We’re selling my daughter’s house and today the buyer had an inspection. He told them there was black mold all over in the attic. I was just up there yesterday checking on things and all I saw was dry flaking on the sheathing.
When we bought the house four years ago I went up in the attic with the inspector. He checked with a moisture meter and it was dry. He said that the dry stuff was “dead”.
We put a new steel roof on right after buying it because the asphalt shingles looked to be getting bad but it wasn’t leaking. I also found that the bathroom fan wasn’t vented to the outside and corrected that.
My questions are:
Have any of you seen the grayish flaking stuff?
And what is it?
I’ll go over again tomorrow and try to get a good picture of it.
I’m thinking of getting an inspector of my own and having agent agent tell the buyer that I am taking issue with the competence of their inspector.
thanks mike
Replies
Pictures, man.
I crawled down one side and up the other, I didn't see anthing that looked like the mold I'm used to or what I've been able to search out on the WWW.
It's a ranch house and seems to be all on the North side of the roof. I took some scrapings, can I take them to a lab for testing?
Here's a couple of pictures:
Edited 12/7/2008 5:02 pm ET by 802Mike
is that above where the fan vented into the attic?
Barry E-Remodeler
Yes, in the general area.
Hi Mike, I have been a carpenter/general contractor for twenty five years and a real estate broker for four years. Sometimes the less you know the better your are. Forget the lab, my experience says it is some type of mold. The kind of mold may be what you do not want to know (you do not want the men in the white suites to show up). Let your agent disclose the information you were told to their agent and leave it at that. It they want a monetary adjustment, either give it to them, trade for something else or let the contract go. In Mo. once a determination has been made by an expert you must disclose this to future buyers. This could hamper the future sale. It seems the cause has been addressed (venting the bath fan) but the mold is still there, dry or not. I hope this helps.
Well, it is his daughter's house, so HE could find out, and then deal with it if an easy fix, or even prove this HI wrong. bUt if it turns out the info is ugly, when daughter asks, "you don't wanna know."
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
What ever it is flaking off the sheathing.... I can't imagine being a good thing adding to the value of the house.
When I went to home inspection school they were VERY specific to stress a great number of times that we were NOT to state specifically that we had discovered the presence of "mold" unless we had further schooling and had been certified in mold identification and remediation, but only to state that we had discovered what appeared to be the presence of a growth of micro-organisms on the wood.
(In this case, I would state that it appeared to have been a previous growth that does not appear to have damaged the structure.)
I guess some inspectors have ended up on the wrong end of lawsuits by stating what is beyond their expertise.
So you might be well served to ask for his credentials in this matter.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
I agree with Piffin on this. I am a home inspector as well. Ask for his credentials. If he is not certified, tell him to pay for a certified mold inspector (that YOU find, not him). What he did by saying there was presence of mold there was called himself out as a certified mold expert. If he is not, he is required to supply one.
Depending on what state you are in, there is a possibility that general home inspectors do not have any standards regarding schooling, testing or experience (scary, but true). Still, you have a leg to stand on concerning this matter.
If this is mold, you will have to get it remediated.
No Coffee No Workee!
Looks like dead mold but I don't really know much about it. Good pics though...
The buyer probably has the right to back out of the deal if he doesn't like his inspector's finding. My experience though is that buyers don't always take inspector's findings 100% serious so I wouldn't panic yet. Often it is the buyer agent who tries to blow things out of proportion to give the impression that they are adding some value. I was thinking about starting a thread about this...
There have been instances where I said "item x" on the inspector's report wasn't gonna be addressed and the buyer said OK and bought the house anyway.
Quick story - I built a house about a year ago. It was tested and found to have radon. Not a good thing. The buyer's agent said the radon test was "through the roof". I called the inspector and it was 4.2. I got my own radon testing company and it again came in at 4.2 which was .2 over the cut-off point of being acceptable. 10 years ago or so the cut-off point was 6, so back then 4.2 would have been considered acceptable. We ended up installing an 18 hundred dollar radon mitigation system on the house in question. The "through the roof" statement was nothing but oral flatulation (smelly hot air) :-) that was probably more lethal than radon. The buyer bought the house.
Other than that, re >> I'm thinking of getting an inspector of my own and having agent agent tell the buyer that I am taking issue with the competence of their inspector. << I'd recommend not stating it quite like that just to keep things friendly (even though I may likely agree with you). Rather take issue with the item the inspector sited - not the competency of the inspector. The home buyer can draw that conclusion himself.
Edited 12/7/2008 5:55 pm ET by Matt
Has there ever been a fire at that house? That appears to be delamination of the plywood, but what strikes me as odd is that the rafters don't seem to have the same problem. Water is what causes plywood to delaminate, but the fact that those flakes are black makes me think that heat is what caused the color.
You can buy a kit at the home centers to send a sample to the lab. I think the test might cost about $20 bucks. That should be your first step, and from there, you can decide what the next step will be.
If the test is negative, that could be fire damage from years ago that just got partially fixed. If you had an extensive mold problem, I think it would be safe to say that the rafters would be affected as well.
Edited 12/7/2008 9:10 pm ET by arcflash