The Worst Home Emergencies That Happen Without Warning (and How to Prepare for Them)
Buying a home is essentially buying a lifetime of worry and worry: that collection of wood, metal, tile and plaster, held together by the dark magic of physics, always conspiring to destroy you. Besides the routine maintenance that all homes require, there will always be expensive and shocking surprises, like a leaky roof or broken furnaces, that require a lot of money and sweat to get you back to where you were the day before.
But at least a leaking roof or broken furnace usually gives you a warning. Leaks usually start out small before they become extreme, and this furnace was probably acting up for months before it finally breathed its last. Most things that can (and will) go wrong in your home usually give you a warning before they fail completely. But sometimes a danger is hidden and hushed up until it becomes a huge problem, which means you’ll have to be proactive and check for problems regularly.
Frosty nails
Nails that miss the framing timber and stick up into the air are sometimes called ” slates ” in the construction industry. A few nails are usually inevitable, but there shouldn’t be too many, especially when it comes to roofing nails. The problem with glitter is that these exposed nails can become frosted from condensation in cold weather and then drip water onto the frame of your home. And there won’t be much warning, because these exposed nails are usually hidden in the attic or behind the ceiling and wall drywall, allowing them to slowly rot away the frame of your home without any visible evidence – until the damage is done. All you can do is be sure to go up into your attic to observe the condition of your roof from the inside, as well as monitor the humidity and humidity levels in your home for any subtle signs that water is getting in somewhere.
Convex water pipes
Is your washing machine connected to the water supply using inexpensive rubber hoses? Do you even know what hoses were used? Because the connections are often hidden behind the washing machine, they often remain out of sight and attention. However, you should check in from time to time to see if these hoses have developed characteristic bulges that indicate that the hose is close to failure. If you don’t go back there to check, the failure will happen suddenly—most likely when you’re not there to turn off the water.
Hidden water leaks
Modern plumbing is magic: you turn the tap and clean water just flows out of the tap or shower! But we don’t often think about how that water gets into every room of our home, partly because the pipes that carry that water are often hidden in walls or run under the house through a basement or basement (or even under a concrete slab). This means that leaking pipes can continue for a long time before any problem is noticed, and parts of your home that were never meant to be wet become saturated with water. The only way to protect yourself from this kind of slow and silent destruction is to rummage under your house from time to time and keep an eye on your water meter to notice any unexplained spikes in your water usage.
Buried things
If your home isn’t new, you might want to wonder what the previous owners did. While many DIY renovations turn out great, inexperienced or lazy DIYers often cut corners, and it’s very, very easy to cut corners by simply covering something with drywall instead of removing it properly. You’ll be amazed at the things some people bury under drywall or other materials: HVAC registers, pipes, live wiring and electrical boxes, exterior drains, and even windows. A buried window can develop a leak that will gradually destroy the structure of your home, hidden from you for months or even years before the damage becomes so bad that it breaks through. You can use a stud detector, which can also detect electrical lines, to find hidden wiring , and hidden windows (which are also hidden on the outside of the home) usually result in a cold spot in the wall, which can be detected manually or with a thermal imaging camera.
Radon
Radon is a colorless, odorless gas that can cause serious illness . Although testing for radon is quite common during the home inspection process, it is not always performed. If you are unsure of the radon levels in your home, you can hire a professional to test or use a store-bought testing kit. And you definitely should, because radon won’t give you any indication that it’s slowly making you sick.
Termites
There are plenty of signs that your home has been invaded by hungry termites who are happily turning it into a pile of sawdust. But these signs only serve as a warning if you actually see them. Termites often invade parts of your home that are not normally exposed to you, such as floor joists, wall studs, and rafters in the attic. Of course, their presence will eventually become known, but if you don’t regularly check the hiding places of your home, it may be too late by the time you spot these little bastards.
Form
Everyone is (rightly) afraid of mold in their home, but mold isn’t always obvious. Mold can grow in hidden, hard-to-reach areas of your home for years before any visible signs appear on the surface. And it’s easy to confuse mold allergy symptoms with other respiratory illnesses—assuming you have any symptoms at all. If there is mold growing under wallpaper or behind drywall, you may not notice it until it reaches catastrophic levels of gut renewal. Testing for hidden mold can be difficult, but getting into attics, basements, and other areas of the home that are usually hidden from view is a good start. And every time you open up walls or floors for repairs or repairs, you have the opportunity to check for hidden mold.
Old wiring
Bought an adorable fixer-upper? As long as the electricity works, you’re fine, right? Probably no. Just because the lights turn on when you flip the switches doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with your wiring. Old “button and tube” wiring was never designed to last more than 20–30 years , and even modern wiring is only expected to last 50–70 years before the insulation fails. But faulty wiring may not show any signs at all until it burns down your house. If your home is old, it’s a good idea to have an electrician inspect it unless you know exactly how old the wiring in your walls is.
Asbestos and lead
If you bought an older home and didn’t have it tested for lead and asbestos, you may be surprised to discover that your home has a lot of lead and asbestos in it. Lead pipes are especially dangerous because they can poison you and your loved ones slowly and without obvious signs. You can usually find out if your home has lead pipes simply by contacting your water utility, and you can also inspect the pipes yourself and do coin and magnet tests to determine if they are made of lead. If your home was built after the 1970s, it probably doesn’t have asbestos materials, but if it does, those materials could be quietly making you sick . The best way to check for asbestos is to have it professionally inspected.