[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. We've been talking today about what to look for when you're buying a project house. And we just told the story here in this last segment about a buddy of mine who was out doing this and trying to eyeball what would be a good project for him, for his family. And there was a lot of cold realities that came out with that on what you're doing on the foundational side.

[00:00:25] Eric Goranson: And that can cost a lot of money. Here's my tips that I've got for you. If you're going to be doing this. And where to start in the first thing I want you to do before you even go take a look at it is do a quick little bit of research, especially if you're looking online at it, there's a lot of things you can do, but I want you to verify the square footage with the building department.

[00:00:46] Eric Goranson: And when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know that we got you covered. This is Around the House. Welcome to the Around the House show. This is the next generation of home [00:01:00] improvement. Thanks for tuning in. Whether you're on the. Radio show on the talk media network or the podcast.

[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: Thanks for tuning in today. If you want to find out more about us, head over to our website, which is around the house online. com. And if you've got a home improvement question, give us a call at 8 9 41 44. That number again is 8 3 3. Two, three, nine, four, one, four, four. Thanks for joining us today. I wanted to talk today about what to look for if you're buying a project house.

[00:01:29] Eric Goranson: One of those things that you're like, all right, I got to buy something cheap because that's all I can afford. And I really want to make this my own, whether or not you're going to house flip it in a couple of years. Or in a couple months, or if this is something that's your forever home that you're trying to pick up, and this can be so deceiving when you see homes like this and what brought this up was a good friend of mine, which we're going to leave anonymous on here because I'm not sure if he's working the deal on this thing or not, but we're going to talk about it anyway.

[00:01:55] Eric Goranson: He went out and it was down the street. He's looking for a place for his parents to stay because [00:02:00] they're getting older in life and he wants to be close to them and make sure that he's caretaking for him, which makes sense. But he found this early 1950s single level home on a nice piece of property.

[00:02:12] Eric Goranson: That was an absolute beauty of a time capsule. You walked in and it had the original kitchen with the laminate doors on it. It looks like usually those things have had four coats of paint. Somebody has absolutely tried to cover it up with bad projects and everything else. This had the wallpaper. This was a literal time capsule with basic maintenance done, but there was a lot of things that needed to be updated and that's where.

[00:02:40] Eric Goranson: It looks deceiving. You walk in and go, Oh yeah, it's got hardwoods under the carpet, rip that out. And we can do a few things to it. And this is where we start to get into trouble because this can be very expensive on a project like this, especially if you're paying someone to do it. So let's talk about that 1952 house.

[00:02:59] Eric Goranson: And if you were [00:03:00] going to do that for your parents and put you in a, in that position. You being our audience today. Thanks for tuning in. So you walk in this house and you go, wow, this is beautiful. Everything is outdated, but there's also a lot of vintage charm to it. So let's talk about this. They had done a couple of things.

[00:03:17] Eric Goranson: They had taken the garage and taken the two car garage. At some point and had added this little laundry room slash mud room off the side and made it a one car garage, but you could tell it was horribly done. It wasn't done right. So they'd extended the brick out, but didn't really lay a foundation for the brick.

[00:03:36] Eric Goranson: So there's a lot of other little issues going on there. Look like a homeowner special. Let's get into the bones of this house, just an example so I can help paint the picture. And then later on here in the show, we'll talk about it kind of room by room or what to think about. So first off, when you walk in the house, you look at the original electrical panel that's in there and you're in trouble, right?

[00:03:56] Eric Goranson: You've got cloth two wire, at least it's not [00:04:00] knob and two, but you have no grounded outlets in the entire house. And You've got a pretty full electrical panel and this had the 1952, 54, whatever year this thing was push button breakers. And so to reset them, you pushed in, they were not your traditional breaker.

[00:04:18] Eric Goranson: And it was something that was well outdated. So the first thing I look at is go, okay. This house really needs a complete rewiring, which now starts to get you into some interesting situations because now, okay, you're going to rewire the house and it can be done where you're going through and had looked like it had plaster walls in it.

[00:04:37] Eric Goranson: So you had drywall plaster combination, which is hard to match up to sometimes, but you had that with textures on many of the walls and then wallpaper on others. And so you start looking at that going, wow, okay, I've got to open up a lot here to get this going. So there's one thing. So you've got, at least you'd have to get numbers on it, [00:05:00] but for a decent size house like that, you can spend 10 grand on a rewiring super quick, depending on where you're located.

