Why Snow Can Help Evaluate Your Attic Ventilation

Snow is fun the first time it falls during the winter months, but after the novelty of the season wears off it's just a big pain in the butt. The endless shoveling/salting, slower commutes, and wet shoes have never made anyone happy. But for all the pain that snow can be, I have one more useful thing that snow can do and that is help you evaluate the adequacy of your attic ventilation. OK, you still may not find this a good enough reason to have endless snow like we seem to be experiencing right now in 2021, but lets continue anyway.

How Does Attic Ventilation Work?

Attic ventilation is a key component to the health of any home. Having poor attic ventilation can cause mold growth, moisture retention, and ice damning. Unfortunately, attic ventilation is also hard to truly evaluate unless you do some expensive testing. The reason behind this is because the ventilation requires several components to be successful and keep your attic space healthy. The main three components that are key for good attic ventilation are lower vent, top vents, and insulation. All three of these need to be properly sized and installed for the system to work.

Your attic ventilation works on the basic premise that hot air rises. Your ventilation system wants to remove the hot (or warmest air) from the attic so it can remove air that is too humid and keep the temperature in the attic space around the same temperature of the outside air. As you can see below, a common ventilation design has a vent right at the top of the roof called a ridge vent where the warm air rises and exits the attic space. Just as important are the lower vents at the soffits in this picture as they pull fresh cooler air into space by what is called the stack effect. Without these lower vents, space would not vent as fast. If you have ever shotgunned a beer, it is kind of the same principle. If you don’t have a dedicated vent to allow air to flow into space, you create a vacuum for a second that slows the flow of the beer or the flow of the warm air out.

Example of the Stack Effect and How it works to Ventilate your Attic

The last important component of the ventilation system is the attic insulation. While it does not affect how fast the air is replaced in the attic space, it does effect the overall conditions of the space and makes it harder for the vents to keep the space cooler. During the winter, if you don’t have good insulation and are heating your house you will be heating up your attic space as well which is not ideal. The ventilation system will still do its job to remove the hot air, but it will have to work harder and may not be able to keep up.

How Ice Damns are Formed

How Snow Can Help You Evaluate

So back to snow, and why it can help determine the adequacy of your ventilation system. When there is good snow (several inches) and it is followed by temperatures that are below freezing, your roof should for the most part retain the snow that has accumulated on it. This is because a well-ventilated attic will keep the roof service temperature about the same as outside. If your attic is not properly ventilated, it will be noticeably warmer than outside and begin to melt the snow through its contact with the roof that is now warmer than outside. If you notice that the snow on your roof melted while your neighbors still have theirs, then that is a sign that your attic ventilation is insufficient and you should have a professional evaluation.

You may also notice ice damning (see above picture) around your roof and that is the cause of the snow melting due to improper ventilation. Ice Damning will eventually damage your roofing substrate. During the summer months, you may also have issues with mold growth as enough hot humid air is not able to be properly vented from the attic space.

What to Do if You Have Poor Ventilation

In this case, it is usually best to call in a professional as there are calculations involved when it comes to ensuring adequate vents are installed. Several items that may need to be fixed are:

  1. You don’t have adequate vents at the top of your roof.
  2. The lower soffit vents are blocked, not enough, or missing in general.
  3. You need to add more attic insulation
  4. There are air leakage points into your attic
  5. A combination of the above.

Consult with a professional and get several quotes and opinions. It might not be a cheap fix, but it will be cheaper than the repairs that will be required due to neglect.

Five Considerations Prior to Canceling a Contract Due to an Inspection

I know that feeling, that ache at the pit of your stomach. A couple of days ago you were high on life, winning a multiple offer situation on what you thought was your dream home. Then came the inspection and it did not go as planned. There were a myriad of problems with the home you didn’t expect. Your initial inclination is to back out of the contract as you don’t want to buy a lemon and live like Tom Hanks was living in “Money Pit”. I understand that feeling and have been there before having bought multiple properties. Yes, even home inspectors get confused about how to proceed on whether to buy a home or not as there is always uncertainty in any transaction.

