The Art of High-Rise and Condo Inspections

When you’re inspecting condominiums, attached townhomes and high-rise properties, you expect to check a few outlets, mash the (GFCI) buttons, run the appliances, flush the toilets and that’s about it, right? For most inspectors, it is. For a few of us, it’s not. 

I’ll come right out of the chute with an idea that few share, that the old guard dismisses out of hand and that instructors roundly condemn and advise against in home inspection school: Look at and report on the deficiencies you see on the building exterior and in common areas. 

Home inspection school instructors, inspection report software moguls and continuing education providers just spewed coffee on their computer screens. Why would you ignore decades of conventional wisdom and open yourself to that liability? It’s simple— that’s where the expensive and dangerous problems usually are. 

Do home inspectors think their clients will be concerned about a double tap in the breaker panel, but not about conditions that could cost them thousands of dollars in special assessment fees, injury or death? I hope not. Yet, it’s what nearly everyone in this business does. 

Now that I’ve lost about 97% of readers with my take on this thing we do, let’s go. I’m going to cover the majority of buildings we see in Chicago…high-rises, low-rise renovated condos in vintage buildings, new masonry condos and attached townhomes. 

High-Rise Condos (those towers downtown…) 
Charge enough. I often charge as much for an inspection of a two-bedroom condo downtown as I do for a single-family residence in the ‘burbs. 

Look at details. Report on those door scratches and cabinet hinges that are slightly out of adjustment. (Condo-dwellers care a lot about these kinds of things.) 

Bring a stepladder. Why? Ceiling hatches. These places have lots of Milcor hatches, behind which are valves, shut-offs, mechanical systems, humidifiers and other stuff that no one wants to think about. Open every hatch and look—you’ll occasionally find really stupid stuff. 

Bring a 12-volt impact driver and drill bit collection with every imaginable option. Those previously noted hatches often have proprietary hatch mechanisms with obscure configurations. 

Check the humidifier. They all have them; none of them work. They’re almost always those little steamer types that no one likes except the people who sell them. They fail constantly and need maintenance several times a year. Make sure there’s a condensate drain pan under them. 

Visit the laundry. Absolutely comment on the presence or absence of drain pans under washers, burst-resistant hoses and flexible plastic dryer ducts, and be sure to check for a floor drain. When this stuff goes bad in a high-rise, it can affect apartments on several floors…and it’s almost guaranteed that the lawyer who lives in one of them will sue everyone imaginable when a water stain appears on the ceiling. 

Run through this HVAC list: 
• Electric baseboards—pretty basic; see if everything works. 

• Slide unit (as seen in the types of motels I frequent)—run it through the cycles. If it’s old, say so. These are inexpensive and easy to replace, so this issue is relatively easy to figure out. 

• Coil and blowers—seen in most high-rises in Chicago, usually at least three in each condo, sometimes one unit serves two rooms. Sometimes one or two larger systems are placed above the ceiling, which is why you bring a stepladder and all those bits to open the hatches and see these systems. Determine if it’s a two-pipe (meaning the building determines when to switch from heat to air-conditioning and vice versa) or four-pipe (meaning the occupant controls things). Most new buildings are four-pipe. These things have short duct systems of fiberglass duct board, oftentimes filthy and chewed up. I warn my clients that fiberglass particles could get into the airstream. Check the coils for crud and the condensate pans and drains for adequacy and function. Not complicated. 

• Ceiling electric resistance heat. You need an infrared (IR) camera, no way around it. After determining if it all works, inform the client that it’s dated technology and that several buildings with similar systems have required gut-wrenching special assessments to retrofit new mechanical systems into the property. 

Inspect electrical systems. Do pretty much what you’d do for any property, except remember there’s a high likelihood for aluminum wiring in high-rises built during or before the ’60s. You know what to do. If you put the amprobe on everything, you may want to rethink it for high-rise work. My personal credo is “don’t do it” (unless you enjoy getting barraged by emails from every stakeholder asking what you mean and then telling you that every other party in the universe says you’re wrong). 

Check plumbing. Older buildings may have original galvanized pipe. Pipe retrofit is a huge issue. Check pressure and flow, and if it’s lousy, the building probably needs plumbing upgrades that will cost thousands (or millions). Beyond that, check for leaking fixtures and loose toilets. Basic stuff. 

Assess windows. If the windows are original (usually single-pane, aluminum-frame), inform your client that new windows for the building can cost a few million bucks. Also, determine whether and why the building has window brakes, which make it impossible to open them wider than about four inches. Check all windows for weather-stripping; high winds at the 52nd floor can make things uncomfortable if the weather-stripping isn’t adequate. 

