Building Inspections are good, but they don’t cover Plumbing.
Time and again we are now seeing customers moving into new houses and discovering major Plumbing defects.
The common thread amongst all of these people is that they say they paid good money for a Building inspection prior to their purchase. What none of them realised was that traditional building inspections do not check for Plumbing defects. They will never go to the level of detail that a Highlander Plumbing inspection will go to.
In our experience, there are a few major defects that do not rear their ugly heads until well into occupying your new house.
The first one is sewer.
If you are purchasing a deceased estate or a “renovator’s delight” then the sewer alarm bells should be ringing. Usually, a deceased estate has been lived in for its last few years by a single older person. What is the relevance of this you ask?
This person generally has not put the sewer under any load. If the sewer was defective, the person probably got away with it through minimal usage. What do you think will happen when a young family with a few kids buys the house and moves straight in, planning to renovate as they go? All of a sudden the sewer now has four or five people using it instead of one. What happens? You guessed it, a big mess, a panic and a great deal of frustration from the owners who honestly didn’t see this situation coming.
This could have been avoided with a Plumbing inspection prior to purchase. The Highlander Plumbing inspection includes the CCTV inspection of the sewer as a part of the inspection. Sometimes one little defect such as a broken pipe could have been identified and repaired prior to the problem causing a flood.
Some larger old properties may have long sections of sewer that are a hundred years old. If those long sections are beyond repair it would be a good idea to know if you were facing an expensive renewal of the sewer prior to purchase.
Hot Water
Hot Water is another regally overlooked item that is taken for granted. Hot water heaters in concealed places that burst can cause huge amounts of damage. Is the heater going to cost you a fortune to run? Is it gas, is it electric? Constant low or storage tank? Mains pressure or restricted?
If we had a penny for the number of times a customer says: the hot water system at our old house didn’t do this!
Shower Leaks
Shower waterproofing is another thing worth testing. Before you get out the colour charts and start planning your colours we think you should make sure the shower isn’t leaking into the walls. If there is leakage into the walls, the paint will peel and you will be very annoyed.
Landscaping is another common thing done as soon as people buy a house. It is a way of stamping your own individual flair to the property. We think if you are going to spend $100-$200 p/sqm on pavers, then you better have 100% confidence in the pipes below.
We have had to dig up many beautiful backyards to replace broken sewer pipes. This could have been very easily avoided.
Having the information from a professional plumbing inspection from Highlander Plumbing could save you thousands of dollars. As we say: “Do it once, do it properly”.