I am writing this post because before you decide to terminate the contract, I wanted to give you some things to do and consider prior to terminating the contract too quickly. I hope my experience as not only a home inspector but also a homeowner, can guide you through the process of making the right decision for you and your family.

1) Remember Why You Like the Place

Most likely, you didn’t just decide to place an offer worth several hundred thousand dollars or even much more for the place on a whim. There were probably several key reasons you felt strongly about this property in the first place. You liked the location and size of the yard and those two may be hard to find again in that combination. The real estate transaction process is like riding a very up and down emotional rollercoaster, so when you are down it is important to remind yourself of the high points and find some sort of middle ground.

It's important to remember you may not find another place like this property if you do walk away. Even if you found it your very first day of seeing properties, it does not guarantee finding the next place will be as easy. Review your list of must-haves again and see where this property checks those boxes or doesn’t. Doing this will get you a little more grounded and not just focused on everything wrong with the property.

2) Make Sure You Really Understand the Items in Question

You are thinking about backing out most likely because there are several items in the inspection report you are concerned about. Sometimes an inspector will explain them on-site but when you see them in the report you get freaked out. It's a tall ask for any inspector to write a couple of sentences on an issue and really properly explain the problem to a home buyer. If you have a concern about an issue, the first thing I would do is call your inspector to ask for more information about his findings and recommendations. A good home inspector will appreciate the call and wants you to understand the issues fully. I honestly wish we would get more calls from clients, because we really want to make sure they are making the best decision for themselves.

3) Get Quotes and Second Opinions on the Issue

You will see the word “recommend further evaluation by a licensed contractor” probably several times within a report. While an inspector is usually at a site several hours or even more for bigger homes it's important to remember that inspectors have a lot of items to inspect and can’t do a deep dive on every item found. Additionally, while home inspectors are experts in knowing about every system of the home, our expertise for a certain system is not that of someone who specializes in that system. An example of this is an electrician is going to be better at diagnosing an electrical issue and what needs to be fixed.

Your inspector will find a symptom of a problem, but like your primary care physician, we will refer you to a specialist who can further evaluate the issue more effectively. This is why it is so important to get quotes and second opinions from license contractors after an inspection. They may be able to find a simpler solution to fix the issue and ultimately ease your concerns about what the issue would cost. Also, there is peace in having a little more certainty for what needs to be done next, it will make the decision clearer to you.

4) Listen to Your Fears and Discover What You Actually Want

Like I said, any real estate transaction is an emotionally charged one. It is important to understand that it is natural to have emotions. You need to identify the fear you are having that is causing you to want to back out of the contract so you can truly understand what you really desire. Sometimes that fear is not exactly what we think it is. I had a very intense negotiation period when I was purchasing my current home. I demanded several things in my attorney letter to be credited for or fixed. The home was 30 years old and had never been updated, so I expected some issues to pop up, but there were things I knew as a home inspector that were things that should be rectified to prevent future issues. The seller didn’t see things that way.

At first, I thought my fear was that I was going to be spending a lot to repair the items I really wanted to be fixed to prevent bigger issues. With further reflection, I realized my bigger fear is what would people think of me as a home inspector buying a home with issues like this. Once I identified that fear, I was able to see that I wanted the house despite these issues as it was truly a place I could see my wife and I raising our family and creating lasting memories. That is why it is important to identify the root of the fear as it can greatly change your perspective in a moments time.

5) Take Responsibility for the Decision

When a decision this large looms over someone, people tend to look at outside sources for guidance but also in cases want other people to tell them what they should do. Your realtor, inspector, lawyer, family, friends, or the guy at the McDonald’s drive thru can’t and shouldn’t make this decision for you. Taking full ownership of the decision as stupid as that sounds will empower you to make a decision. Listen to your heart and make a call. If you do still decide to walk away, it is important to understand why you made that decision.

