How To Make The Most Of A Home Inspection

Air Date:
Heard On The Larry Meiller Show

A home inspection provides important information, but you have to know how to use it. Larry Meiller talks to a home inspector about what to look out for in older homes and how to choose an inspector.

Featured in this Show

  • How To Find Out If A Home Has Lead Pipes

    There has been a lot of research done on the health impacts of lead exposure. In most cases, water isn’t a common source of the toxin — unless there are lead pipes in the home.

    John Freiburger is a Wisconsin-registered home inspector who specializes in the evaluation of older structures. He said that it is important for homeowners to note that there are two different pipes that can be made of lead.

    One type is the service pipes that carry water from the municipal source to the home. Freiburger said that many cities still use lead pipes as water mains to deliver water to individual residences. Replacing those is no small task. In 2012, the city of Madison completed a 12-year project to replace lead service lines.

    To determine whether those are lead pipes, Freiburger recommended checking with the water utility itself. Another way to know is to inspect the water meter. Freiburger said that the pipe that the meter is attached to should be visible, and users can easily determine what it is made of.

    “If it’s a copper pipe, one can usually tell quite easily. If you abrade it just a little bit you’ll see the ‘shiny penny’ look of it. If it is a dull gray and lumpy, and looks like something that has a lot of mass to it, then you may still have a lead service coming into your house,” Freiburger said.

    Some older homes also had lead pipes in the interior, Freiburger added. It tends to be most common in homes well over 100 years old, he said.

    Freiburger said that one tell-tale sign of their presence is a different type of shut-off valve in the basement. But, even more easy to detect, he said, is that the brackets that were used to secure lead pipes were actually molded with the pipe itself, instead of being a separate piece of hardware.

    “The stuff came in coils, and it usually has about a 3-inch by 3-inch bracket that is screwed into the wall. And you’re going to see that it is continuous. Where pieces were joined together, you going to see what is like a big ball of lead solder. If things are screwed together, then you know that it’s galvanized steel pipe, even though they’re about the same color,” Freiburger explained.

    There is one more place in which lead pipes are used, Freiburger said, but that location is not a cause for concern.

    The third place is in waste lines. But if it’s a waste line, who really cares? You’re not drinking the water,” Freiburger said.

    The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources offers a brochure about lead in drinking water.

    Interestingly, lead pipes are nothing new. They were used extensively in ancient Roman construction as well.

Episode Credits

  • Larry Meiller Host
  • Judith Siers-Poisson Producer
  • John Freiburger Guest