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What you can’t see can hurt you when buying a home.
By John Bowes. Realtor, Developer
As I have walked through many properties over the years, I have learned that “not all is what it appears to be when looking at the surface”. Many DYI’ers, homeowners, and lipstick flippers ignore what is behind the walls, over the ceiling, and under the slab when sprucing up a property to sell. There is reason for ignoring these areas; the repairs are usually EXPENSIVE, these items out of sight and therefore out of mind. Today I will focus on one item, sewer lines.
Plumbing Sewer Lines- Sewer line systems are piping that are engineered to remove wastewater from your sinks, toilets and drains. Pre 1970, houses were built with cast iron sewer piping. The cast iron is extremely durable, and it serves a long life but has its downsides; mainly corrosion over time in pipes buried underground.
we are at the same elevation of the water table level during king tides. With decades of service, these cast iron pipes can develop rust that acts as a cancer eating away the metal and eventually through it. When this happens, the surrounding dirt is allowed into the sewer lines, raw sewerage can seep out and a clog will occur. This is when it could get real expensive. Most of the homes in S Florida post 1950 are concrete slab on grade (no crawl space). The sewer lines are under the slab running from bathroom to bathroom, to the kitchen, to the laundry room, and eventually out from under the slab to the city connection or a septic tank.
Therefore, when a sewer line fails, there are a few solutions. 1) cut open the slab and repair the pipe, and repour the concrete, repair the tiles. Not always possible and very disruptive. This also ignores the rest of the sewer lines. 2) some companies offer injected linings to fix the issue and add time to the life of pipes. To me, this is a band aid and may fix the issue for now, but you will be dealing with this again. Lastly, run new sewer lines around the perimeter of your home, sweep into the bathrooms, kitchen, and other drains and abandon the old cast iron. This is also expensive, disruptive, and not always possible, but is does replace the aging cast iron once and for all.
So, my advice is during the inspection period and well before you close on your dream house, order and pay extra for a plumbing inspection by a plumber. Make sure this inspection includes scoping out the sewer lines with a video camera from front to back. This inspection service will cost more, but if a problem is found, you have options. You can waly away from the deal, negotiate with the seller on the price, or move ahead with the sale knowing what you will be facing.