I have a feeling that a lot of time people walkaway from a deal cause they realize that the home was not really the one for them. It happens as sometimes you see a house for 15 minutes and then need to win a multiple offer situation and you get wrapped up in winning something you kind of liked, but were not in love with. Take responsibility for that and tell your realtor so you can have an honest conversation. It will help filter your lens for the next time you place an offer on a property.

Summing it All Up

Deciding whether or not to buy a home is a daunting task for anyone, so I hope this advice helps guide you into understanding yourself a little better and what you really want from the situation. For a decision this big, you really need to listen to both your heart and your head and figure out what is really going on. At the end of the day, you need to trust yourself and what you want for your life. Just like anything in life, there is no perfect right or wrong answer. You will still have ups and downs in your property and dealing with homeownership issues when you move in, but that is true for anything in life. Your dream job still will require you to do somethings you don’t like doing, and the same for your dream home. My last bit of advice is to embrace that fact and it will make homeownership something that brings joy to your life.

What is a TPR Valve and How Does it Keep You Safe?

When you look at your hot water tank you may just see another appliance, but the engineering term for such a component is a pressure vessel. The definition of a pressure vessel is a container designed to hold gases or liquids at a pressure substantially different from the ambient pressure (normal atmospheric pressure). There are many codes and standards written about pressure vessels as they can be very dangerous if they don’t have the proper safety features installed. If the vessel doesn’t have the right pressure safety valve to relieve pressure when it starts to rise past the set limits, then the thing has the potential to explode like a bomb. You can see an example of this in a Mythbuster’s episode where they purposefully take a water tank to its limits (click here for the video clip).

Don’t worry, just because you have a hot water tank in your house, does not mean it is likely to explode. Most water heaters have several controls and safety features to prevent your tank from ever over-pressurizing, but I do want to stress the importance of proper temperature/pressure relief (TPR) valve installation on your hot water tank, boiler, etc. The TPR valve is a safety relief valve responsible for opening and relieving pressure when the temperature and pressure get too high in the tank.

Typical Layout of a Gas-Fired Water Heater

How does the TPR Valve Work?

TPR valves open to relieve pressure or temperature from the tank when the water in the tank exceeds the preset pressure or temperature limit. Normal tanks operate between 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and are regulated by a temperature sensor. If the temperature sensor and other fail-safes go bad, and the burners are left on too long, the pressure will rise in the tank as the temperature increased due to the water wanting to expand. Most TPR valves are set to open at 150 psi or 210 degrees Fahrenheit to relieve pressure before the tank gets to its limit. Note that different tanks and components may have different requirements, so it is important you check the nameplate rating on the water heater and make sure you select a TPR valve that will actuate at or below the maximum operating pressure/temperature limits of the tank.

The TPR valve itself is spring-loaded in the shut position. The springs are set to start to give and open the valve when the pressure or temperature limit is reached, and then close again when the pressure has been properly relieved. Most likely when it is properly operating the valve will cycle on and off, versus if it is defective it will probably be leaking constantly.

A TPR Valve and Discharge Line Installed

Proper Installation of a TPR Discharge Line

As you know by now, TPR valves are vital components of keeping your water heater safe from overheating/over pressurizing. That is why it is very important that they are properly installed to ensure the safety of you and your family. The part of the TPR system that is often not properly installed is the TPR discharge piping which is responsible for guiding any water released by the valve to a safe location. Here are some important installation guidelines to check when it comes to the TPR discharge piping (Please note to also follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for your specific unit as well).

Piping Construction

The main job of the TPR discharge line is to direct the flow of any water that is released by the TPR Valve. Therefore, the material of the line must be able to withstand the pressure and temperature of the water exiting through the line. The line should be constructed of a material that is rated to handle these conditions. It is preferred that the line is constructed from metals like copper, galvanized steel, or stainless steel that are rigid and can easily handle the scalding hot water coming out. There are some special plastics that are also allowed like CPVC, polyethylene, and polypropylene that can handle those high temperatures as well. PVC and other non-approved plastics should not be used since they can easily melt.

