Hi there,
We have just bought a new home and are moving in a few days. We completed our PDI where we were walked through our house. The representative told us that pools of water may appear in our basement and that this is a normal occurence with new homes. I understand about condensation and seeping and damp basements, but is it normal to have pools of water in the middle of our basement?
Another thing we found is that there is a floor register right in front of the door in our upper bathroom, as opposed to against the wall where they should be. I don’t see in our building code (we’re in Ontario, Canada) that they have this listed as it just lists minimum distance from a wall, but not the maximum. Would this be a deficiency in your opinion from a safety perspective? Because this is a new home, they wouldn’t place a floor register in the middle of your living room, even though there’s no code against it, so I’m wondering if they wouldn’t fix it just because it’ll be a big job, or if anyone else has heard of this being a normal occurence?
Thanks so much for your time and I appreciate and advice/insight that is given!
Kelly
Replies
Kelly
Welcome to Breaktime.
You say you just bought a new home-did you have it built? or was it sort of semi custom-you purchased at rough in, picked out the finishes and did the deal?
If custom built-there's no reason (other than a joist in the way) for a duct to be put in a doorway. No reason for the HVAC guy to do it, no reason one of us dumb carpenters didn't say anything and definitely no reason for a builder to not notice at rough in and have it moved.
Water in the basement?
Pooling?
No way!
Damp from concrete curing, drywall drying out, all the latex paint raising the humidity.
probably.
Has it rained alot, is the furnace condensate drain not hooked up, other?
Cal was correct in his assessment of this, but too kind <G>
re: The representative told us that pools of water may appear in our basement and that this is a normal occurence with new homes
'not kind' What a crock of blathering BS!
I'd agree -- there should not be "pools" of standing water anywhere. Damp spots in new concrete is fairly normal, but there should not be liquid water on the surface.
Can't make out exactly how the floor register is placed, but it doesn't sound right.
I wouldn't sign off on the house with these problems.
Ask the rep what their insurance co thinks of trip hazards, and that you want your concerns noted in writing.
Thanks everyone for the feedback! It's a new home that we've purchased from a builder. When we saw the pool of water on our framewalk, the foreman who was giving us the tour said he didn't know what it was and he'd find out, but of course never got back to us. Then "coincidentally" the lady who took us through the pre-delivery walk a few months later told us to expect water pooling in the basement and this will go away after the 1st few years -oh and a dehumidier would help with that, lol! My husband who is a tradesman looked at her like incredulously - I'm no expert however I do know how a dehumidifer works and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't fix the problem of water pooling! Of course, the document they give us talks about condensation, seeping, damp basement etc., which we understand, but under what circumstances is pooling considered normal? And reading your posts just proves our point, so thank you! Also, we're on a forum with other homeowners from our new community and I posed the same queries, and no one else has been told to expect this or that this is a normal occurence. So is it a coincidence that we were told this on our visit after we inquired as to why there was a pool of water in the middle of our basement? I'm gonna go with someone got coached to tell us this is normal.
As for the floor register - basically if you're looking in to the bathroom, instead of it being placed to the left where the door sits and against the wall, they've placed it to the left of the vanity (on our right), not against any wall. It is essentially in line with the door knob on the side where the door opens - and you will step on it everytime you enter the room. Her explanation to us was that you don't actually have to step on it as we have an ensuite door as well - that we PAID to have installed! So if we didn't pay to have that installed, we would have to step on it, and who wants to walk through a bedroom to get to the bathroom, it's insane! I was so peeved at this point and said to her if a vent was placed in the middle of the living room, you wouldn't have to technically step on it but would you consider that acceptable? Of course not! It has to be a safety hazard and I wouldn't have bought the house with that there, and I fear that when we do go to sell, it could be a negative for a potential homebuyer. It's been a very trying experience so far, we move in tomorrow and will be taking to the foreman again at that point for the final walkthrough. I'll update this post with the result of that conversation but if anyone else has something to add that'll give me more ammo for my conversation, I'll take it! :)
More headache!
I've just received a call from our municipality about both issues - unfortunately the building code doesn't have anything regarding the floor registry - they said it 'should' be under the floor and they've never heard of it being under a doorway, however it's not against code that it is.
Which basically means that if they decide not to move it, we have to pay for that and then sue them for the $$$. Grrrrreat. As for the water pooling, the inspector is going out to see about this issue and talk to our builder as that isn't a normal occurence in new homes, so we'll see.
Yeah... um.... NO!
You are riding a crazy train you should have put the brakes on long ago. From the sounds of it, you are buying a new home that was already being built, but you didn't have significant input into? Call off the movers, rent a hotel room if you have to, jam that foot onto the brake peddle down to the floor. Money talks, and these people aren't going to pay attention until you threaten to withhold it from them.
Someone goofed big time, but you are compunding the goof by letting the builder off the hook.
Water POOLING in the basement is a huge problem, not only from a mold perspective but also from a Radon perspective. If the basement is that leakey - something is waaaayyy off.
Same with the register. I'll bet the HVAC was run based on the plans for a different model... which had the wall placed somewhere else. Get it placed correctly.
You might want to talk to a future neighbor who has your same floorplan and se if you can check out their bathroom vent placement - and ask about their basement pools! Showing up on a doorstep asking to see their bathroom is creepy... showing up with a $20 bottle of wine and asking the same, why that is downright neighborly!
If you toured the house while it was in framing as you said, its not unusual to have a pool of water in a basement....if had rained recently. As far as it being there pre move in, thats a problem...unless someone was down there and sprayed it down to clean it up before you came by. Do you have a sump pump and is it running constantly? If the water table was so high the water was pooling on top of the slab, you should see some evidence of it in the sump pit.
Do make sure that when they moved the vent they properly patched the floor, so there won't be a soft spot there in 5 years.