Inspecting your house in Christchurch after an earthquake

Thinking of selling your house as-is in Christchurch? You might be thinking about inspecting the house before making that final decision. Selling an earthquake-damaged house or renovating, is one of the biggest decisions you ever make. So it is imperative to understand whether it would be a right decision or not.

Inspection of a house damaged due to earthquake needs a lot of attention. Let us find out what you need to inspect and how you can find those hidden corners that need overhaul and complete repair.

Underneath the sink: You might not see any water on the floor and you assume everything is good, but go underneath the sink and when you get underneath the sink, you are going to have a good look at the fittings underneath on the water lines themselves.

These lines down here can have bends and twists in them. Even if a little bit of a curve like bend in it you would like to keep check on it. You are going to want to check the lines if they are loose. If they are already loose, you are going to want to re-secure them. Most of the time people do just like this. They will put stuff underneath the sinks underneath the counters and you don’t see any issues as such.

Fireplace: Until you go down and you reach on it and check it you just don’t know they have got at the fireplace. The fireplace looks like it’s a gas log. The key over here is to get on the side of the fireplace and open up the gas.

It could still be leaking as if it is a wood Logwood burning type thing. What you are going to want to do is reach up in here, open the flu and just shake it a little bit. There may be things that fall out of the flu. The flu may have gotten disconnected even and it’s not venting properly up through the Attic. Look for any kind of drips or leaks or anything that’s coming out of it.

You also want to make sure those kinks, flue pipe and everything else is not loose. So if the flue pipe is not centered over top of the water heater, it is going to draft directly out into the house and possibly into the house. Inspection of these things is important as it can lead to accumulation of carbon monoxide poisoning.

So you are going to want to get that water heater cover put back in place as best you can so on the garage door. These are a couple of things you are going to want to check.

Springs: You would also like to look at the springs and see if the springs are broken. It’s pretty easy to see a lot of them. They have a real big sag in it.

Emergency release cable: Check that emergency release cable. You can always grab ahold this and then just pull it up manually.

Doors and windows: In the bedrooms and hallways you would like to look for doors that open and close smoothly. If you can’t close the door can’t open the door, you know, there’s only a couple of ways to get in either break the door.

You try and break open it. If you can get in from the back side, pop the hinge pins, pull the doors off so you can at least get in and out.

So this story is not lining up properly and so it’s not latching closed or just doesn’t latch. On the bedroom windows certainly, what you want to do is make sure that they still open and close, you know, a major earthquake. It takes maybe 10 minutes or so to just check this and other things.

It may take a little longer to fix it. But literally you should check it and make sure your house is still functioning properly.

Water: By now probably you don’t have a big broken pipe, but you are looking for small leaks.

Cracks: The other thing you look for is along the foundation wall any kind of movement cracking that may have happened down there. It may have happened during the earthquake.