[00:05:06] Eric Goranson: And I know that seems high, but I've seen some panels be eight or 9, 000, just have a new panel put in. Before you get to rewiring. So that can be double that if you're not careful. So you gotta be careful there. So that's a big chunk right there. Looking at the roof, it had a 25 or 30 year roof that was 20 years in and a little lack of maintenance, but you could tell that thing was a little wavy.

[00:05:29] Eric Goranson: And needed to come off. So now we've got another 2025 up there. Cause there's probably needs to be some Ruth sheathing is you don't know what's underneath that. So all of a sudden you're getting into 40 or 50, 000 bucks to do something. And we haven't done anything to make this thing look beautiful. Then you start looking at the heating and cooling system on it.

[00:05:48] Eric Goranson: It had a, a 20 year furnace in there, no air conditioning, but of course, if you're putting your parents in there and they're elderly, you do need to put in something there. So all of a sudden, if we start looking at this stuff, you're putting something [00:06:00] efficient in there. You could be at 75, 000 really quick writing checks to people.

[00:06:06] Eric Goranson: And so all of a sudden that price of the home, you're just doing foundational stuff, right? This is starting to add up quickly. So then you look around and you start looking at the plumbing and go, okay, plumbing is decent. It's galvanized. So now we're talking about a new plumbing system in there. There was some copper, but you're looking at some galvanized in there.

[00:06:27] Eric Goranson: And with that galvanized, now you're talking to replumb. So at this point, you're almost to the situation where you're almost best just to gut the thing down to the studs. And do it right because by the time you do all the plumbing, by the time you do all that, it might just be better to go ahead and insulate, really do the building envelope correctly in there as best you can from the inside.

[00:06:51] Eric Goranson: And go around and get that dialed in. And that gets to be really expensive now, because now you're doing drywall. Now you're bringing everything up to code and you've got new [00:07:00] HVAC coming in. It looked like that was going through most of the crawl space down below. And then you wanted to add a bathroom.

[00:07:05] Eric Goranson: So by the time you get into that, you're well into six figures. And basically they took a hundred thousand dollars off this house just because it needed some work. So now you're looking at this thing going, wow, this is getting expensive. And so a house that was maybe $400,000 that you're buying it for, 'cause it's a good deal, is now 500 and you haven't put anything back in it yet.

[00:07:30] Eric Goranson: And then if you're going to be paying for other stuff, it gets expensive. You start looking at what a good kitchen would be. If you start looking at the cost versus value report, and that really starts to give us information here of what the average things cost and that's where it gets expensive. We talked about kitchens last week, but if you're paying for a kitchen, You're 75, 000 to 125, 000.

[00:07:55] Eric Goranson: If you're writing a check for somebody to do that. And that's where this gets even more [00:08:00] expensive. Yes, of course you can go through and put a key of cabinets in it. Yes. You can put in laminate countertops and yes, you could put in white GE or hot point appliances that are the base model stuff.

[00:08:12] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. But are you going to get that value back out of the house when you go to sell it again down the road? No, you're not. Cause it looks like you just did. The bare bottom cheapest in there. So this is where you got to be really careful with, because this is the stuff that can really burn you on resale.

[00:08:27] Eric Goranson: So now we're talking, what asbestos are we dealing with? What lead paint are we dealing with? Especially those fifties houses. We're starting to really get into the heyday of asbestos. So you could have another 10 to 20, 000 in there with abatement costs. And of course, lead paint, hard to say, but you got to test it and see where it goes.

[00:08:47] Eric Goranson: That can be anywhere. And like I've talked about with lead paint in the past. A lot of this has to do with what are you running into, and especially when you're doing demo like that can be a much bigger project because now you're having to get rid of all that plaster and drywall [00:09:00] as a hazardous materials, especially if there's a, you could have asbestos in the plaster as well.

[00:09:06] Eric Goranson: Uh, I've seen that in the mud that has been a common occurrence. So these are all things that can add a lot to these things. And the only way to know that is to go around and destructive test and take some actual samples and send it off. And so you've got to be able to, before you buy it, try to find a place to do that and have a homeowner that says, yeah, go ahead and take a little chunk out of that before we get this going, because you need to know what those costs are going to be on this kind of project.

[00:09:32] Eric Goranson: So let's get into this next segment here. We're going to talk a little bit more about what to do before we get to this. But I wanna just illustrate how prices and costs can get way outta control before you put the pretty and beautiful stuff in there that's gonna make this thing really beautiful and attractive to a potential buyer round the house will be right back.

