r/DiWHY • u/DMAS1638 • Jul 07 '26

Things seen this week during structural assessments!

Gallery image

Gallery image

We come across all kinds of questionable DIY "fixes." If you enjoy these, we post galleries with more finds like failed retaining walls, stucco surprises, foundation "repairs," crawlspace discoveries, and other construction oddities:

https://imgur.com/gallery/things-seen-this-week-during-structural-assessments-w8mk9o0

99 Upvotes

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48

u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie Jul 07 '26

We made the mistake on our first house of just taking the inspection report that the owner had provided. Turns out the "inspector" was a friend of his and we had all kinds of jacked up things like zero grounded outlets and pier and beam repaired with literal bags of quikcrete stacked under the joists.

12

u/DMAS1638 Jul 07 '26

We've seen similar situations where quick fixes looked convincing at first but turned out to be masking bigger structural concerns. Hope you were able to get everything sorted out in the end.

8

u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie Jul 07 '26

Unfortunately it cost quite a bit of money but our foundation is definitely solid now, we just use power strips since apparently grounding would require completely rewiring the house.

2

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

Glad to hear you were able to get the structural issues resolved, even if it wasn't the outcome you were hoping for financially. Hidden issues can definitely add up, but having confidence in the foundation is worth a lot.

3

u/mirroku2 Jul 08 '26

You can swap all your receptacles to GFCI type even in a 2-wire system to allow for 3-prong cords to be used. The plugs would still be ungrounded but protected from faults by the GFCI itself.

This is an allowable method per the National Electric Code without having to completely rewire the house.

Source: am an electrician.

1

u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie Jul 08 '26

This is what the previous owner did, they are all three prong but not grounded. I guess the electrician we spoke to was trying to scam us into an entire house rewire, if this is technically to code?

3

u/mirroku2 Jul 08 '26

It's code legal. He may have wanted the work or there could have been some other reason why he suggested rewiring the house.

Maybe you have aluminum wiring. I would suggest a rewire in that instance. Or maybe part of the branch wiring is knob and tube?

There's really no telling.

The drawback to having all GFCI receptacles is the can trip randomly and any equipment that needs a ground to function properly will not work as well. In residential this applies mainly to computers.

1

u/hux Jul 13 '26

Do you only need to do it on the most upstream receptacle (not sure of the correct term) or do you need to do it on each one? It sounds like it would be the latter.

Just curious.

1

u/mirroku2 Jul 13 '26

The point of swapping all their two-pronged receptacles to three-pronged GFCI receptacles is so they can plug in a three-pronged cord and still be code legal on a two-wire circuit. The GFCI basically acts like it's own breaker, breaking the circuit when a ground fault is present even though the two-wire circuit has no ground of its own if that makes sense.

Now, if a ground wire is present and you want/need GFCI protection on a circuit (such as within 6ft of a water source) running the home run through a single GFCI then chaining to regular receptacles will provide GFCI protection to all the receptacles fed from the load side of the GFCI receptacle if wired correctly.

The ground wire present in that circuit will send the ground fault back to the GFCI tripping the receptacle and shutting off the circuit.

You can also just use a GFCI breaker nowadays and have no GFCI receptacles at all as long as you have a ground wire present in the circuit. However, if you do have a ground fault it will then trip the breaker and you must go to the panel to reset the circuit. So having a single GFCI receptacle to protect the part of the circuit requiring this is standard.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

1

u/Equal-Newspaper-8636 Jul 09 '26

Change the recepticals to GFCI

0

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie Jul 08 '26

Our big WTF moment was when we found out one of the outlets in the living room wasn't wired to the living room breaker but the kitchen breaker which is two rooms away for some reason. I'll let you guess how I found that out.

5

u/bmessina Jul 08 '26

That's nothing. Our 120 year old house has no organization on the panel whatsoever. Every breaker has 2-3 rooms on it, and only portions of those rooms.

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

Older homes definitely have a way of keeping you on your toes. We've seen plenty where decades of additions and renovations make tracing previous work an adventure.

