure to happen relatively fast.  When I bought my first (and only) home 6 years ago, I had one of those older Williamson models.  It heated the house very well.  Maybe even too well.  While there was no shortage of heat, there was  certainly a low level of comfort, as the furnace cycled on and off, heating rooms too much, then shutting off, only to feel cold again before it came back on.  One month after purchasing the home but not having moved in yet, I received my first gas bill.  With the termostat set on 50 degrees, just to keep the pipes from freezing, my bill was over $350..  Holy cow was I shocked.  One month later, still in the dead of winter, and having moved in, I had a high efficient Bryant furnace installed.  Even with the thermostat set to a comfortable 70 degrees, my gas bill went down to $240 bucks.  Almost a 33% decrease.   Not only did I save money, but the indoor temperature was more steady and ultimately my comfort level increased. 

Another advantage to replacing an older furnace, is that at this time (July 2010) there is a Federal Tax rebate on high efficiency products, which can be significant and speed up the pay back time on your new furnace.  Something worth looking into.

Since it is snowing here in Cincinnati, I thought I’d write a quick article on Ice dams and the possibility of leaking roofs. Ice dams form when snow melts either from the top of the roof (from sunshine), or warm air from the house enters the attic and melts the snow from the underside of the roof decking. When the water runs down the roof like it should, it can re-freeze along the way, and build up as a dam that traps the water and prevents from going down the shingles (or slate or wood shakes) to the gutters and down and away from the home. This ice buildup creates a pool and causes the water to go back up the roof shingles, where it easily gets under the roof material and hits the sheathing, and potentially leaks into the living area of the home. There isn’t anything you can do about the temperature, or even from keeping the ice from forming.

There are a few things you can do to at least minimize the possibility of ice dams.

First is to ensure good ventilation in the attic, so there is not a dramatic difference in temperature between the outside air and inside the attic. Roof or gable vents near the peak of the roof are good starts. Soffit and ridge vents are better. (Soffit vents are at the lowest section of roof near the gutters, and ridge vents run along the peak of the roof.) This allows the cool air to enter the lower portion of attic, and flow upper wards toward the ridge vents and exit as hot air. This prevents heat from building up in the attic, even in the winter time, and causing snow to melt at the top of the roof, and re-freezing near the bottom.

Good insulation in the attic keeps the warm air inside home, not quickly rising upward and exiting the attic. Caulk around attic openings or install a nice Styrofoam or Batt insulation piece directly above opening (in attic) to prevent heat loss in this vulnerable area.

There are also some products available that can be applied to the most vulnerable areas of the roof; valleys, slope changes, eaves, along the rake boards. These products are installed not to prevent the ice from damming, but to prevent the water from penetrating the roof decking once the dams have formed. Calling a qualified roof contractor to discuss your options is a good idea.

Nobody wants their roof to leak at anytime, but hopefully understanding the phenomenon of ice dams can take the anxiety out of a simple leak. Keep you from thinking you have to replace the entire roof, and give you a couple of tricks to defend your home from unwanted water entry.

While you probably aren’t looking to become an expert on foundation and concrete issues, a few basic pointers regarding this may help you to better educate your buyers and sellers to what they are looking at, and maybe help to allay any unnecessary fears that can arise during the buying/selling process. Knowledge is power, and the more you know, the more valuable you are to your clients.

For starters, everyone should know that all concrete is going to crack eventually. If you look at your driveway, garage slab or front walks, you will see settlement cracks. While cracking is not unusual, serious displacement of foundation walls, whether block or poured concrete, can indicate major foundation issues and some serious expense involved in correcting the problem. For this article we will stick with identifying cracks in the foundation walls of a home; what is typical, what is considered significant movement, and what to do if you suspect that the home has foundation problems.

Most homes will do its settling within the first five to ten years of being built. The ground beneath the footings of the home and the poured slab will settle into place, and the concrete foundation will go with it. Signs of this are vertical, diagonal or horizontal cracks. In poured concrete foundations, vertical and diagonal cracks are most common. Visually examining the foundation walls to locate cracks is the first step. When you see a crack, looking at the width gives you an indication of the amount of movement and seriousness of the situation. Typically if a vertical or diagonal crack were wider than a 1/4th of an inch, the movement would be considered significant. If it is less than 1/4th of an inch, it might not be considered significant, but worth having the crack sealed, and monitor in the future for further movement.