[00:09:52] Eric Goranson: Don't change that. Dial[00:10:00]

[00:10:10] Eric Goranson: to the around the house Show. The next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me. I'm Eric G we've been talking today about what to look for when you're buying a project house. And we just told a story here in this last segment about a buddy of mine who was out doing this and trying to eyeball what would be a good project for him, for his family.

[00:10:28] Eric Goranson: And there was a lot of cold realities that came out with that on what you're doing on the foundational side. And that can cost a lot of money. Here's my tips that I've got for you. If you're going to be doing this. And where to start in the first thing I want you to do before you even go take a look at it is do a quick little bit of research, especially if you're looking online at it, there's a lot of things you can do, but I want you to verify the square footage with the building department and the listing.

[00:10:56] Eric Goranson: If you take a look at it and go, wow, this is pretty cool. I want to schedule a listing. I want to go over and take a look [00:11:00] at it, jump on the listing and see how many square feet it is. If it says it's 2, 200 square feet and it's a house, it was built. Not brand new, but it's something that's older. Get ahold of the building department.

[00:11:12] Eric Goranson: Say, Hey, I got a question for this address. How many square footage, what's the square footage of this house? And many times I've noticed, especially with older homes, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. Sometimes they've added a porch that they've enclosed. They've taken a part of the garage and made a living space and take a look and see what the building department has.

[00:11:34] Eric Goranson: I have had homes that were 2200 square feet in the listing only show at the building department 785 square feet. So what you're running into then is you've got a bunch of unpermitted work, which could really burn you down the road. So like I was talking about last segment, if you got this thing down to the studs and you're now going through and having to rewire, and you've got a electrical permit, a plumbing permit, and a few other things you might need in [00:12:00] your area to do this.

[00:12:01] Eric Goranson: If those areas that were not permitted Are getting done. Now you've got a little bit of a problem because when that inspector shows up out there and I've had this happen before they go, wow, this square footage here, this was obviously a porch before, and this is not on the square footage. This area now has to be.

[00:12:21] Eric Goranson: Up to date in 2024 building code in most cases. So before things were grandfathered, now you're not, that is considered a new build. And that can be a very problematic experience, especially if building code is not cost effective right here. We had this with a kitchen one time where a, in my area, a remodels forgot 25 years ago to get the final.

[00:12:51] Eric Goranson: inspection done on the permit and it just closed without a final and nobody looked it up. The problem is when we went back to do that kit [00:13:00] remodel and went to go pull the permits and take a look at it, We realized that hadn't happened. So we couldn't just remove and replace the kitchen and do stuff from that eighties edition that was never finished.

[00:13:12] Eric Goranson: But that eighties edition now had to be brought up to 2020, 2020 at the time, 2020 building code. So what happens now is that project now turned out to something that we were going to have to rip down to the studs, put in better insulation. We were going to have to do a lot to get that thing back up to code.

[00:13:32] Eric Goranson: And so that can be very expensive. We've had this happen where this has added a hundred thousand dollars to a project. Because maybe it was an attic or something like that got converted. And these are things that really add up quickly. So I want you to be really careful then. And this is where if those things match, you're probably going to be okay.

[00:13:50] Eric Goranson: There's no way to tell if you are or not, but if it's 2, 200 on the listing and 2, 200 on the building department, you can go, all right, cool. That seems you can check that [00:14:00] box. But if it's really different within more than a hundred square feet difference, That's where I start going, huh? Okay. We've got a problem.

[00:14:09] Eric Goranson: Somebody could have easily done some things or somebody miscalculated at some point, those things happen. But what I don't want you to do is take a look at what the tax assessor says. This is the building department. These are two different areas in almost every place. If you tell the tax assessor that you've got a 2, 000 square foot house and you added 2, 000 square feet to it and you want to be taxed for 4, 000, guess what?

[00:14:31] Eric Goranson: They'll do it tomorrow. They really don't care. They just want to collect the tax money. But the building department has to have permits to get from A to B and that's really where you want to go. So don't call the assessor's office. Call the people you get the building permits from and talk to them and see if they can get you that information.

[00:14:47] Eric Goranson: That way, you know what you're working with. Now, the first thing I want you to do next is to start, take a look around and check these most expensive boxes. I want you to take a look around, walk around the building, take a look at the foundation, [00:15:00] look for any big cracks, holes, anything like that. If you've got some big cracks, they could be repaired, but this is where you might want to, if you've got multiple cracks, And I'm talking big ones, anything bigger than maybe sliding a credit card through it, or you can see daylight through it.

