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www.buildhomesright.com/kathys-blog.html
Latest Blog:
What's a House Permit Jacket?
www.buildhomesright.com/kathys-blog.html
Latest Blog:
What's a House Permit Jacket?
Black Mold Discovered Under Ceramic Tile in Sunroom
Barto Home DURING Remediation
My story began in October of 2008, when a neighbor had his home invasively inspected and mold was discovered. This was the beginning of an odyssey that I have decided to record in this Web site which began in February 2010.
One of the goals of my Web site is to provide you with information about moisture intrusion from a homeowner’s point of view. Our home was only 6 years old when my husband and I bought it; a home that the home inspector (to whom we paid $825) said was in “great shape”; a home that is in a very good neighborhood and part of a community of 336 other homes; a home that has since cost us over $200,000 of our own money to remediate just three years after we bought it. Oh, yes - and a home that was disclosed by the previous owners to not have had any moisture intrusion problems. We discovered the contrary during our remediation.
Many of you probably have never heard the word remediation. Well, remediation isn’t renovate; nor is it remodel because you save up and plan to renovate and remodel your home. These are good, exciting, even happy words. The term remediation is not something you plan and it definitely is not a happy word.
Remediation is something you have to do because, if you don’t, you won’t be able to sell your home when the time comes. Why? Because, after each rainfall, moisture will continue to seep into the spaces between the outer envelope of your home (stucco, brick, stone, siding, etc.) and the OSB or plywood thus causing more and more damage. If there is no place for this moisture to go it will sit and various types of mold develop, causing damage like that shown in the picture of our sunroom above. Observe how you can see the disintegrated OSB along with the pink insulation behind it.
Our remediation took approximately six months and included new Andersen replacement windows and doors, mold remediation services, new carpet, new stucco, new stone, replacement plywood and so much more!
During this project, I shot over 20 hours of video and took several hundred photographs. I did this to show how extensive and expensive remediations can be when building codes, builders' best practices, and other codes are not adhered to. Which leads me to another important aspect of this Web site and that is to better understand how something of this magnitude (it has happened to countless homes in our development) could have occurred and how there doesn’t appear to be any form of accountability - not by the township who inspected our home and issued its Certificate of Occupancy, not with the builder who built the home, and not with the home inspector who inspected the home before we bought it. Even our state’s Attorney General’s Office did not want to get involved.
Where is the justice and accountability? Or is it buyer beware? And if that’s the case and it is buyer beware, then how can we find information that we need before we make one of the most expensive purchases in our lifetime?
I hope you find www.buildhomesright.com and Kathy’s Blog useful. Please let me know. I’m Kathy Barto and my email address is Kathy@buildhomesright.com.
My story began in October of 2008, when a neighbor had his home invasively inspected and mold was discovered. This was the beginning of an odyssey that I have decided to record in this Web site which began in February 2010.
One of the goals of my Web site is to provide you with information about moisture intrusion from a homeowner’s point of view. Our home was only 6 years old when my husband and I bought it; a home that the home inspector (to whom we paid $825) said was in “great shape”; a home that is in a very good neighborhood and part of a community of 336 other homes; a home that has since cost us over $200,000 of our own money to remediate just three years after we bought it. Oh, yes - and a home that was disclosed by the previous owners to not have had any moisture intrusion problems. We discovered the contrary during our remediation.
Many of you probably have never heard the word remediation. Well, remediation isn’t renovate; nor is it remodel because you save up and plan to renovate and remodel your home. These are good, exciting, even happy words. The term remediation is not something you plan and it definitely is not a happy word.
Remediation is something you have to do because, if you don’t, you won’t be able to sell your home when the time comes. Why? Because, after each rainfall, moisture will continue to seep into the spaces between the outer envelope of your home (stucco, brick, stone, siding, etc.) and the OSB or plywood thus causing more and more damage. If there is no place for this moisture to go it will sit and various types of mold develop, causing damage like that shown in the picture of our sunroom above. Observe how you can see the disintegrated OSB along with the pink insulation behind it.
Our remediation took approximately six months and included new Andersen replacement windows and doors, mold remediation services, new carpet, new stucco, new stone, replacement plywood and so much more!
During this project, I shot over 20 hours of video and took several hundred photographs. I did this to show how extensive and expensive remediations can be when building codes, builders' best practices, and other codes are not adhered to. Which leads me to another important aspect of this Web site and that is to better understand how something of this magnitude (it has happened to countless homes in our development) could have occurred and how there doesn’t appear to be any form of accountability - not by the township who inspected our home and issued its Certificate of Occupancy, not with the builder who built the home, and not with the home inspector who inspected the home before we bought it. Even our state’s Attorney General’s Office did not want to get involved.
Where is the justice and accountability? Or is it buyer beware? And if that’s the case and it is buyer beware, then how can we find information that we need before we make one of the most expensive purchases in our lifetime?
I hope you find www.buildhomesright.com and Kathy’s Blog useful. Please let me know. I’m Kathy Barto and my email address is Kathy@buildhomesright.com.
Barto Home AFTER Remediation.
This photograph was taken in April 2010. Our home is absolutely stunning and we couldn't be more pleased.
My husband and I learned quite a bit about BEST PRACTICES when it comes to remediating a home. It is too easy in today's economy to go with the general contractor with the lowest price. This might be a BIG mistake. Especially if you are not comparing "apples to apples."
If you need to remediate your home, my suggestion is that you keep reading this site to get as much information about the process as possible - from a homeowner's perspective. It is my goal to equip you with pertinent information you need to ask the right questions and get the best value for your remediation dollar.
Good Luck and God speed!