I'm in the inspection period phase of purchase a short sale property in Jacksonville, NC. The house is built in 2006 and winterized since October 2017. I have the electric and water turn on recently. The water company said that when they come to turn on the water, 30 gallon of water passed through the meter and they have to shut it off. They said that i have to have the plumber come and bring the house up to code and install a handgate valve.
The house was build in 2006 I don't understand why it was not up to code. Should i continue to put down sunk cost to get the property inspected or just back out of the property now?
You have a leak somewhere. That's not unusual even with winterization. Hard to say why the main shutoff valve (I think that's what you're referring to) is missing.
You have a leak somewhere. That's not unusual even with winterization. Hard to say why the main shutoff valve (I think that's what you're referring to) is missing.
It's not weird for some water to flow when turning on a winterized house, but 30 gallons is probably too much. If everything was done correctly, you would expect to see around 3 to 5 gallons per toilet flowing into the house, plus a few more gallons as the water compresses the air that is in the pipes inside the house. The water should stop flowing within a few minutes, though.
It could be as simple as whoever winterized the house left a faucet open somewhere, or one of the toilet valves is stuck and not shutting off even when the toilet tank is full. I also agree with @Jon Holdman that you could have a leak; sometimes the person that winterizes the plumbing does not do a thorough job, some water is left in a pipe, and the water freezes and splits the pipe. (This happened at my residence when I was buying it; I had to pay a plumber to fix it before I could proceed with the inspection.) The water company will not go inside the house to check these things - all they do is watch the reading on the water meter.
If I could get access to the house, I would go around the house and make sure all the faucets are turned off - kitchen sink, bathroom sink, tub/shower, laundry sink (if it has one), refrigerator icemaker connection, outdoor garden hose connections, drain valve on water heater, etc. If any of those were open when you found it, that might explain the 30 gallons the water company saw. The toilets are harder to check, but you might lift up the tank lid and operate the valve by hand yourself a couple of times, by lifting the float up and down.
If I didn't have an agent watching everything I was doing, I would then find the main water valve (usually either in the front yard, or next to the water meter in the basement), and see if I needed a tool to turn it. Some of them you can turn by hand; some you need a regular adjustable wrench (Crescent wrench) or pair of pliers; some you need a T-handle wrench or "water key" that the hardware store sells. I would then go get the tool if I didn't have it already.
Then, I would slowly turn the water on to see what happens. It can help to have one person at the main water valve, and another person walking around the house to make sure that the toilets are shutting off when full, none of the faucets are running, they don't see water dripping out under sinks, or from the ceiling in the basement, etc. If there is a problem, and the house is small enough, the second person can yell at the first person to turn the water off. If it's a big house, maybe start a phone call between the two people before the water is turned on, so the second person can ask the first person to turn the water off over the phone.
If turning off all the faucets fixed it, then you can probably go ahead with your inspection. If you have something like a kitchen sink faucet or bathroom sink faucet that drips water, you might be able to close the shutoff valve under the sink to stop the drip, and plan on repairing or replacing that faucet later.
If you find a real leak - a pipe split or broken - then you probably need a real plumber to fix it. If the leak is in an exposed pipe, you can tell the plumber where to start looking. If it's in a pipe that's hidden in the wall, the plumber may need to ask the seller for permission to cut a hole in the wall to make the repair. Expect to overpay for this plumber - they know their job is holding up the sale of a $50,000-$100,000+ house, so a job that would normally cost $150 will end up costing you $250. It sucks but you can't do much about it.
When you're done looking, turn off the main water valve again. Since some of the house pipes will now be full of water, you need to have the furnace on at some low setting (say, 50 F), if you think it might freeze again in your area.
I'm not sure why they are asking for a gate valve. There should already be a shutoff valve either next to the meter, on in a box in the yard, but maybe that valve is rusted or stuck or otherwise not working. If the pipe coming from the street is copper, the water company will have a clamp they can use on the pipe to shut off the water, but for "regular" use, the shutoff valve should be working.
I wouldn't just walk away from a deal when you don't have the facts as to why 30 gallons of water went through the meter. @Matt R. and @JohnHoldman make some good points however I would say there is a possibility there is not a leak. It is possible the water heater was drained and all the water lines were empty, thus it could take more than 30 gallons to "charge" all the lines, fill the toilets and fill the water heater. 50 Gallon water heater is pretty common so if the water heater was drained that would take you over the 30 gallons. Additionally, you need to know if the water company found code infractions or are they just referring to the one issue of a gate valve missing? Chances are the water company just came up to the meter and unlocked their valve, then noticed their wasn't a gate valve on the house side of the meter, after 30 gallons was sent through the meter they shut off the water to ensure they didn't flood any area of the property and determined that you need a gate valve and that translated to "you need a plumber to bring the property up to code" rather than saying "you are missing a gate valve on the house side of the water meter, code requires it". I recommend investigating things further, especially if the house is that new, could be just a gate valve holding you up, which you can install yourself by the way, it isn't very challenging to do (I am not a plumber so proceed at your own risk). See this through until you have the solid facts at a minimum.
If there's not enough profit to handle a plumbing leak or some plumbing work - it's not a deal worth doing.
Everything is quote from the realtor. I'm out of state and new to investing. Seeing cost out the door before i can even close on the deal make me uneasy. I guess that's the cost of doing business. I'm going to call the water company again and see exactly what's going on. In the mean time, a plumber is suppose to come out and check it out tomorrow.
Thinking about this some more, if the winterization included draining the water heater, it could have taken 30 gallons in the water heater alone.
Seeing cost out the door before i can even close on the deal make me uneasy. I guess that's the cost of doing business.
Welcome to buying a house. :) Since you're trying to spend $50,000 to $250,000 or more in one shot, all kinds of people you've never heard of before will pop up and want $100 for this and $200 for that. These people have figured out how to get their fees to hold up a big purchase, so a lot of buyers will just go ahead and pay them to make them go away.
I personally figure that if I end up spending less than $1,000 on random no-value-added fees when I'm trying to buy a house, I'm doing pretty good.