[00:15:16] Eric Goranson: This is where you need to bring that structural engineer and get an engineering report on it and see what goes on, because this could all of a sudden go from a three or 4, 000 repair using carbon fiber, if you're paying somebody to do it to a 25, 000 repair. Cause I have to go in and put helical piles.

[00:15:33] Eric Goranson: And support that foundation because it's on bad soil. So again, these are these big foundational type issues that I want you to work with and take a look at. Next on, I want to go like we were talking about in segment one. I want you to look at that electrical service. Does it need to be changed? Are you going to be doing other things that are going to add circuits that maybe you don't have space to?

[00:15:53] Eric Goranson: And are the breakers in there even available? Is it a split main like one of the Cutler hammers? Out there that you [00:16:00] saw that had the split mains or any of these other brands that had the federal Pacific is the big one. Actually, if you have that federal Pacific one, where you can't really turn off the main feed coming in and those split main ones, a lot of those have been recalled.

[00:16:14] Eric Goranson: So if you've got a recalled panel in there, time to swap it out. I had one in my house, 1977, and you know something that was going to be bad. And once we started taking a look at it, we pulled the panel off. And I noticed that I had the neutral bus was really starting to get hot on it and it was already bacon through it.

[00:16:31] Eric Goranson: I was weeks away from a fire with that. So now's the time to fix those things up. That's when you want to tackle that. And then the problem other, the other issue you have is now with much of the new electrical code, you've got to put in arc fault breakers on certain circuits. Some things will be grandfathered, some won't, but to figure out with your electrical code department, what needs to happen on that.

[00:16:51] Eric Goranson: But that can be a very expensive project. Well, some of these breakers, you know, costing a hundred, 200. It's not the 20 breaker [00:17:00] anymore for many of these homes. So it's something you need to be careful with to make sure when it comes down to this kind of stuff, like here, safety is key. You're trying to respectfully protect the investment of the home as well as making sure it's safe and you're not going to burn the dang thing down with a bad electrical service panel or whatever else you have going on.

[00:17:18] Eric Goranson: And then make sure that the next step is that HVAC system. And we're running into problems right now. And this is where I want to talk about this for a minute. We'll probably talk more about it in this next segment, but we're running into some issues here where every few years we're seeing the refrigerant getting now changed out.

[00:17:38] Eric Goranson: We had the R12 that went away and I think we went into R22 and that's going away. We've lost so many different refrigerants. It's getting to the point now, if you've got a 15 year old furnace and you lose a compressor or something like that, you're almost getting to the point now of these refrigerants going to be not being made [00:18:00] anymore, that it's going to be cost effective to swap it out.

[00:18:03] Eric Goranson: So you could have a 15 year old system that's out there working and it's working great, but in a year or two. Especially now that we're changing again into different refrigerants. We're starting to see that go and go again. And it's, we're not going to get into the debate on this. Cause it's a, it's an ugly debate.

[00:18:20] Eric Goranson: So we keep switching refrigerants and then the old ones, they discontinue because they don't want to see them anymore. So this is going to, it's, what's going to be making these systems that are more efficient like this in using different refrigerants, you can't just put the new refrigerant, a lot of these systems.

[00:18:35] Eric Goranson: So you now have to replace them. So they're forcing you into the obscurity of having to go into the next system. And that's where this gets really expensive. We'll be right back after these important messages.[00:19:00]

[00:19:12] Eric Goranson: To the around the house show your next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. It doesn't matter if you're on the radio show or the podcast, I appreciate you tuning in. We've been talking about what to look for when buying a project house and some of the things that you might run into.

[00:19:25] Eric Goranson: And it's been really interesting. My brother and I picked up one here that I've been helping him with. And we've been working on this thing. He's been busting it out. I've been out there helping him when I can just due to my busy schedule. But this was one of those project houses that was due to be condemned.

[00:19:40] Eric Goranson: And there is this homeowner that had literally put tarps on it for 20 years. And it was just absolutely ugly. It had been overgrown, and we hauled about 2, 000 pounds of tarps off this thing because over 20 years, he just kept putting another tarp on top of it, never replaced it, just put another one, and there were 8 layers of tarps in [00:20:00] certain situations up there with blocks and wood and stuff stacked on top of it, and it was a hot mess, and luckily we had figured out that since we Walk through the inspection process on it and notice that we had during a rainstorm, which is when you're on a coast property that happens all the time that we had what looked like a hose running into the living room floor in there.

