For any professional home inspector out there, looking for any signs of water damage inside a home forms a key aspect of his or her job. While water can be great for plants and people, the same cannot be said for the structural integrity of a house.
When an architect builds a home, multiple construction methods are used to ensure that there is no visible water damage, such as installing roof moisture barriers, house wraps, flashing, caulking and so on. However, there will be times when such methods will not work as they were intended to and when buildings will get older, water will always find a way to infiltrate the house or building. Therefore, if the home that you’re planning to purchase has water damage, it’s essential to find out where it came from so that the same can be solved quickly.
The Signs Of Water Damage
- Wetness On The Underside Of The Roof
The roof of a home should always be waterproof and if it isn’t waterproof, the same needs to be fixed as soon as possible. However, if the leak is tiny and there has been no rainfall prior to or on the day of your inspection, then chances are that the underside of the roof will remain wet. So, how can you be sure that there aren’t any leaks?
Well, you can’t be 100 percent sure especially in case of water damage, but at least you can try your best and inspect the attic by using a large-sized flashlight. Examine the attic and look for any soft spots, stains and wet insulation. In case you detect any soft spots, you can use a pin to poke through it, and thereby you’ll learn that there has been water damage. A wood that is pulpy means that it had been wet frequently.
- Ceiling Stains
Popular home inspection in Nashua services points out that stains on the ceilings can be a resultant effect of a pipe leak or a roof leak. Sometimes, condensation from pipes can also lead to ceiling stains.
Ceiling stains can be generally of any size and have a light brownish hue to them. Times like these are when you should be asking your current homeowner regarding such presence of stains. Only the owner will be able to know where the stains came from and therefore you along with your home inspector can directly note this in your home inspection report.
- Paint Peeling Off
Peeling paint is mostly seen around bathrooms, windows and outdoors. When the wood is wet, the moisture tends to escape. And since the paint holds the moisture inside the wood, the escape of the moisture leads to the breakage of the paint surface.
Detecting water damage isn’t easy, but using our above-mentioned methods can definitely make the process easier for you.
