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Archive for the ‘House’ Category

In addition to the number and location of the electrical outlets in the house, you also have to check the adequacy of the service. The amount of electricity you’ll need will depend largely on the number and type of electrical appliances you have. The standard service in most homes today is 150 amps. Older homes may have only 60 amps or less, and may also have to be rewired. Mi-electric dwellings, on the other hand, may need 300-amp service to ensure adequate capacity. If a house you’re considering looks like a strong candidate for rewiring, don’t let it scare you too much. It’s an important expense, but not necessarily a huge
— generally less than $2,000. Houses owned by do-it-yourselfe may already have been rewired, in some fashion, in the
past.
Your home inspector will tell you if the building fails to meet code requirements or is in any way unsafe. The inspector can also tell you the age of the wiring and its general condition. You
should remember to ask questions about it. The state of the wiring — does it meet code requirements?
and above all, is it safe? —- should be evaluated carefully as you try to determine what this house is worth to you.
Does the wiring system use old-fashioned fuses fangled circuit-breakers? There’s nothing wrong with fuses, but the circuit-breaker system is easier to manage. It’s the difference between flipping a switch back to on and walking through a blizzard to find the drugstore fresh out of fuses and the hardware store closed for a long weekend. Some people, of course, are smart enough to keep some fuses handy in an easy-to-get-at place, with a flashlight nearby. If you’re among them, don’t worry about which system the house uses. If you’re not, think twice about that fusebox.

One of the first questions you want to ask about any house is where its water comes from. Is it hooked up to a municipal water and sewer system? Or does it have its own well?
Urban dwellers might have been able to assume, until a few years ago, that any water delivered by the municipal water system was above reproach. This is still largely a valid assumption, but there have been so many alarming instances of serious pollution of the public drinking water in the past several years that it has to be a checklist item for anyone buying a home. It may indeed be a growing problem. It’s definitely something you have to look into when you’re considering a move to any community.
Ask two additional questions about any house served by a municipal supply: (1) Have there been any recent problems with water quality or supply? And (2) how much do residents pay for water and sewer service? Those costs used to be so small as to be insignificant, but as water-supply systems age and begin to require upgrading and replacement, water and sewer charges in many areas have become an important household expense.
As I write this I’m involved with a project to dig a new well, so water is on my mind these days. In our research we discovered, to our surprise, that more than 50 percent of all homes in America depend on wells for their water. If a house you’re looking at is one of these, then you should ask if and when its well has ever run dry, and whether the water has been tested recently for potability. If you’re interested enough to consider making an offer, you should have the water tested by a lab to be sure it’s safe to drink. A lab test will determine the chemical content of the water, teffing you not only whether it’s safe but also whether
it tends to be hard or soft.
If the house has a well, you’ll also want to ascertain whether a lot of salt is used on the street or road in the winter. If it is, then you want to see where the drains are in relation to the water source, in order to make sure that the well isn’t likely to become contaminated.
Find out where the septic field is located in relation to the well. What about the locations of any septic fields serving nearby lots? It’s absolutely essential that your well not lie in the path of other people’s contaminants. That’s a particular concern in older subdivisions or areas that were once sparsely developed but have become more crowded in recent years.
For homes built around lakes, you want to be sure the drinking water doesn’t come from the lake itself. I know of many lakeside communities that have been coping with serious drinking-water problems in recent years.
Another potential concern with well water, unheard of until recent years but now a full-sized headache for many communities, is the disintegration of old gasoline-storage tanks. This process releases toxic amounts of petroleum products into the watershed and thus into the well water; even a well several hundred yards away from the storage tank can be contaminated. You might want to learn, if you can, whether any areas near your potential dream house were occupied by service stations in years past.
Still another basic fact to determine about a well is its capacity. How much water does it dispense? How quickly? How quickly does it refill? Does its supply vary with the season? The answers will in part depend on the depth of the well and on the size of the reserve tank, as well as on your demand. The experts say that if the well can’t supply enough water for two simultaneous showers over a period of fifteen to thirty minutes, or if your demand is likely to exceed that level, then you should probably consider shelling out $200 to $300 for a larger reserve tank. Some home inspectors and water-testing labs can run this water- capacity test for you; otherwise, before you make a final commitment to buy, hire a contractor who specializes in water and septic systems. Make sure your Purchase and Sale agreement specifies that the purchase is contingent upon a satisfactory test of the water supply.
If the house is served by a septic system (rather than being connected to the municipal sewage system), then that wifi also have to be carefully checked. Ask the seller about the age of the septic system. Ask if there have been any problems with it. Before you make a commitment to buy, and regardless of how glowingly the owner describes the system’s condition, you should have it checked out by an independent septic contractor, preferably someone recommended by a friend or your attorney rather than by the broker or the seflet Typically, the contractor will pump the system out to see how much waste it contains (if it’s full of solid waste, that indicates there may be a problem with the leaching field) and will run a dye test to be sure the system is flowing properly.
You should also ask the seller how frequently the system has been pumped out. Systems vary, but the rule of thumb is that most should be tested every two to five years. Less frequent maintenance leads to a buildup of waste, but more frequent pumping can deplete or destroy the bacteria needed to keep the system running cleanly.
Older houses may have a cesspool and no leaching field, which means the systems will have to be pumped more often. If the cesspool is very old — that is, older than twenty-five or thirty years — it may have to replaced with a new septic system in the not-too-distant future. That operation can cost from $3,000 to $5,000.
Whether your potential dream house is hooked up to the municipal system or to a well and septic system of its own, you want to get a good idea of the condition of the plumbing in the house — how old the pipes are, what they’re made of, and whether they comply with current code requirements.
Older pipes in some areas of the country are lined with lead —. a potential health concern. Pipes laid many years ago also tend to be narrower, which can be a source of water-pressure problems in the house.