[00:20:22] Eric Goranson: So we knew when we were looking at, we were going to have a heck of a mess and it did not disappoint something. We figured that out into the value of the house and we're going to come out okay with this thing. But we knew that there was going to be significant framing and a lot of new lumber going in this thing to make it sure that it was going to be right where it needed to be.

[00:20:40] Eric Goranson: And it's going to be a stronger house than even when it was built by the time it's done, which is great. A lot of those repairs can get expensive, but those are things you want to take a look at. And with any house, we were just talking in the last segment about HVAC systems and electrical and all those things.

[00:20:55] Eric Goranson: One of the next ones here is very important is to be taking a look at that sewer system. If [00:21:00] it is a sewer that goes out to the street, have it scoped, have it taken a look at, and maybe it needs water jetting. Like the one that we had on the coast last week, I was out there. And I had a guy come out and water jet it and it had a significant buildup.

[00:21:15] Eric Goranson: And that's one of those things that you got to be careful with. Some people go, Oh, this house has been abandoned. No one's lived in for 20 years. It's had no use. That's cool. But when you've got a cast iron service line, that's going out to the street or something like that. The great thing with cast iron is when there's a lot of water going through it, it's doing okay.

[00:21:34] Eric Goranson: The bad part of that is when it's sitting there with water in the bottom of it, it's just corroding. It's like taking, you think about it, you have an engine block or something that's sitting there that's cast iron and there's coolant going through it and it can run for a hundred years that way because you've got things that are anti corrosive and that kind of stuff.

[00:21:52] Eric Goranson: But if you took a cast, a piece of cast iron and drop at the bottom of a lake and just let it sit there. Doesn't do as well. So running water is actually a [00:22:00] good thing for this because you're not letting all that oxygen get down there to tear it up or the oxygen that's in the water. So these are things that you really want to make sure that that standing water can cause a bunch of problems.

[00:22:11] Eric Goranson: And so we had the same problem out there. We had actually have a water jetted and scoped and wanted to make sure it was good. Once we got it, it was pretty good, but you could definitely tell that it's sitting there for 15 or 20 years with rare use didn't do so well on that system. So that does take down.

[00:22:27] Eric Goranson: We're going to end up replacing some of that because we just want to make sure it's good. But these are those hidden costs in these projects house and a project house. You need to make sure that you've got dialed in and that way you're going to be better with that. So sewer system scope on my area here, if you purchase a place, that's part of the purchase and sale agreement, just as a it's okay, that's a box you have to check for the sale, just as a radon here is the same kind of thing.

[00:22:52] Eric Goranson: And again, that's something you should get checked no matter what, because the last thing you want to do is put somebody's health in danger. Just have that right on test and see what's going on. [00:23:00] And take a look at it and see what's going on. Now, one of the other things that I recommend, and this is something, if you listen back in a couple of years ago in our episodes, Caroline Blazowski, my former co host of the show, America's healthy home expert.

[00:23:13] Eric Goranson: She talked a lot about this, about air testing. And I think it's really smart when you go into a house like this is to do some air testing and see what's going on. See what you're working with. If you find high mold content, then you know that, wait a minute, We could have a problem here. We could have some hidden mold damage in the walls that we're not aware of, and that could get to be a significant thing.

[00:23:38] Eric Goranson: So if you spend a few hundred bucks on mold testing, that can take you a long ways and understanding what's going on. And if you go out and tackle it, you find it and you test it, you can see that it's down cause you have a baseline and you've got a tackled. So these are things that I always recommend.

[00:23:54] Eric Goranson: Get that air testing. Then you'll be surprised what you find. And it can tell you stories of things that you haven't [00:24:00] found yet. Maybe there's a mold in the attic or mold in the crawl space that no one found that's showing up there. Maybe it's other chemicals or other issues you had there. Maybe there was a, a oil tank that was out in the yard that was leaking into the basement.

[00:24:12] Eric Goranson: And all of a sudden you're getting that those oil smells coming in, that's showing up on the air test. All things you should know about and that's something to take a look at. Now, the next things I want you to do is take a look and see what the furnace was like the house that I was Out there with my buddy.

[00:24:25] Eric Goranson: We were talking about in segment one here in the driveway. There is a beautiful Metal tank lid there. You can see that says oil on it. So this thing had Obviously and it was in the old driveway So i'm going to assume that tank was there that could have been decommissioned where they filled it up. I didn't open it But it could have had oil in it still, or it could have been leaking.

