Homeowner Tips - INFOTEC Home Inspection

Cleaning Your Air Exchanger

Air exchangers can help improve your indoor air quality. They remove stale and polluted indoor air and replace it with fresh outdoor air. This is critical in newer, tightly-built homes that do not have natural leakage of air through the building…

Plumbing, safety

What Are Gas Meter Regulator Vent Clearances?

What is a gas regulator and relief valve? That “dish” looking thing on your gas meter is a regulator. Its job is to control the pressure of the flammable natural or propane gas as it enters your home. High pressure is needed to distribute…

Electrical

Double Tapped Circuit Breakers

What Is a "double tap? If your electrical panel has a “double-tap,” this means that two wires are connected to a single terminal on a circuit breaker or busbar. Sometimes this may also be referred to as a “double lug.” This condition…

Attic, Moisture, Mold

Frost in the Attic

When warm moist air from inside the conditioned living area of a home makes its way into the attic, we need to vent that air out in a quick and efficient manner. This is especially true during the very cold Minnesota winter months. In the…

Plumbing

Indirect Plumbing Connections

Here's a fairly common item I see while performing home inspections. What you're looking at in the picture is the discharge and overflow hoses from a water softener tying into the homes sewer drain system. Why is this an issue? Because of the…

HVAC

Gas Appliance Back-Drafting

If a home has a gas-fired water heater or furnace, one of the things I look for during the home inspection is signs of "back-drafting." This occurs when the hot flue gasses are not efficiently traveling up the exhaust system and out of the home.…

maintenance, Roof, safety

Roof Damage Caused by Trees

As we get closer to the end of summer, now is a good time to take a look at any trees located close to your home. Are any of the branches or leaves touching your roof surface? If so, that area of the roof will deteriorate at a much faster pace than the rest of the roof.