At their best, good brokers can function a lot like analysts, helping you to read your own mind. As one broker told me, “If I see that the buyers are close to ‘yes’ but faltering, I’ll just ask some questions to zero in on what the problem is. Once that gets to be clear, then maybe I can suggest other ways around it. Is the house too small? Well, how about building a new room over the garage? Is it too dark? How about a skylight?”

That kind of feedback from the broker can be positive and can help you sort through your preferences, set your priorities, and identify the home you want.
There are some brokers, however, who cross the line between guiding you toward a decision that you want to make and pressuring you into a decision that you’re not sure of. These are the brokers, naturally, that you want to avoid at all costs.
Steer clear of brokers who:
1. pressure you to buy a property “before someone else grabs it”
2. purport to represent you in the transaction
3. advise you not to consult an attorney
4. are evasive or ignorant when asked to provide detailed information about the property
Remember that Realtors are required to disclose adverse information on properties they represent. This is established by the Realtor Code of Ethics and in most areas by state law. How far the broker has to go to discover that adverse information is something of a gray area of the law. But as a general rule, brokers are not permitted to misrepresent the condition of a property or to withhold any vital information they know about it. If a hazardous-waste dump has been discovered in the backyard, for instance, or if the basement becomes an indoor swimming pool whenever it rains, the broker is obligated to tell you.
This doesn’t mean that all brokers will be completely forthcoming about problems such as these, but it does mean that you’ll usually have some recourse against those who aren’t.

This really isn’t critical. Nor does it matter, usually, whether you deal with an independent agency, one that’s affiliated with a national company (such as Coldwell Banker or Merrill Lynch), or a franchise of a national chain (such as Century 21, Realty World, or ERA). A large firm or a franchise affiliate may be able to offer a broader array of services — access to a mortgage banking subsidiary, for example — but a small firm may know more about the specific community you’re interested in. Far more important than the size of the firm, in my view, is whether you’re comfortable with and have confidence in the broker you’re working with.