Ensure Proper Drain Flow Without Restrictions

It is important that the flow of water out of the discharge line is never restricted as this can cause back pressure in the line and cause the valve to not release at the right pressure. The line itself should not be smaller than the outlet diameter of the valve. For instance, if the valve outlet is 3/4” diameter, then the piping should be 3/4”. The line should never be reduced downstream before it discharges as well and should be a straight shot to the floor, not using any unnecessary elbows or teeing off at any point.

In certain circumstances, the TPR valve is on top of the unit and will require an elbow for the line to go vertical. For the horizontal run, the piping should be sloped slightly away from the valve so water doesn’t backflow and puts back pressure on the valve seat. Lastly, this may seem like common sense, but do not cap, plug, or install an isolation valve on the line. This will completely block the line and make it as the valve doesn’t even really exist.

Air Gap and Safe Discharge

The last thing that we need to be concerned with for the TPR Valve and its piping is where it discharges. There is an air gap needed between where the line ends and the drain. This means the line should not be directly connected to a drain because there is a chance for back pressure affecting the valve set pressure as also some chance of back siphoning. If your water heater is not located near a floor drain or is located near a finished area, a drain pan underneath the water heater is always recommended. However, the discharge piping should point into the drain pan and not be directly connected.

Lastly, the discharge piping should terminate within 6 inches of the floor. This is to prevent scalding hot water from burning anyone in the vicinity of the tank if the valve releases. Also, you don’t want water splattering all over the place getting onto electronics, or getting walls wet.

Important Considerations When Buying a Water Heater (Tank)

In a previous article, we went over how your tank water heater actually functions. Most good water heater tanks will last about a decade on average, so having to replace a water heater is something you will most likely do as a homeowner at some point in your life. So what are some things to consider when buying a new tank? We will break down some key parameters below to hopefully allow you to make an educated decision the next time you replace your hot water tank.

1) The tank size – The size of the tank is important for hot water capacity. The bigger the tank you have the more hot water reserves you will have and the less likely you are to ever run out of hot water. A typical unit for smaller apartments and single family homes is 40 gallons even though you can go even smaller than that if you wanted. 50-gallon tanks are usually the next step up for mid-sized homes and 70-gallon tanks or even using two 40-gallon tanks (total of 80 gallons) is possible for larger homes (See Figure 1 below). Another factor to consider is how many people are living on the property. If you are living in a larger home, but are an empty nester you may be able to get away with only having a 40-gallon tank as your hot water use will be much less. If you need more guidance on tank sizing, this article a good read.

Figure 1 – Hot Water Tanks Come In Many Different Sizes

2) First Hour Rating – Maybe even more important than the tank size itself with regards to hot water capacity, is the first-hour rating of the unit. This rating is the amount of hot water a unit can provide in an hour's time when the tank starts off completely full of hot water. To give an example, if a unit is a 40-gallon tank, and has a 65-gallon first-hour rating, it can provide an additional 25 gallons of hot water over an hour's span. When you are selecting a new water heater it is important to factor the First Hour Rate into the equation. For instance, going back to the example of the empty nester, they may wish to buy a smaller tank with a high first-hour rating. This way when your kids come home to visit, you are able to handle the higher capacity, but when you are alone you are not paying to heat up a larger tank of water.

Figure 2 – A Typical Energy Guide for a Water Heater

3) Efficiency – There are a lot of different options when it comes to types of water heaters to buy. From gas to electric, conventional to heat pumps, natural draft to induced draft. We will have to get into each of these in another article but the biggest thing I want you to focus on is the overall efficiency of the unit. While you may be tempted to find the cheapest model out there, it may cost you over time in your utility bill. On almost every hot water tank you see at the store you will see a tag with a dollar amount of estimated dollars it will cost per year to run this unit. This tag is required by the Federal Trade Commission so consumers can more easily understand which units are more efficient.

