Hidden Dangers in Georgia Homes
I was at a home inspection recently with a buyer who is from the west coast, and she made a comment about how there were so many things she didn’t even know she should be worried about discovering during the home inspection process while buying a house here in Georgia. Every state has issues localized to them, so I thought that was such a great point.
Hi, I’m Sarah Maslowski with KeyPoint Homes Group, a local real estate agent serving the northeast metro Atlanta area. I specialize in relocation and have helped clients from all over the country and world relocate here to Georgia. If you are looking to move to Georgia, I want to be your real estate agent!
So, what hidden dangers do we need to be looking for?
One of the first hidden dangers you might encounter when you are looking at homes in Georgia is Polybutylene piping. Polybutylene is a form of plastic resin that was used to make water supply piping from 1978 until 1995. It was a very cheap alternative to materials like copper, so everyone thought it was going to be the best new product.
Well, people later realized that this material breaks down easily when oxidants in the public water supplies, such as chlorine, react with the polybutylene piping and acetal fittings causing them to scale and flake and become brittle. This creates tiny fractures in the pipes which reduces the structural integrity of the pipes in the house, and over time, they can fail and basically flood your house.
The cost to re-plumb a house can cost anywhere from fifteen hundred dollars to fifteen thousand dollars or more, depending on the size of the house and the type of new pipes being installed. If the house you are looking at was built after 1995, this is not something you need to worry about. I will always recommend that you have a professional home inspection during your due diligence time period, and the inspector will let us know whether or not the home has polybutylene pipes so we know whether or not to ask the seller for a credit towards your closing costs or to repipe the house.
The next hidden danger we are going to be on the lookout for is Louisiana Pacific’s Inner Seal siding, aka LP siding. It was produced from 1985-1995 and was seen as a smarter, cheaper alternative to traditional plywood and quickly became a popular choice with builders.
Well, in 1996, a class-action lawsuit was filed against LP citing manufacturing issues with the composite siding. Homeowners reported that their siding was cracking, swelling, discoloring, and even growing mold and fungus. It was also prone to termites and since Georgia is such a damp state, it did not fare well here. You won’t find a ton of houses that still have this siding, and it is usually quite obvious- it looks like the bottoms of the boards are rotten or swollen. The cost to re-side a house obviously depends on the size of your house and what you reside it with- but the average is about $12 per square foot, and about $10 thousand dollars for the whole project.
The next hidden danger you might find in Georgia homes is termite damage. Termites love Georgia. Since Georgia is such a damp state and we have red clay instead of normal soil, it is hard for water to penetrate the ground quickly which can create a breeding ground for termites since they are attracted to moisture. It’s estimated that one in five houses in Georgia will have termite damage at one point or another.
We have every home we help clients purchase inspected by a pest control company to check for termites since it is such a widespread issue here. It’s not always super obvious that there has been termite damage, hence the term hidden danger, since a lot of the damage they do is behind your walls, but you might notice crumbling or cracked wood on exterior walls. You can stay on top of preventing termites by having a pest control company come out regularly to treat your home. This is a pretty cheap and effective method that will save you in the long run. If a home has significant termite damage, the treatment for the termites themselves is likely going to cost you around $800-1,000, plus whatever the cost to fix any actual damage to the home is. It is estimated that the average homeowner who discovers termite damage will spend $3,000 to fix the issue.
Atlas Chalet Shingles are the next hidden danger you’ll want to look out for when purchasing your Georgia home. This unique 3-tab shingle was created to be an affordable shingle that has a layered, 3 dimensional look like an architectural shingle. In reality, the Chalet was not an architectural shingle but was designed to look like one through a process of granular application. The was a super popular product with builders because it was cheap. In 2008, Atlas Corporation announced it would not produce the product anymore due to a “marketing decision,” but really it was because of the customer complaints and impending lawsuits.
Around the Atlanta area, the Atlas Chalet shingles were especially common from about 2000 until they were discontinued in 2010, because they looked similar to high-end architectural shingles, but were more affordable. People claimed that the company misleadingly advertised that the Atlas Chalet shingle would last 30 years, when in reality, the shingles will blister and crack long before that – sometimes having problems within the first year or two after installation. We recently had a client purchase a home with Atlas Chalet shingles that were failing, and the seller paid for a new roof. Now, the seller in this scenario was OpenDoor and they needed to offload this property, so we did not have too much trouble getting them to agree to replace the roof. This won’t always be the easiest solution in a transaction, but most of the time when it comes to roofs that are failing, this is something that a seller’s insurance will pay to replace.
Another literally invisible danger in Georgia homes is radon. Radon is a naturally-occurring radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. Radon gas is inert, colorless and odorless and naturally exists in the atmosphere in trace amounts. Outdoors, radon disperses rapidly and, generally, is not a health issue, but when it is concentrated inside a home, can increase risks of lung cancer over time. Radon gas becomes trapped indoors after it enters buildings through cracks and other holes in the foundation, but it can be controlled with a properly installed mitigation system. The only way to know if a home has radon is by doing a radon test during your inspection period. This is something that I would say about 50% of clients choose to do. Radon is typically more present in homes with basements but can also be found in ranch homes, and you could do testing at one house and it tests incredibly high, then test the house next door and it could have perfectly safe levels. If you do a radon inspection during your due diligence and the reports show that the home has unsafe levels of radon, a radon mitigation system can be installed to fix the problem. A mitigation system usually costs around $1,200 to $2,000 dollars and luckily, it’s very easy to mitigate and requires no maintenance once this has been done.
The last hidden danger is not really dangerous at all when taken proper care of, and that is a septic tank. Some people are very anti-septic, but about 50% of the homes here in North Georgia have septic systems, especially if the lot you live on is over half an acre. This is because it is really costly for the city to run septic lines to these bigger lots, so we have septic tanks instead. We’ve noticed that many people who do not have previous experience owning a home with a septic tank think that it is going to have massive maintenance fees and want to avoid any homes with a septic tank. If you are pumping your tank every three to five years like recommended, which will cost you around $300 to $500, you can keep your system in great working order and avoid any major costly repairs. People automatically assume that septic tanks come with a ton of additional expenses farther down the line, and if you maintain it properly, that’s not always the case. So, if there is a house you are really interested in and it’s on a septic tank, don’t be afraid. It is not going to affect or impact your everyday life whatsoever, and it does not come with major upkeep.
The biggest thing to keep in mind is if you plan on putting in a pool in the backyard, you will want to pay attention to where the tank and the field lines are located at that house because obviously you can’t put in a pool if the tank is in the backyard, but oftentimes they are in the side or front yard. I recently replaced my 60 year old septic tank if that gives you any reference about how long they last. If you have them regularly inspected and pumped when necessary, you most likely won’t have any issues.
The most important takeaway here is that home inspections are so extremely important during the home buying process, and you need an agent who knows how to troubleshoot any of these issues that might come up.
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