Horizontal cracks are more likely to be found in block foundation walls. Typically these cracks are three or four courses of block below the ground, because this is where the frost line is. Typically the ground expands and contracts with the elements, i.e. Excessive rainwater causes clay soils to expand, which puts pressure on the foundation walls, enough of which can cause movement. In the winter, frozen soil expands and does the same thing (hence the reason you see the cracking at the frost line). This causes the wall to bow inward towards the basement or crawlspace.

When a block foundation wall is laid, the wall is perpendicular to the floor. If it is being displaced due to excessive force, the wall will bow or sweep, causing a hump in the wall. Sometimes this movement is clearly visible, and other times it is not. Taking a four-foot level, and putting the top of the level at the horizontal crack, you can determine how much the wall has been displaced. There are times you will see a horizontal crack from one end of the wall to the other, but the wall is still perpendicular to the floor, and there is a negligible amount of movement. However, if the wall has been displaced 1 inch or more, this would be considered significant and further evaluation by a professional engineer would be required.

It is interesting to note that a foundation wall is not considered in a state of failure until it moves past its center of gravity. Typical foundation walls are 8 inches thick, so for it to move past its center of gravity, it would have to have moved approximately 2.66 inches (1/3rd of 8 inches) to be in a state of failure. If there is getting close to an inch of movement, while the wall has not moved into a state of failure, further evaluation is needed.

The next step is to call on a professional engineer to evaluate, and determine the proper repairs needed to keep the walls from further movement or having them brought back into their original position. Some folks make the mistake of calling a foundation contractor next, skipping the engineer’s evaluation, and this can be costly. While I do know that there are many qualified and honest foundation contractors out there, it is the engineer who has been trained to properly diagnose the problem, understand what is causing the movement to take place, and to create detailed specifications on the proper repairs. It is with the engineer’s drawings that you can then find several contractors to bid on the project and repairs. Now your bids should be comparing apples to apples, not four different methods of repair, and four wildly varying prices for them all.

For some reason, homeowners or potential buyers want to save the few hundred dollars for an engineer’s evaluation and drawings, and put the money towards the repair. I promise you, more often than not, the engineer’s plans will be money well spent. It will save you more money, time and headaches in the long run, and ensure that the problem has been addressed properly.

While this is just a brief exposure to foundation cracks, hopefully it can shed a little light on a subject that appears to be a scary and intimidating. Most of the time the movement is within tolerable limits and there is no adverse affects on the livability or the structural integrity of the home. If a foundation has been repaired with the help of a professional engineer and a licensed, qualified foundation contractor and appropriate warranties provided, then re-sell value should not be diminished down the road.

Weep holes are required on newly constructed homes with brick veneer siding.  Weep holes need to be located at the lowest course of brick around home (where brick sits upon concrete foundation and where the wood framework/structure of the home begins), and above and below openings, such as windows, doors, garage doors, etc.   The reason for weep holes is because water can make its way behind brick, and when it does, weep holes allow water to make its way back out.  When water can’t get out, it becomes trapped, and ultimately causes wood rot and mold growth on the wood structure that’s located behind the brick veneer.   Weep Holes have been required on brick veneer homes for quite some time now, however it seems to be a building code that was seldom enforced for many years.  I often even inspect homes built in the last 10 years where weep holes are improperly spaced, (greater than 33 inches apart) and missing entirely on one side of the home or another, or completely missing under/over windows and doors.

These are pictures from a recent inspection I did on a 20 year old home on a crawlspace.  Now 20 years is not very old in my opinion, and any mason worth their salt should have known about the affects of moisture and problems associated with missing weep holes back then.  On this particular house, there was not a weep hole anywhere.   They were completely missing, and before I went into the crawlspace, I knew what to expect.  Water stains on all of the band joists, floor joists, sill plates and sub floor.  And mold growth everywhere.  Unfortunately, this was going to be an expensive repair, to not only strip several courses of the brick veneer around the home, install the flashing required, and reinstall the brick with weep holes added.  On top of that, much of the wet and rotted wood structure would need to be replaced, and all mold growth mitigated.

If there ever was a time that the customer appreciated a thorough home inspection, it was this one.  These types of issues are not common defects, and usually not the type of problem a layman would easily see.  If a thorough home inspection had not been done, or an inferior inspection been attempted (meaning someone not getting into the crawlspace and pulling back the insulation around the perimeter), the buyer could have been stuck with the home and tens of thousands of dollars worth of repairs.