TOPIC: A Front Hose Bib By Any Other Name Squirts Just As Sweet

On new construction a home inspector has to pay attention to everything.  You never know what will be encountered.  Even things that appear to be correctly done might not be!

On this new house, on the exterior inspection, I noticed that the house did not have a front or rear hose bib, but one on each side.

No problem!  I have seen that before.

Inside the house, under the kitchen sink, there was a valve with a tag on it which said: "Rear hose bib shut off."  Since the kitchen was right over the hose bib on that side, I was pretty sure they were calling that one the rear hose bib.

But then I got into the furnace room.  And this is what I saw!  Thinking it must service the bib on the other side of the house from the kitchen, I turned it off and went to see.  I was right.  But if the other one is the "rear" hose bib, this valve should read "Front hose bib shut off."

I guess...

My recommendation:  Don't assume anything on a new construction inspection.  You never, never know...  And if I was buying this house, I would relabel the bibs altogether.

Writing on the insulation is a poor way to label new construction IMHO.

Having a label/tag with string at the interior shut off would be a better application.

May cost the builder a entire $1 to label the shut offs

All agreed Dave!

I agree guys. I like the ones where they just write on the basement wall with a sharpie and then it gets finished later on and nobody remembers what controls what. They just remember that there was some writing for everything on that wall over there.............

I was previously printing shut off tags for my clients and stopped when I was taking about 45 minutes preparing for each report binder package.  I still have some tags and have the template for the shut offs and may print some off again in the future.

I just note in my report to label all water, gas, electric shuts offs for emergency and repairs.

I am amazed at how many times I do an inspection that shut offs, clean outs are improperly finished over. The other day I could not even find the main water pipe. Another house had installed a 2nd kitchen in the basement and behind the cabinets there was the electrical panels,and it was a mess. I noted about 10 violations that were outside of the panels and I was
not about to attempt to open these panels as I would need to be Gumby to do the inspection.

Read that:  no permit pulled Dave!

Turn'em in!