Most homebuyers choose to buy newly constructed homes for many personal reasons. Some need the home to have a modern design, some have specific structural requirements, and some just want to avoid costs that come with old buildings. No matter your reason, you need to understand that new homes don’t always come with minimal repair needs. There are many flaws and faults in a newly constructed building that can be detected early with the help of a timely home inspection. Below mentioned are a few of these problems.

1. The Grading and Drainage

The grading in a newly constructed house settles over time. When it settles unevenly, it can give rise to many problems in the future. Improper drainage or grading can cause water build-up around the foundation in winters and cause cracking.

2. Shrinkage Cracks

If the concrete is not mixed well with the proportionate amount of water, it can cause the surface to crack later. These cracks can give water a pathway to seep into the home’s foundation and cause gaps and sags in the floors. A certified home inspector can help with the early identification of any such cracks so they can be filled to avoid further damage.

3. Wood Flooring Issues

When wood flooring is installed on a quick schedule, it can cause the wood to expand or contract with changing humidity levels. A Home Inspection Service in Houston can help analyze these faults early and save thousands in repair costs.

4. Incomplete Painting

The paint job inside a newly built home often has some gaps or flaws. Areas like the basement and utility closets are often painted improperly. A Real Estate inspection can help the buyer find these gaps early and calculate the actual cost of the house better.

5. Plumbing Problems

New homes often have problems related to plumbing which can result in the mixing or reversal of hot and cold water. These issues arise when the plumbing for the house has not been done by professionals.

6. Door Gaps

When installed by inexperienced carpenters, doors can often have gaps and other flaws that can be costly to repair. Faulty doors can often have difficulty closing and can ruin the external beauty of a home. Make sure the wood or metal used for the doors in the house is high-grade so these problems can be minimized.

7. Appliance Installation

As appliance installation is the last job a builder does when constructing a house, it is often overlooked. Ensure that garbage disposal, dishwashers, and other appliances are installed efficiently to avoid accidents and costly maintenance after moving.

8. HVAC System

The heating and cooling system inside the home should be thoroughly inspected before purchasing the property. The HVAC system can be expensive to repair, and HTX Home Inspections can help identify any issues within this system early with Real estate home inspections in Houston.

Chimneys, Vents, and Flues aren’t the same. If you’ve been using these terminologies interchangeably, it’s time you learn how to use them correctly. They don’t just have different names but also serve a slightly different purpose. It’s important to understand what each does.

Chimneys

A chimney is a vertical passage extending out of your roof that allows combustion products to exit your home. It can vent any type of fuel. Some of the chimneys pass through other parts of the house. Chimneys are built using brick, mortar, and masonry. These can also be made in factories using stainless steel. These steel chimneys are often covered by a chase for decoration, protection, or both.

A chimney functions on the principle of hot air rises, which is also called the stack effect. As you start a fire in the fireplace, the air in the chimney warms up and starts to rise out of the chimney, creating a pressure difference between the chimney and the room. The air from the room is sucked into the fireplace to maintain the pressure, feeding the fire as it moves past it.

Flues

A flue is simply a passage through which smoke, gas, and other combustion by-products can exit. These can either be pipes, vents, or chimneys. Most places with a fireplace have a lined flue that helps improve safety, increase efficiency, and keep the flue clean.

These flue liners must be inspected regularly to ensure that your home is secure against deadly combustibles and potential chimney fires.

Vents

Vents also help you remove the by-products of combustion from your home. Unlike chimneys, they require temperature protection and are, therefore, not suitable for wood-burning fireplaces.

Vents may have a vertical or horizontal exit. Like chimneys and flues, vents also function based on the hot air rises principle, drawing air into the fireplace.

Other Similar Vocabulary

Chimney or Flue Liners

If you’re new to the world of chimneys and flues, you might not know that the chimneys and flues are lined from the inside with a material commonly known as a chimney or flue liner. A lot of people also have a misconception that masonry chimneys are simply made of brick. This isn’t true.

These bricks can provide room for combustible by-products to gather, which can lead to chimney fires. To keep chimneys and flues clean and safe, you need to use a chimney or flue liner.

Connectors

Connectors are more commonly known as smoke pipes. As the name implies, it carries smoke from a fuel-fired appliance to a vent or a chimney to remove them.

Chimneys, Flues, and Vents can still be a little tricky to understand. If you need any chimney, vent, flue, HVAC equipment-related inspection done, contact HTX Home Inspections. We’re certified home inspector that provides real estate inspection, property inspections, and residential inspection services Houston, Texas. For more details about our service, visit our website. You can also call us to book your inspection appointments on (281) 816-7007.

Electrical hazards at home are a common problem. With the increasing use of electrical appliances and gadgets, there’s a risk of electrical accidents. These accidents can prove to be fatal. Electrical hazards are also a leading cause of workplace injuries.

To avoid these hazards, it is important to learn about electrical systems.

What Are Electrical Systems?

Electrical systems help generate light and power for appliances, fans, and other household fixtures. Typically, electrical systems use electricity from the main grid to distribute power across all parts of the house. The basic components that go into an electrical system include wires, switches, outlets, and service entrance conductors, etc. The purpose of this blog is to help you learn more about electrical systems at home particularly service entrance conductors so that you can keep yourself and your family safe all year long.

What Is a Service Entrance Conductor?

Service entrance conductors (SECs) help protect your family and business from the risk of electrical shock and fire hazards. They are an important part of a community’s electrical power system and keep the power flowing to homes and businesses. They provide electricity to premises by bringing the energy from the transformer on the pole, through service drop wires and down poles, and then into your home or business establishment.

The service entrance conductor provides power to the outlets and light switches connected to it. It is located within your main electrical panel and also connects to an outdoor power source that brings electricity into your home through a main disconnect switch or circuit breaker panel inside your garage or utility room.