While anyone can see that a unit that costs $145 a year compared to $195 a year is more desirable, there are other things you need to check (Reference Figure 2 for further detail). When they calculate the yearly cost they assume 2 things, first that the use of the unit will be average, and second that the price for the gas or electricity you pay is average. If you use your hot water less often and your local gas or electricity prices are lower, you will naturally pay a lower amount than what is listed. However, the opposite is true higher use and higher utility price will lead to more cost per year.

Use is something that is very hard to quantify without data so unless you know you rarely use hot water as the sole occupant of a property or have a family that you can field a football team with, I would recommend assuming you are an average user. For your utility rate, it is smart to check your gas or electric bill (depending on your water heater's power source) and see what the price per Therm or Kilowatt-hour is. The Energy Guide will have listed what the assumed energy output was for their calculation and also sometimes the rate they used. So for instance, if they calculated 165 therms for a gas water heater for a year and assumed $1.10 per therm for the utility rate, they would have list $181 as the yearly cost ($1.10 x 165 = $181.50). But if you look up your utility rate and see $1.20 per therm on your bill, your yearly cost will be $198 assuming average use.

So how do we use this information when purchasing a tank. If you were just concerned with saving over the life of a unit then here is a quick calculation you can run.

[Initial Cost of Tank] + 10 x [Yearly Tank Cost] = Total investment

Make sure the yearly tank cost is from your calculation using your energy bill as the different unit will look more or less desirable based off utility rate (for example, more efficient units will look more desirable when the utility rate is higher). So lets take two tanks and compare. Tank A costs $800 upfront and will cost $175 a year to run, Tank B costs $1200 upfront and will cost $1500 a year to run. Running the calculations:

Tank A: $800 + 10 x $175 = $2550 total investment

Tank B: $1200 + 10 x $150 – $2700 total investment

So as you can see, while Tank B is clearly more efficient, Tank A will save the user $150 over the life of the tank. If cost was the only factor, Tank A would be the right choice for you.

4) Your Current Setup – Like that feeling of buying a new couch only for it to not fit up the stairs or through your doorway, it is important to make sure your new water heater fits your current set up. First and foremost, we need to make sure it will fit dimensionally speaking, so don’t upgrade from a 40 to a 5o gallon tank without measuring first. Additionally, if you want to convert from a gas-powered tank to an electric tank, you may need to hire an electrician to run a new dedicated circuit to the tank (and vice-versa with a plumber for a gas line). Unless you have a good reason, it is usually best to buy something comparable to your current setup.

There are Plastic Tanks available with Lifetime Warranties

5) Tank Construction Material – Believe it or not you can actually buy a completely plastic hot water tank versus the typical steel constructed versions. Plastic Tanks actually have a lifetime warranty and may never need to be replaced (or at least not for a long, long time) because they don’t corrode as metal tanks do. The catch is they are more expensive than metal tanks and while they don’t require replacement, they will require maintenance and replacement of certain components that are still made of metal. So if you recently bought your forever home and never want to have to physically replace your hot water tank again, plastic tanks may be a worthwhile investment. If you don’t know where you will be living a decade from now, might as well stick with a cheaper tank.

I hope you find this information helpful when you go and make your next hot water tank purchase.

Podcast: Asbestos, How to Locate and Safely Deal with it

In this episode, Jordan Thomas from Indoor Science stops by to talk about one of his areas of expertise, Asbestos.  We covered a wide range of asbestos topics to help you better understand what the true safety concerns with the material are.  The items we got into are:

  • What is asbestos and why is it dangerous?
  • When was asbestos utilized in construction materials
  • The types of construction materials asbestos were used in.
  • The different types of asbestos tests that can be performed.
  • What to do if you do have asbestos in your home.

For the full show notes visit: https://pod.co/the-home-geeks-podcast/episode-4-asbestos-how-to-locate-and-safely-deal-with-it-with-jordan-thomas

A Basic Guide to Humidity and Your Home: (Part 1)

It's the humidity that gets you, or that's how the saying goes, but what does that really mean? While most people have a basic understanding that humidity can make it feel warmer or cooler outside than the temperature suggest.