Low-Rise Renovated Condos in Vintage Buildings (The “Olde” Stuff) 
Old masonry. Everyone uses the wrong mortar. Everyone. It destroys old buildings. Don’t tell people to have their old masonry “tuckpointed.” What you’re recommending isn’t tuckpointing in the first place and it causes slow-motion demolition of the masonry in the second place. Do not, repeat, DO NOT recommend getting advice from a qualified licensed mason (they’re the ones causing the problems). Learn about old masonry and teach your customer what’s right. 

If you don’t understand old masonry, check out these resources I’ve written for Chicago HouseWeb.com: 

• “What Is Tuckpointing” CLICK HERE TO READ

• “Masonry and Water Management, Part 1” CLICK HERE TO READ 

• “Masonry and Water Management, Part 2” CLICK HERE TO READ 

HVAC. It’s either building-wide or individual units. Building-wide means there will be a boiler (steam or hot water) and radiators. If it’s summer, the heat will be shut off so you can’t check it. Say so. There’s too much to cover everything, but here’s a short list: 

• Building-wide HVAC. Check each radiator valve. Use an IR camera to determine if the radiator heats evenly or if it’s air locked and only warms partially. If you don’t have an IR camera, use your hand: Check the top and bottom of the radiators; they should be evenly warm. If the bottom is hot and the top is cold, there’s trapped air and the radiator needs a bleeder valve. 

• Steam system. Tell folks about uneven heat balance and all the stuff we know is problematic with steam, and tell them to research these issues with the condominium association and get back to you. It’s all you can do. Old buildings have been around long enough for everyone to know what the issues are and there’s usually a paper trail in the condo board meeting minutes that describes them. One thing…if there’s no “energy management system” along the lines of an R&D Series 1400 boiler control, the heat distribution is probably a mess. Find out if there’s a multisensor control system; if there’s not, it’s essentially guaranteed that the building doesn’t heat evenly. 

• Individual GFFA. Improperly located return air registers, inadequate clearance to combustibles, lack of drain pans under furnaces, venting issues and lousy air flow…of this list, venting is usually the most problematic. 

• Multistory venting. Lots of old buildings use this—all the units in a particular tier dump their Category I exhaust into a common B vent. Can’t do that; blockage in one unit can mean all the units in that tier get gassed from exhaust backing into their unit. It can’t be fixed without ripping the building a new one or everyone switching to Cat IV (which also usually means ripping the building a new one). Don’t cop out with a “grandfather clause” excuse; combustion backflow kills people—tell clients to install new equipment or fix the multistory venting arrangement, which never happens. Push for max CO alarms; it’s all you can do. 

• Duplex down condos with supply registers in high ceilings. Tell your customers it’s going to be cold in winter because all that hot air being delivered to the ceiling will stay right up there. 

• Mechanical closets. Negatively comment on closets that are so small you can’t get to the water heater without removing the furnace. Customers are always amazed when I mention this—point being, what’s obvious to us may not be obvious to buyers. 

Plumbing list 
• Pipe material. Same issues as for high-rises. It’s either old or new. Your customer needs to know that it almost always will require a special assessment and a lot of disruption to put in new pipe. 

• Pans under water heaters. Make sure the pan drains to a floor drain, that it’s not just a pan going nowhere (which is surprisingly common). 

• The usual stuff of pressure and flow. Check new or old pipes, fixtures, and find out whether fixture shutoffs are under the sinks. Having no shutoffs in a condo means the whole tier will get shut down if there’s a problem. 

Electrical list 
• New or old. New service? Fine. Old service? There’s never enough circuits. Say so. Advise why they would want a larger service and additional circuits. If you don’t, they’ll wonder why you didn’t when their window air conditioners are blowing breakers every five minutes. 

• GFCIs: You know what to say. Install new ones and more of them. 

• Old breakers. This seems to be a trending topic, so if you think the breakers are too old to work properly, tell your customers what you think. 

New Masonry Condominiums 
Masonry and stucco. First, masonry—it’s all wrong. Of course, you have to know what “wrong” means, but if it wasn’t built in the last few years, there’s a 99.9% likelihood that it’s wrong. Leaking masonry causes problems that can’t be seen for years, but when it shows up, it’s full-tilt disaster stuff. It’s becoming a long-term disaster story in Chicago; with thousands of these things out there that are all wrong, we’re finding more leakers with amazingly bad structural problems every year. 

They’re all wrong in the same ways and after a while, it’s easy to look over a large building and make an accurate assessment about its condition because it’s always wrong. Repairing masonry is prohibitively expensive; this is one of the primary areas about which your customer needs to know more than just what’s going on inside the unit. 