[00:24:50] Eric Goranson: And I tell you what guys that can be the biggest gamble of them all. A lot of all this, I have seen these tanks be no [00:25:00] big deal to, Oh my gosh, we've got to dig up the entire front yard and take down trees and everything else just to get the environmental cleanup taken care of. I had a house that I was renting in years ago when I was going through divorce issues.

[00:25:15] Eric Goranson: And I was renting this house and it had an oil leak and it started to get where I could smell it inside the house through the crawl space. And I knew we had a problem. And then I noticed in the wintertime that actually in the summertime that the oil level was going down on a check it. So we clearly had a leak that thing had been leaking for 30 years.

[00:25:34] Eric Goranson: And they had that whole front yard dug up for about three to four months putting that thing back together. So you think about that, that can get super expensive when you've got to have that kind of environmental stuff. You've got to haul off stuff. That's all hazardous waste. You could have it down into a water table.

[00:25:52] Eric Goranson: Oil tanks are one of the biggest problems that I see on properties out there that you got to be really careful of. This can turn around and turn into a six [00:26:00] figure problem. And a lot of times I see people that are actually looking at some of these things. They'll start poking around and take a look at it and walk away.

[00:26:07] Eric Goranson: Cause you're like, I don't want to take a six figure risk on this. The I'm going to lose the entire project. If I do this. And it takes a brave soul to dive into those because they can be expensive. And it depends on what state you're in, what local government wants, what level it has to be restored to.

[00:26:24] Eric Goranson: There's a lot of little things that have to be done and you can't really get around this stuff guys, because there's not a, Oh, I'll do it myself. These tanks are federally registered usually where they've got a list of who has them, who doesn't at least state to state, and that you you're having to follow EPA guidelines.

[00:26:40] Eric Goranson: So this is something you don't want to mess around with. If you do this wrong and you do this kind of out of the, with the tractor kind of stuff and you get caught, it could go really badly. And I don't want to see that happen to anybody, especially if you didn't do it right. And this is not something you want to take that soil and just throw out and bury it in another hole.

[00:26:57] Eric Goranson: You want to make sure that you get it taken care of. And take care [00:27:00] of it. So it's not harmful to somebody else or cause new problems down the road. Later. That's one thing to have a little place where you spilled some oil someplace, but when you've got thousands of gallons, potentially, and you're starting to get that serious health hazard, I want you to make sure that you're not putting out and getting into a place that it's affecting groundwater.

[00:27:16] Eric Goranson: It's affecting your health or somebody else's living there. So we want to keep that super careful. So be really careful with that. So the next one here is we're going to talk about is the plumbing system. If you've got galvanized pipe in it. That's where I start looking at that going, okay, galvanized pipe, time to go.

[00:27:32] Eric Goranson: And the same is going to be with, if you're looking at that CPVC, that yellow stuff, I've had some serious problems with that. That is something that now I would replace with packs and go with that because that CPVC and you've heard me talk about it many times before, especially when we just did a plumbing episode recently.

[00:27:48] Eric Goranson: If you want to hear more about that, head back and look at that. But I tell you what, that stuff there, I've had more problems with it. In previous homes, I had a house that I had that I had with that and it was the entire house [00:28:00] was plumbed It was a mid 2000s house that they had built And I tell you what, we'd be sitting there in the living room and I could hear in the crawl space something go poof, and it was a blown fitting, and it would crack, it blew up, the stuff was brittle like glass, and any kind of a, any kind of a, of a movement in those pipes or anything like that, or pressure variance, and all of a sudden you had a broken pipe and you had a three quarter inch line someplace.

[00:28:26] Eric Goranson: Going away. So that stuff can be very troublesome. It can be very expensive to fix around the house. We'll be right back. Don't change that dial.[00:29:00]

[00:29:08] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me. I'm Eric G. If you want to find out more about us, head over to Around the House. Online. com and don't forget to check out we've got coming up on 400 videos over there on our basically It's over on around the house online.

[00:29:24] Eric Goranson: com. You can find it there But those are our videos from the television show around the house northwest that I do every single week We've got what, 65 episodes under our belt. And all of those videos are over there and you can find them there. So what you do is just head over to the front page on aroundthehouseonline.

[00:29:39] Eric Goranson: com. Once you click on those videos, you can go over to the playlist and that will take you to that. And you can find out more about us right there. And if you're listening out there, we just loaded up 300 of our latest episodes over on YouTube podcasts as well. And so you can catch the audio version of this over there.