Why is that the case and what does that matter when it comes to your home?

I’m going to be writing this article as a 3-part series to break down the subject as I feel like it is essential information for every homeowner to know. In this first part, I am going to dive into what humidity is and not really touch too much on the effects it has on the home just yet. In future posts, I will discuss the impact it can have on mold growth in your home and then on the air conditioning within your home. With that said, let's get started on the basics:

What is humidity?

The simplified answer is the amount of water vapor that is within the surrounding air. Water vapor is just the gas form of water. The more water vapor there is in the air, the more humid it is considered. There are two ways to measure humidity, relative or absolute, and this will be discussed below.

Relative vs. Absolute Humidity

Most of the time, you will see the humidity listed as a percentage, as the air's humidity is 50%. This is the relative humidity of the air. Air has a maximum capacity of water vapor it can hold, so when it reaches that threshold, it is considered to be 100% relative humidity. A good example of what relative humidity is, say a specific volume of air can hold 1 cup of water, but is currently holding half a cup of water, the relative humidity is then 50%.

Pretty straightforward, right? Well, wait, there is more. The capacity for air to hold water vapor increases as the air temperature rises (as well as decreases if the temperature drops). As an example, if you increase the air temperature from 60° F to 80° F, the air's capacity to hold water vapor now doubles. If a whole room can hold 1 cup of water vapor at 60° F, it will be able to approximately hold 2 cups of water vapor at 80° F.

In the examples above, the cups of water vapor would be the absolute humidity. Absolute humidity is just the counted mass of the water vapor in a given system, and technically that is all you need to know. For engineers and scientists, they count the absolute humidity in units of grains of moisture per pound of dry air (WTH?). To simplify things, we will use simple units like cups and gallons throughout this series.

Dry Bulb vs. Wet Bulb Temperatures

As mentioned in the introduction, more humid environments feel warmer even though the temperature is listed to be the same. The main reason behind this phenomenon is when the temperature is measured by most thermometers, it's measuring the dry-bulb temperature, which does not factor in humidity. The wet-bulb temperature is harder to measure, but it factors in moisture into the equation.

A 70° F wet-bulb temperature is the same as a 70° F dry-bulb temperature at 100% humidity or equivalent. As an example, an 80°F day at 60% relative humidity is approximately the same wet bulb temperature (70° F wet bulb) at 95° F, 30% humidity day. This is a fundamental concept going forward as we talk about air conditioning, we don't just want cooler air we sometimes want dryer air too.

Dew Point & Condensation

Everyone has experienced dew before, generally in the morning on your car, or on some leaves. Dew occurs because the vapors in the air condense when the temperature drops saturation temperature. What ?!?!? Let's continue our conversation and simplify things by revisiting a relative versus absolute humidity example.

During a hot, humid, summer day, let's say the air conditions are 90° F at 60% relative humidity (absolute is around 1.2 cups for that area of air). If the temperature cools to 70° F at night, the air only can hold 1.1 cups of water vapor, which is 0.1 cups different than the absolute humidity of the warm day's air. So what happens to that 0.1 cups of water vapor? It condenses into the water droplets that you see on your car in the morning. This is called condensation and will be important going into the other articles in this series.

Last but not least is the dew point. The simple definition for dew point is the temperature condensation will start to occur for a given condition. Revisiting the 90° F, 60% relative, and 1.2 cups absolute day. The dew point for this exact condition is 73° F because at 1.2 cups absolute humidity, the relative humidity will be 100%, and at 73° F and at any temperature under that point, condensation will start to occur.

Psychrometry & More Information

For the sake of keeping things easy for the average homeowner, I simplified a lot of concepts and terms in this article. If you are interested in learning more about humidity concepts and calculations, you may find this psychrometric chart useful to study. Or feel free to reach out to me at info@homeinspectiongeeks.com to ask any questions about resources.

In the next article, we will talk about why it is essential to control humidity in your unconditioned spaces and how not doing so can lead to mold growth.