09/09/2023
This inspection from the other day has me heated. This nice lady, being relocated, told me before I went down in the crawlspace, "It's all new. We paid $20K to have the v***r barrier installed and dehumidifiers installed and all new HVAC ducts." Weird 70's style house about 1500sqft on 2 levels. Crawl is probably about 1000sqft.
As someone who does crawlspaces, I thought, man, that's really high, but at least the crawlspace will be nice.
Open the access, and take a couple photos. Looks good. Nice v***r barrier, clearly new ducts for the HVAC unit.
But when I got in there a little deeper, I found 2 HVAC ducts laying on the floor with the insulation completely falling off. And the first thought that I had was that this lady got robbed and it's not an accident that this s**t looks awesome from the access but when you dig deeper, it's garbage.
And I remembered what she told me in our 10 minutes of conversation, "Crawlspaces are the stuff of nightmares for me."
This was not a mistake or a misunderstanding.
They new she wouldn't find out for a while. If she hadn't gotten relocated for work, she might not have found out for years. She cried right there.
Crawlspace encapsulation is big money.
If you're getting work done on your crawlspace, get someone to follow up on it. Hire an inspector. Pay some kid to crawl down there and take photos. Follow up. This was not an accident or an oversight. This was a money grab and they took advantage of a girl that they knew would not go down and check up on it.
Because, I'm not sure where her $20K went, but most of it is not in her crawlspace.
triadpropertyinspections.com