So todays inspection was nothing out of the ordinary - 8 year old house, couple cosmetic issues (not my concern) and a few botched homeowner repairs (definitely my concern). I was just getting into home inspection “cruise control” when it came time to check the main bathroom. It was a lovely bathroom, bigger than many bedrooms, jacuzzi tub, nice tile…..
As I do in every bathroom, I gave the toilet a little nudge with my leg to see if it was loose at the floor, it wasn’t. I then scanned around the toilet with my Surveymaster (moisture meter - real nice one). After taking a measurement well away from the toilet as a baseline reference, I scanned all around the toilet along the floor. I was just finishing up when I heard the Surveymaster chirp, then scream. I found what appeared to be an isolated moisture site right by the horn of the toilet (sub surface moisture, it reads beneath the tiles).
Can’t be, I thought. Everything was nice and tight, bathroom looked to be professionally done. But the moisture meter strongly disagreed. Before I jumped to any conclusions, I decided to go back down to the basement and have another look from below. Sure enough, hidden by the heating duct, there was a stain in the subfloor around the toilet flange. I then switched the Surveymaster to pin-mode (as opposed to the pinless scan mode) at took a reading. Wet, really wet. It seems the seal between the toilet and the flange had been compromised.
Fortunately we found this problem before any serious damage had occurred. Remedying it will simply be a matter of having the toilet lifted, a new seal put down and then putting the toilet back. All in all it should take a competent person about a half hour. Had I not had the Surveymaster, I never would have found the leak. If undetected and left alone, a leak like that would eventually rot the subfloor and cause thousands of dollars in damage.
Does your home inspector have a Surveymaster (or even an inferior moisture meter) and know how to use it? Before you decide to hire a home inspector to evaluate one of the biggest purchases of your life, consider giving me a call. I may not have all the answers you’re looking for, but I have the important ones (provided the important answers are dealing with houses and not calculus
)
Thanks for reading, I hope to talk to you soon,
-Brad Manor, your Windsor Ontario home inspector.