[00:29:56] Eric Goranson: If you're listening on the radio, if you miss something, so that's another great place to find us. [00:30:00] That's brand new. All right, guys, we've been talking about what to look for when buying a project house before you plan on remodeling this thing. And we've been talking a lot of different stuff here. We talked about verifying the square footage, checking the electrical service for something that's very outdated, HVAC system up to date, sewer system scoped, what's the foundation looking like, water system.

[00:30:20] Eric Goranson: Now, here's another one here is just, we talked a little bit about this, but asbestos and lead paint issues, these can be very big and expensive. Asbestos was used up until the two thousands in building materials. So basically I test anything before 2004, because that's what my local area requires. If I show up at my local.

[00:30:41] Eric Goranson: Metropolitan landfill here. And if I have drywall flooring, anything with texture on it, like that, any of those vinyl floorings, if it was made before 2004, I have to go have it tested. And I have to have it tested in my house to prove that's what it came from. So I have to show up with an asbestos [00:31:00] report certifying that those materials built before 2004 that came out of the property house that I'm working on, which is usually mine is good.

[00:31:10] Eric Goranson: So a lot of people miss asbestos is being gotten rid of in 1978, but they're confusing that with lead paint only in the last couple of years to the actually outlaw. Using asbestos in residential building materials. But that's the thing. And then as well as I can't take tar paper down, which is crazy too.

[00:31:30] Eric Goranson: Tar paper is one of those as well, that if you got tar paper, they're gonna give you a hard time over it and they're not gonna probably let you come in. So those are all things that you gotta be really careful with knowing the dates on that, just because it was, oh, it's, it was, this was built in 1980. You could still have tons.

[00:31:47] Eric Goranson: Asbestos in that place because it kept going up until the mid 2000. So just be very careful with that. That's a misconception where the internet is typically wrong on. And it's something that we've found out there testing that you just got to be really [00:32:00] careful with. So just because you can't confuse it up with lead paint, we'll just keep it at that.

[00:32:04] Eric Goranson: So that's another one right there. The next thing here is roofing inspection. How's that roof look up there? Is that going to be good? Cause here's the thing. That's a hot button. When you are trying to sell it to somebody. And they go, oh, we can't finance that because that roof is on its last leg. Even my house, I had a hard time.

[00:32:22] Eric Goranson: That roof was not in amazing shape, but they're like, oh, it's, oh, and I had to fight it, but we got it financed. And that was in 2019 here and Ruth's been doing great. Do I need to replace it? Yeah, it's coming up on one of my next projects, but those are things you got to be careful with. So the next thing here I want to talk about, which is a big one that you need to know is, are you in a historical area?

[00:32:44] Eric Goranson: Do you have HOAs? Are you in a neighborhood where they control what's going on with your house? Now this can be a tough one, especially when you're coming in. Cause you're like, Oh, HOA fees are this no big deal, but you might have grand plans for this. I'm going to put this on and I'm going to [00:33:00] paint it this color.

[00:33:01] Eric Goranson: Some of these places, especially with historical, but now HOAs can be this way as well. I've had HOAs and said, okay, here's your 12 colors. You can paint the house in like, what do you mean? I don't like any of these colors. Those are the approved colors for that neighborhood. And so this is where you got to be really careful.

[00:33:18] Eric Goranson: With this kind of stuff, and there's a lot of things now each ways can be certain fence. Some of these now they've got the front yard is managed by the HOA. So you can't even landscape out there without talking to them. So again, I am not an HOA person. I get it why people do it. But I tell you what I have heard.

[00:33:38] Eric Goranson: More problems than good sometimes with them with people saying, Hey, I can't park my work truck in my driveway because it doesn't meet the specifications of the HOA. And you're just a working class person and you're trying to get to work. And that work truck can't even go on the front driveway on the street.

[00:33:53] Eric Goranson: That can be a problem. So be very careful with these HOAs and understanding. Before you go [00:34:00] in what you're up to deal with, because this can be a nightmare trying to navigate this stuff. You want to change out windows. Oh, you can only put white graded ones in there. What are you talking about? You got to be really careful with this kind of stuff.

[00:34:11] Eric Goranson: So understand that. And then the other thing is too, is understand what issues you might have with property lines in boundaries. I've run into this on houses I bought where they're like, yeah, see, there was a permitted building in the back. That is technically six inches on the neighbor's yard, but it's grandfathered in everybody knows about it.

[00:34:33] Eric Goranson: But if you go dive into that project and if you do any modifications to that or any significant modifications, which. Significant gets to be a little bit of a gray area, but if you do any significant modifications, now you're going to have to tear part of that down and bring it back and put it back on the property line.

