Life Of Jason

Well, I’ve learned today about what home inspectors do not check and how quickly City Utilities responds if people think there is a gas leak.

I’m the first to admit that I don’t know much about homes, home repair and things like natural gas. I’ve never been in a home that uses it and I’ve never known what smells are normal and not normal when natural gas is involved with appliances and water heaters.

So when we first looked at this house and I smelled gas in the small closet area of the water heater and in the kitchen near that doorway I didn’t think much of it. I mentioned it to our realtor and my fiancee & her mother. We discussed how it could just be because the house was vacant and the appliances didn’t have their pilot lights lit. (The pilot lights were lit.) Our realtor didn’t seem to be concerned by the situation despite being told multiple times that this was something of concern.

So, I just took it on faith that the gas smell was common for gas stoves and water heaters. After all, if the realtor isn’t concerned then it’s nothing that I should really be concerned with…right? Besides, we had an inspection coming up and if there was a problem the home inspector would catch it…right?

We had a home inspection done by a local company. The inspector in his report listed nothing as being wrong with the gas in the house. I know I mentioned at least once in his presence the smell of gas in the kitchen but I cannot remember the response. Obviously whatever it was didn’t alarm me to the point that I didn’t buy the house.

Here’s the thing: I would never have bought a house with a gas leak in it. However, I’m not a contractor or home inspector or realtor to know that something was wrong. I am smart enough to know what smells like gas and to tell people who are realtors or home inspectors or contractors about it. When these people do nothing then you trust they’ve done their job and there is nothing wrong with the house that was not noted or taken care of in the inspection reports.

Yesterday we had someone to our house who hadn’t been here before and noticed the smell. When I said that it was just common for gas water heaters and stoves I was informed that you shouldn’t smell gas that strong around a gas water heater or stove. They suggested I get out of the house and call City Utilities about the situation.

Sure enough, there were two leaks in that room. CU red tagged the house and shut off the gas. The smell that I noticed from the moment I first came into the house immediately disappeared so it was obviously gas leaks that were in the house before the inspections of the home and it was completely missed by the inspector.

So today we make some phone calls.

First, we call the inspection company to ask why these leaks weren’t mentioned in their report. The answer? “Well, we do a visual inspection and if we don’t smell anything we don’t bring out our gas detectors to check.” When asked why they couldn’t get their detector out and run it along the gas lines? “If we did that for some parts of the house, a lawyer would ask why we didn’t do that throughout all of the house.”

So in this case, it’s the word of the inspector that I never mentioned a gas smell and he never smelled anything. Here’s a photo of the room where there are TWO gas leaks:

In the bottom photo, I added red arrows to show you the location of the leaks. If someone had gotten down to check the fittings of the pipes into the water heater there is no way they wouldn’t be able to smell gas. (Did I? Sure. Then again, it’s a gas water heater, I’ve never had one so I didn’t know there wasn’t supposed to be some smell to it.)

As you can see, the location of the leaks are not in a place where anyone could get into the room and cause the leaks to happen through common usage. The only time I’ve been in that room was to put food on the shelves and as you can see it’s well above the pipes and I came in no contact with the pipes.

However, what recourse would I have? The inspector just says he didn’t smell it and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Then I called our realtor and asked her why the inspector (whom she recommended) never checked on the gas smell that I mentioned to her. Her response was that I never mentioned a smell of gas in the kitchen or closet with the water heater! Well, I have multiple witnesses that I did so in front of her including my fiancee and future mother-in-law. The realtor then said she couldn’t remember our discussing it and when I reminded her of the conversation she snapped “well, that we three months ago so there’s no way I can be expected to remember that.”

Maybe not…but shouldn’t she have written it down and checked into it when her client asked her about it?

Again, it’s going to be a case of client said/realtor said and it’s not like there’s any recourse I’ll have since I signed the papers to buy the house.

I especially liked in today’s conversation where she said she “put up with hours of calls from us” and that “people always blame the realtor for everything. You own the house and I have no responsibility for anything.”

Oh, I’m aware she has to legal obligation on the house. It was my fault for trusting her that everything I mentioned was being taken care of in regards to the inspection and dealing with the inspector. Next time, I’ll just trust no one. If I buy a house again, I’ll get two inspections from two different companies. I don’t know if I’ll use a realtor again because this time we had someone we thought we could trust who had a connection to us beyond a typical client/customer relationship. I do know that if I do there’s a particular company I won’t be associating with to get the job done.

I called my insurance agent and with my deductible it’ll probably be something I have to pay for on my own. So I guess I’ll be heading to Home Depot to get some pipes and flex tubing and I don’t know what else to get this repaired. (Although I had a plumber tell me today that to fix this you have to get a $100 permit from the City of Springfield before they can even come in and look at the problem. I don’t know if that’s true yet but if so that seems kind of silly.)

For now, I’ll have to sit here and keep working in a balmy 55 degree living room. It kind of reminds me of the ice storm and when I had to get out of my apartment because the temperature dropped to that level. At least there’s no wind blowing through here!

By the way, yes, it’s hard to post this and not name the players involved with it. I’ve been really struggling with it and decided to post this without the names attached to it. God brought us to this house and I’m facing this trial for some reason I don’t understand but I do know that publishing the names of the people here isn’t part of it. I’ll leave it to Him to hold them accountable for their actions or lack of actions. I can only take responsibility for what I do from here and for the fact I signed the paper to buy the house. I’m not going to shirk off my responsibility in this situation. I’m just saying it seems very interesting that I noticed a smell of gas from the beginning and we now have a realtor who can’t remember and an inspector who supposedly never smelled it once during three inspections of the house.

I guess it’s Monday! Since my heat’s off (because there is no shutoff valve between the water heater and the main line apparently) I’ll just have to get a bunch of blankets and wrap up in a cocoon on the couch to try and sleep tonight. I don’t know if I could afford a plumber’s emergency after hours charges to get it fixed.