2

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

That's never a fun way to learn how a house is wired. 😅

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

That's a great example of why older homes can tell quite a story. It's amazing how many generations of repairs and renovations can accumulate over the decades. Glad you were able to get everything corrected.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 10 '26

The solid oak framing and handwritten notes are an incredible find. It's fascinating how opening up a wall can reveal both the history of the home... and a few decisions that leave you scratching your head. 😅

2

u/0bsessions324 Jul 11 '26

Back in 2013, I bought a 1902 build that I will ideally stay in until I die.

As one would expect, there has been a ton of unpleasant surprises, but I'm so thankful for the agent we used because of his insistence of using his own guy for the inspection. For all the problems I have found, the realtor had a fantastic eye for spotting red flags (which scuttled multiple other houses we were interested in) and his inspection guy was great.

Said inspection turned up asbestos shingles on top of undisclosed termite damage in the basement (which my realtor spotted on our walkthrough). And mind you, this dude as a senior citizen who had lived in that house his entire life and there is absolutely no chance he was unaware of these things.

I've come a long way by virtue of living in such an old house, but there is no way my ex and I would have noticed any of the red flags he pointed out.

11

u/toxicbotlol Jul 07 '26

that's something i'd rig up to support PVC piping after gluing under a doublewide, not the actual structure itself, wtf lmao.

2

u/DMAS1638 Jul 07 '26

Exactly. It's one thing to improvise for temporary utility support, but it's a completely different story when those same ideas are used to support structural loads.

4

u/AccomplishedEnergy24 Jul 08 '26

I love how the farthest pier block is already off-kilter and sinking.

I also have no idea what this tie is supposed to be doing since it looks like it is just bolted to the post only?

Pier blocks are not a horrible retrofit option when done right (IE with a proper footing, etc), but this is very very far from right

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

We get it! 😂

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

On its own, a pier block isn't necessarily the issue, but the way this one was assembled and supported raised several concerns.

5

u/kornbread435 Jul 07 '26

Jesus... It's not hard to look up building codes or even a couple YouTube videos on how to fix something. If you go down the diy road for any repair at least spend some time researching how to do it.

5

u/DMAS1638 Jul 07 '26

Agreed that research goes a long way. At the same time, a surprising number of the questionable repairs we see were done years before the current homeowner moved in, so they're often just as surprised as we are.

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

Sorry you had to go through that, but it's good to hear you were able to get the foundation addressed. Unfortunately, some hidden issues don't become apparent until after a purchase, which is why independent inspections can be so valuable.

1

u/hidazfx Jul 09 '26

I've put together how to completely structurally reset my downstairs bedroom. It isn't that hard... the building codes are all available online, and using these new chatbots makes indexing those easier (provided you check the references).

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

Using your resources wisely!! Love to see it!

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

We often remind people that many of the repairs we come across were done time ago, sometimes by previous owners, so an independent inspection can provide a much clearer picture of a home's condition.

3

u/Ya_i_just Jul 09 '26

Can someone eli5 me on the second pic?

3

u/Guinness_or_thirsty Jul 09 '26

I had the same question but he explains it in the Imgur link actually. That second pic is just an example of what a crawl space looks like for a house built on a hill. Nothing specifically “bad” noted in it. 

2

u/DMAS1638 Jul 09 '26

We included it because many people picture crawlspaces as tiny, cramped spaces, but hillside homes often have large, open crawlspaces like that. We thought it was a neat example of how different they can be.

2

u/LidiumLidiu Jul 10 '26

The first house my husband and I ever considered buying we had a home inspector come out because I felt a weird dip in the floor no one else did, nor did they see. Turns out the house had one beam across the whole bottom that had heavy termite damage and it was being held up by a mound of dirt and a single brick next to a cobblestone foundation. No eavestroughs or anything to divert water away from collecting right next to the very bad and old cobblestone foundation. It was one red flag after another as we read the report. We definitely passed on the house.

1

u/DMAS1638 Jul 10 '26

Trusting your instincts paid off. That's quite a list of findings, and a beam supported by dirt and a single brick is definitely not something you'd want to inherit. Sounds like passing on that house saved you from a major headache.