Second, stucco—to get up to speed on the issues, read this excellent series written by Mark Cramer, published in the May and June 2016 issues of the Reporter: 

• “Florida’s Stucco Disaster, Part 1” CLICK HERE TO READ

• “Florida’s Stucco Disaster. Part 2” CLICK HERE TO READ

Again, masonry and stucco are wrong in the same ways, so it’s kind of a “choose one from Column A and two from Column B” reportage thing. Have your list of what goes wrong with masonry and stucco, and mix and match comments from your library to describe what you see. 

1960s low-rise flat roofs. Get up there and report on them; they’re always a mess. 

Everything else. The rest of your inspection should include pretty much the same as listed for the previously described buildings. 

Attached Townhomes 
Balconies and decks. They’re almost always deficient. Be careful when inspecting enclosed balconies, especially boxed-beam wooden assemblies, because that’s the type that went down in California. 

It’s become apparent that these need inspection access ports and ventilation; if there’s no access port or vents, FLAG IT! The investigators of an engineering study delineating the causes of failure and methods for avoiding failure in the future named inspection hatches and ventilation as “must-have” improvements for balconies. Frank Woeste, Ph.D P.E., and I have been exchanging emails for a year looking into this issue and his analysis is that you need hatches and ventilation. So, if you’re looking at balconies, look for inspection hatches and vents. If you don’t see them, flag this with a big red arrow. Expect to be the only person who does so. 

Sidewall cladding. Improperly installed Hardie board is common. Download spec sheets from jameshardie.com to back up your comments about siding being installed wrong (because it’s almost always wrong). Here are two good resources: 

• “Common Siding Failures,” by Mark Parlee, Journal of Light Construction CLICK HERE TO READ

• HardiePlank® Lap Siding installation requirements CLICK HERE TO READ 

Vinyl siding. Same as with other rain screens, all you can do is look for gross violations, like caulk, lack of drip caps, J channel as a starter strip and the usual vinyl siding red flags. After that, I tell my customers to research leak and moisture intrusion issues in the homeowners’ association meeting minutes. 

Final Thoughts 
Commentary that works for me: 

• “I didn’t perform an exhaustive detailed inspection of the exterior, but I did see these things that are a major concern and they include, but are not limited to….” 

• “I didn’t perform a complete and technically exhaustive inspection of the (whatever) system, but I did see these things that I cannot ignore….” 

You can disclaim entire building issues, yet still note deficiencies. Yes, you can. 

Someone always brings up the old saw that if a person reports on one item in a list, then that person is also responsible for every other item in the subset of components. I’ve researched this with several partners in law firms, professors at Northwestern University Law School and friends who practice law, and not one of them has ever cited any legal basis for this cherished bit of home inspectors’ lore. The only problems I’ve encountered in this business were when I didn’t comment on problems, not when I did. 

Tell your clients to get a year’s worth of meeting minutes and read them, looking for complaints that don’t get resolved, not the crank complaining about the doorbell. Tell your clients to check the reserve fund. Expect real estate agents to be outraged by you talking about reserve funds. Ignore the realtors. 

Inevitably, the old guard gives this admonition: “Where does one stop?” My advice is to stop whenever you think you need to stop. Don’t go in the deep end if you don’t know how to swim. After that, learn how to swim. Customers need to know this stuff, so tell your customers what they need to know. 

When I was in China last winter, I received an email from an attorney I’d never met. Attached were 19 home inspection reports from others, plus my report, all for the same property. I skimmed everything and replied, “You’re either suing me because I didn’t report on all the picayunish crap the others built entire reports around or commending me because I’m the only one who reported the need for a quarter mil in masonry repairs.” 

He replied, “Yep, you were the only guy who saw and wrote about it.” I don’t know what others think, but that struck me as interesting. I am now known to another 19 people as the competent inspector, not the incompetent moron they hired, and I’ve already booked gigs on the referrals of people I don’t even know and never worked for because they remember me as the only guy who did the job they thought they were supposed to get. Yep, interesting. 

To be clear, everyone gets to do whatever they want in this gig. I don’t care how anyone else does it. Independence is a big part of why we’re all in it; we get to design our own show. 

But it’s silly to not tell people what they need to know and expect them to find things for themselves the hard way. Instead, we can charge more and do more, which is what people expect us to do when they hire us. 

Being the only inspector who reports on expensive, important stuff hasn’t hurt my business and it won’t hurt yours. It’ll only help and you’ll be doing the job your customers hired you to do. H 

Kurt Mitenbuler has spent 30 years inspecting buildings in Chicago. He is a 28-year member of ASHI, an iconoclast/troublemaker on the ASHI forum and a denigrator of the ways it’s always been done. 

Disclaimer: Inclusion of or specific mention of any proprietary product within does not imply endorsement of, nor does exclusion of any proprietary product imply non-endorsement, by the American Society of Home Inspectors, Inc. Opinions or statements of authors and advertisers are solely their own, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of ASHI, its agents or editors.