TOPIC: Beware The Slick Contractor!

A phone call came in from a client for whom I did an inspection in 1997!  Someone was doing work on the house and informed them that they had a lot of moisture in the crawl space and should call such and such company to evaluate it for them.  Neither is able really to go under there, or desires to.  So they had to trust what they heard.

Can I say something before we begin?  When you are informed of a problem, or even have a perceived problem, before you call a contractor, why not call a home inspector to have a look?  There are good reasons why.  Here are just a couple.

  1. For a look see at a specific problem, his rates are likely to be much less than for a full inspection.
  2. A home inspector is objective because he has no financial interest in his findings or recommendations.
  3. He will not ask for money beyond his fee.
  4. There is no collusion with other parties.  He may refer you to another company or engineer, but that is as far as the relationship goes.  There would be NO kick back from the other party.  He will ONLY refer you to someone he trusts, necessarily.  I have a VERY small cadre of referral companies.

It could be my client's contractor had a relationship with the company he referred.  It all fit together too nicely.  The company that showed up, the "basement waterproofing company," said that there was no vapor retarder over the soil and there was an extreme amount of water every where; the insulation was saturated and falling down all over the place; the concrete block foundation walls were so full of water that holes had to be drilled to eliminate the moisture inside.  Now it could be that I am not up on all the recent keep-your-foundation-dry technologies, but drilling holes in the foundation wall is a new one for me.

Their solution?  Same old, same old - put in canals to divert the water into a sump pump and send it out.  Their fee?  $11,000.  That did NOT include the insulation replacement or the electrical for the sump pump wiring.  But they could recommend people to do that, for additional fees.

NOTE: They did not identify the problem.  What is the problem?  THE SOURCE OF THE WATER!  To fix this crawl space, the source of the water has to be identified and eliminated before anything else can be done!!

The contractor was all smiles, very smooth, very matter of fact, good sense of humor and tried many times to get them to sign a contract now, now, now!  They just happened to have a free crew and an open slot next week and could get it done then!  How very, very convenient!

They felt uneasy.  Thinking about it, they decided to call me.  Well, good for them!  Here is what I found.

I see a vapor retarder. Picking it up there is not much moisture underneath.

The far center is the only insulation that is falling anywhere.  What you see on the far left is what is against the wall.  The insulation is not saturated, but dry.

The concrete block not only looks dry, it was dry.

The HVAC ducts are well insulated.  The space is well vented.

It looked like a regular crawl space to me.

It is not over the top in any way.  And no black widows!

There is something growing on or in some, but not all, of the floor joists.  I am asking around to have that identified now.

A termite guy, coming for his regular visit, said it looks like some form of mold.  I am not sure.

They are complaining that the room above is cold in the winter.  I did recommend that they replace the insulation with paper-faced R-30, tightly installed all the way to the rim joists and touching the underside of the floor. My IR camera found the bay window seat, walls and ceiling to be well insulated.

I tried over and over to get them to agree to have me dry out that crawl space for only $10,000!  And that I could draw up an estimate right then and there!  Hey, I'm saving them $1,000!!!    ;~)

My recommendation:  CALL A HOME INSPECTOR FIRST!  You might just save a few thousand dollars in the deal!

If any of you can identify what is going on in the second photo please let me know what you think!

By the way, look who showed up again on this inspection! 

I have decided to name him "Mosby."  Mosby's Ghosts were big around here.  So he is named...

I hope the owners are reporting the contractors to their board. It's sad how far companies will go to rip off the unsuspected. Good for your clients for remembering you 13 years later (you must have had an effect on them!!) and giving you a call.

They refer to my book all the time.  My report said that the crawl had a proper vapor retarder, vented and insulated well and with minimum moisture.  When they heard the contractor say all that they thought that things must have changed in all these years.  One question over the phone was whether plastic vapor retarders could deteriorate in 13 years...  I said no!

Some people in effect are ripped off because of incompetence.  Here these people would be ripped off because that was the intent.  Is this an offence that they can be charged with?  Not much different than scammers who ask people to send them money for investments etc.  They can be charged.  You saved your client a lot of money but the crooks are still out there drying someone else's crawlspace and bank account.
Some times I wonder how detailed to make my reports.  I go into detail about defects, even small defects, but now I can see the benefit of going into detail about everything.  Your client may not have been suspicious if you didn't have in your report that there was a vapour retarder present.