Renovation & Design

Renovation & Design

ASK THE INSPECTOR: Water from walls a miserable mystery

QUESTION: We moved to Winnipeg six years ago and our home was only six years old at the time of purchase, so we thought we would be free of major problems for at least a decade.

Despite the age of the home, we had a home inspection because we raised concerns over soffits that were stuccoed. The home inspector dismissed our concerns stating he didn't know why it was done but many homes in Winnipeg shared this "look."

The inspection was done before the past owners vacated the house so we did not notice some "issues" until we moved in. The first issue was rust stains on the master bedroom carpet along the perimeter of the room where their bedroom furniture had been. However, our real concerns came when we decided to take up the carpets on the main floor to replace with laminate. It was during this time we first noticed the water pouring out from our walls onto the subfloor of all our bedrooms.

The following spring we had a security system installed and the contractor pulled soaking-wet insulation from under the window in the master bedroom. We held back on finishing that floor for another winter to see what would happen. Around February, we began to see water seeping under the wall again and from the kitchen window trim and all of the other rooms where we had not yet installed baseboards.

We have been trying to find a solution for three years now, or at least a solution we can afford. We have talked to roofers and other contractors. I don't want to pay for someone to remove my roof because they "think" that may be the problem. We have talked to professionals who admit they don't know why our walls leak water, they don't know why our roof has ice dams every winter, and they don't know why our soffits are stuccoed. We've had some tell us to add more ventilation, which we did.

In order to mitigate our damage each spring, my husband goes up on the roof and spends days taking the ice off the roof. It just should not be this way. We have vaulted ceilings but we don't have scissor trusses. The truss seems to just be a collar-tie truss and we are not sure if there is a bottom chord. There is insulation blown between the vaulted ceiling and the roof. We do not see a ventilation channel along the underside of the roofing material, and we have stuccoed soffits.

This house has just brought us so much stress and unhappiness. We are simply overwhelmed by the situation. If you could please advise us, we want to heal our broken hearts here in Winnipeg and fix our broken home.

-- Anita

ANSWER: While it's unusual for a home of that age to have major problems such as what you are experiencing, it's obviously due to original defects in the construction. It may be difficult to fully identify the specific cause of the moisture problems without major dismantling of the exterior walls or roof system, but I will offer some likely possibilities.

It can be difficult to identify moisture-intrusion issues during a typical pre-purchase inspection if there is excessive storage or furniture, but there may be other red flags that hint at a problem.

While your inspector may not have been able to detect the moisture in the floor or walls if the inspection was done during dry, warm weather, dismissing an unusual item like stuccoed soffits as normal is ridiculous. Most newer homes have perforated metal soffits and I cannot ever remember seeing a home built in the last 25 years that had stucco on the soffits. In fact, this "look" is normally only seen on homes that are over 60 years old, and there are not many of those around that have not been updated.

This issue would have been a huge red flag for any experienced professional and I suspect you were unlucky in your selection of "inspector."

In most of the country, the home-inspection industry remains a self-regulating entity with no mandatory requirements or regulations. Anyone can still print some business cards, post a website and present themselves as an experienced inspector.

To make matters worse, there are some shady inspection "associations" that have only a handful of local inspectors who have limited or no training or educational requirements. The most notorious of these groups is actually a private company owned by one person in the U.S. that provides "certification" to any person that can pass an un-proctored, online 30-minute quiz.

They have recently developed a "Master Certification" that does not even require the "exam," but only a signed affidavit that the applicant has been performing inspections for more than three years and a one-time payment of about $1,000. There are no ongoing educational requirements, exams or other criteria to obtain this lifetime credential.

The only legitimate certification in Manitoba is Registered Home Inspector, which is the highest membership level of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors (CAHPI). The RHI designation is recognized by numerous stakeholders in the real estate industry across the country, including the governments of B.C. and Alberta, the only two provinces to license inspectors.

I would doubt the person who dismissed your concerns over the stuccoed soffits had any affiliation with CAHPI-MB.

As stated above, water pouring in through the walls or floors of newly built homes can only be due to a major defect in the design or construction of the "building envelope." Because of the vaulted-ceiling design and your description, it's my guess the builder has improperly insulated and air-sealed this area.

The stuccoed soffits also suggest missing or limited ventilation to provide adequate air flow for this roof system. The water is likely the result of melting frost due to condensation in the insulation, but could also be due to a defect in the window or exterior-wall component installation.

An experienced RHI would have been able to notice the insulation/ventilation deficiencies and identified them during a typical pre-purchase home inspection. Hiring an RHI, or an experienced building envelope specialist, before contracting any major repairs is my best advice for ending your woes.

Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and the president of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors-Manitoba (www.cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be emailed to the address below. Ari can be reached at (204) 291-5358 or check out his website at www.trainedeye.ca .

trainedeye@iname.com

Ari Marantz
May 12