Reuben Saltzman

Top 20 Home Inspection Photos from 2021

Today marks the 10th anniversary of our Top 20 Home Inspection photos post! We did our first Top 20 compilation back in 2011. These are all photos we’ve taken at home inspections that made us laugh, cry, or gasp. We share these photos on our Facebook page throughout the year, and these were some of our favs. Enjoy!

Creative wiring: This box was very full of wires, so someone took the easy path and made their splices outside of the box. Also, overlapping the four cover plates in shingle fashion was a new one for us.

4-gang box with wire splices outside of box

Backward tub Or perhaps a backward faucet.

Backward tub

Contractor’s license… plate.

Contractor's license marked up

Symmetry is overrated.

Door too big

Measure twice… the beam is supposed to be resting on the post, and the bolts are just there to hold it in place. Not to support all of the weight.

Good intentions

Measure twice part 2 Someone got this post very wrong, so they stuck a shim in the post to fix it.

ICUP This was the only bathroom on the first floor.

Hallway guest bathroom

Hills Bros? Isn’t the best part of waking up supposed to be Folgers in your duct? Or something like that…

Hills Brothers in your duct

Infinity Drain

Infinity Drain

Note the gutter and downspout. What do you do when you’re super-handy, but not comfortable getting on the roof to fix the leak? Install a secondary flat roof to catch the water, complete with a gutter and a downspout.

Interior Gutter

Kitchen faucet at bathtub. There’s nothing technically wrong with this, but the bathtub water will surely get cold before it’s done filling.

Kitchen faucet at bathtub

Seen in passing. Dare me to climb it?  Note to our worker’s comp provider: This wasn’t us, and we would never pull any kind of stunt like this 🙂

Ladder on ladder crime

That’s a light fixture in a wood fireplace chimney. And it’s not the first time we’ve seen this.

Light bulb in fireplace

Voted Minnesota’s worst sledding experience. Yes, those are sleds in the attic. Also known as subtle clues.

Horrible sledding

How many lights do you need in one bathroom?

Multiple cover plates

PVC Handrail. Not only does this material have a lot of give, but there’s no way this could have been less expensive than wood.

PVC Handrail

New construction defects. This was a new home where the roofers forgot to nail down the roof vents. We slid this one out to prove it.

Roof vents not nailed

Are the auto-reverse sensors for the garage door opener more than 6″ off the ground? We better get out our tape measure to verify. Yep, confirmed.
Ok, we were feeling whimsical this day ;-).

Sensors high

Toilet tank at ceiling. That’s all I know. I’m sorry, we don’t do “why” questions. But I’m thinking someone had to put this here just to mess with us.

Toilet tank at ceiling

Exploding toilet. Speaking of toilets, there was a big recall of Flushmate III pressure-assisted flushing toilets because the pressure tanks had a tendency to explode. That’s what happened here.

Exploding toilet

Extra-long downspout extension. We always talk about the importance of long downspout extensions. These folks may have taken it one step too far.

Water Management long downspout

Worst Christmas ornament ever? Or the best caption on our Facebook page, “Lefty Loosey, Tightey Whitey.”

Worst Christmas Ornament

Happy New Year, and thank you for visiting! Please enjoy these posts from the past decade.