[00:34:50] Eric Goranson: And if that's something that's a serious building like an ADU or a garage or shop, That could be a significant problem because now you have to reframe part of that. Maybe you're cutting concrete, [00:35:00] maybe you're doing stuff like that. So these are things you got to be really careful with and understanding where those property lines are.

[00:35:06] Eric Goranson: And we talked about this in, in previous episodes, but really go onto your websites for your county, take a look and see in the permitting department or the tax assessor's office. Where those property line maps are. There's a lot of great websites. My brother was just on in Pennsylvania and Harrisburg. He jumped on his county site there and took a look and he found these beautiful.

[00:35:28] Eric Goranson: Satellite images with the, with the property lines laid out on it that really gave him a great idea where stuff is. And then he realized that what he thought was his yard, isn't his yard. That was actually the area behind his house. The open space was part of that. So it's just one of those things you just got to be really careful with.

[00:35:44] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And knowing where those property lines are, so you can deal with it. And uh, maybe that's a survey, maybe that's going around. I just talked about this last week in the TV show, and I did a video on this of what to look for. When you're trying to find those property markers and getting out there. And sometimes those can be [00:36:00] a piece of bronze down there.

[00:36:02] Eric Goranson: It can be on a rock. It can be on a, it can be just a little nailed in tag into someplace. It could be a piece of rebar. So sometimes getting that map, getting out there with a metal detector can sure help you try to find stuff. I found one of mine on the metal detector and it was just a, a piece of rebar drove into the ground that if you had the metal detector, you could sure find it.

[00:36:20] Eric Goranson: But that's where they had done it. And it literally was a piece of rebar with some orange tape around it. And that's what they marked it with. So that's a newer one, but that might save you 500 bucks on a survey. If you can find those locations and that'll make life just a little bit easier. So another thing here that I want to talk about as well is really making sure.

[00:36:42] Eric Goranson: That you've got your budget put together on this stuff before you get in. And this is what I want to round up at the end of this. If you're doing the project yourself, that's going to cut the numbers typically by half because you're taking the labor part of what that project is many times. And it's not always this way, but many times labor is about half [00:37:00] of what that budget is for bringing a contractor in.

[00:37:02] Eric Goranson: To do that work, but there's some things you're better off hiring to have come in. And unless you're an hvac technician putting in a brand new hvac system is not a diy project. I'm, sorry. It's not I didn't even do my own and I know how to do it But the problem is is that when you're running into systems like this Especially the smarter ones where there's three four five computers in them And there are so many things to go with this if you go out and buy a top of the line hvac System to go put it in there You're only halfway there.

[00:37:34] Eric Goranson: The sizing, the configuration, the ducting, all of those things are what make that a superior system. So the problem is you're only halfway there and you really need someone that is educated on that system. Great example. I would not have, I like to have certified people. If you're buying a system, I want to, let's say it's a carrier system, which I love.

[00:37:55] Eric Goranson: That's what I've worked with. Most of my career, I want to have a [00:38:00] carrier certified person to put it in. I don't want just a general HVAC person. I want somebody that is factory trained, that is ready to rock. So when I'm looking at putting in a system like that, I actually go over, I don't go on online and just pull up the Google listings.

[00:38:15] Eric Goranson: I look to this brand system I want to go with and I go, okay, I want to go with carrier. I want to go train. I want to go with. Americans, whatever you're looking at, go on their system and look for their best certified installers and start working there. This is not where you want that Chuck in the truck or guy coming out there that has just not affiliated with anybody else, but used to work for a company.

[00:38:39] Eric Goranson: And now they're got their own thing going. I really want to have somebody that is licensed. Bonded and insured plus trained by the company that they're working with. So that way you get it installed correctly and by their specifications. Good. What happens is that when you can't track that person down and you get the factory warranty person coming out or somebody else and they go, I [00:39:00] was never installed correctly, so it's not covered under warranty.

[00:39:02] Eric Goranson: And then all that money is out the door and that's more and more important as we get down the road with these things On this is a super important thing to be taking a look at because I tell you what not having that dialed in It's going to be expensive and it's going to burn you. All right, everybody not to end on that negative note But I wanted to get out this information to you So you could take a look and really understand what things cost a little bit And what to look for before you jump into this project.

[00:39:28] Eric Goranson: I'm eric g. Thanks for listening to around the

[00:39:43] Eric Goranson: house