Monday, November 16, 2015

Things you should check...

So after living in the house for a little over 2 weeks, I've discovered a few things to make sure you check.  The air return in the kitchen is loud as all hell when the blower is running, I'm going to have them look into it and possibly add sound dampening material to the return duct.

-Make sure your keys work in all the locks, dead bolt and handle lock.  I discovered that our key works in all the locks except for one of the handle locks.

-Check to make sure all your shower faucets adjust temperature correctly.  Since we have to stop using our master shower for them to redo it, we are using one of the other bathrooms.  Well low and behold the cartridge must be backwards because hot and cold are reversed.  I looked at pictures to make sure the plumbing was correct and it was, so it must be the cartridge, hopefully an easy fix.

-Check all your water shutoffs for all your fixtures and toilets.  If they seem like they are loose in the wall there should be a little metal ring that is close to where the shut off is.  I noticed on one that ring was against the wall plate and this secured the pipe from moving.  After noticing that I went to all of them and moved the metal ring and it fixed any that were loose.

-Check to make sure none of your sinks leak.  Noticed that one of the sinks in our master bathroom had a small leak where the drain connects to the sink.  Plumber came out and fixed it.

-Check all the dampers in the HVAC registers.  We have the dual HVAC system and if you take the vent cover out there is a damper in the end of ducting.  In some cases it was almost closed so no air was moving.  I went through and checked them all and found a few that I had to adjust.  If you only have the single HVAC system, I'm not sure if they do it that way.

-Check the floor around the insulation in the basement if you don't have a finished basement.  We found a dark oil like liquid on the floor and pulled the insulation and found some seeping through the wall.  Once the insulation was pulled back it seemed to dry up.  Talking with PM about it they think it was something that is used in mixing the concrete.

Other than that just do some thorough checks on trim work and what not to look for missing paint and damaged pieces.  I can take pictures later for examples.