They help protect the service entrance cables from overcurrent and short circuits.

Types and Sizes of Service Entrance Conductors

Service entrance conductors can either be armored or unarmored and they may also come with or without ground fault protection. The armored type is called service entrance style R and has a reinforcement tape made of aluminum or copper, while the unarmored one is called style U.

In a commercial building, the main service entrance conductor provides a source of power to feed a large number of electrical loads. As such, this conductor must be sized appropriately to handle the load demands. Thus the installation, maintenance, and repair of SECs should be handled by qualified personnel only.

Contact Electrical Professionals Now

If you want to learn more about how service entrance conductors can help keep your family safe, then visit our website! If you need help setting up service entrance conductors, we can help! At HTX Home Inspections, we provide complete Real estate home inspections Houston. Our experienced Certified home inspector provides real estate inspection, property inspections, and home inspection Houston.

Contact us today for more information or to schedule an installation. For more details, please call us on (281) 816-7007.

One of the biggest fears for most homeowners is an undiscovered termite infestation in their house. It’s a nerve-racking experience for most people who don’t have the energy or finances to cope with the damages resulting from termites.

Fortunately, termite inspections can significantly help homeowners in such cases. Read on to learn why it’s essential to schedule a termite inspection.

Prevention of Hefty Damage Costs

The reason why homeowners, sellers, and buyers frequently push for termite inspections before selling or purchasing a home is the repair costs of termite infestations. Termites cause severe damage to a house’s integrity and functionality. Therefore, a delay in identifying and eliminating them can lead to a hefty expense for damage repairs.

According to research, it takes a week for a subterranean termite colony to consume at least 15 pounds of wood, which means prompt inspection is crucial for damage prevention, increased security, and the home occupants’ health.

Scheduling an urgent home inspection is critical to prevent increased repair costs, which a homeowner’s insurance policy can’t cover. In fact, it’s essential to understand that no house insurance offers coverage for the damage incurred due to a termite infestation.

Increased Home Security

One of the most significant investments one can make in a lifetime is purchasing a home. Since it’s such an important investment, no homeowner wants it to fall apart, be harmed, or suffer severe damages. By calling an inspection company for a termite inspection, you’ll get the peace of mind that your home is safe from a high-risk threat like termite infestation.

In fact, scheduling this inspection is a critical security measure to take even when you think you don’t necessarily need it. A report uncovering the major and minor issues will help you promptly seek solutions and provide you with the much-needed satisfaction that you made the right decision.

Prompt Detection of Termites

Termites rarely show themselves. But as silent destroyers, they continue to show signs of the damage they cause. Most people discover that their home is infested when it’s too late. However, an urgent termite inspection by a reliable company can help you identify it before moving into a new house. Inspectors pay significant attention to every detail during a real estate inspection, making it easier for you to know about a potential termite infestation.

Considering how termites can go undetected despite eating the building materials from the inside, it’s critical to seek assistance from an inspection company with the knowledge, experience, and proper tools to conduct a termite inspection. These inspections play a crucial role in controlling extensive damage resulting from the infestation.

At HTX Home Inspections, we aim to provide our customers with the peace of mind that their homes are safe and well-protected from potential threats. We’re a leading Licensed Professional Home Inspector in Houston and multiple other surrounding areas, offering safe, efficient, and reliable property inspections. Contact us to request a quote today!

Being a homeowner comes with many responsibilities, including taking care of every aspect of the household and making sure everything is functional and well-maintained. However, many household issues aren’t identifiable until they start showing signs of damage.

Therefore, it’s critical to keep an eye out for some signs that may need an urgent inspection by a professional. Here are three of them.

HVAC Issues

Is the house getting too cold or too hot? Do you smell something strange around your house’s ductwork? It’s time to schedule an inspection. An HVAC system consists of furnaces, air conditioners, heat pumps, and boilers subject to continual defects and malfunctions if not appropriately maintained.

A change in the house’s temperature and increased moisture in the indoor environment or a strange smell often indicate an HVAC issue, making it necessary for you to request an inspection. A qualified inspector can assess all these systems to ensure that they’re performing optimally and safely. As a result, you’ll find out exactly what measures to take to fix an uncovered problem and save a significant amount of money on energy consumption.

Furthermore, an HVAC inspection by a home inspector can help you detect mold and mildew growth resulting from HVAC issues inside your house. It’s a significant step in preventing household contamination and health problems among home residents.

Broken Pipes

Despite them being so important, most of us tend to take our residential plumbing systems for granted. Most plumbing issues go unnoticed until they wreak havoc, increasing the need to determine the proper measures to resolve the problems.

A leaky pipe is a sign of a broken plumbing system. Fortunately, when you schedule a home inspection, you’ll receive an extensive report detailing every issue identified in your house’s plumbing system. As a result, an inspector will allow you to discover all the weaknesses or potential problems with your pipes before it becomes a significant issue.

Faulty Wiring

Increased energy bills and your house’s inability to take an appliance’s electrical load means you have faulty wiring that needs immediate inspection. A delay in fixing defective wiring and circuits can lead to excessively high energy bills. Home inspection experts can immediately recognize electrical systems with faulty circuits and incorrectly connected wiring that cause additional energy consumption.

Furthermore, by scheduling an inspection, you’ll get an in-depth investigation of the wires, oversize breakers, outlets, fuses, circuits, and connections, which can prevent life-threatening risks like electrocution and fire hazards.

At HTX Home Inspections, our inspectors are determined to provide you with all the details of the inspection findings at your home to determine the best possible ways to deal with problems. We’re a leading, Black-owned inspection company in Houston, Texas, offering exceptional residential inspection services Houston for people in the surrounding Texas areas. Get in touch with us to learn more today!