The Kitchen Checkup: Function, Safety, and Compliance

Jamie: 00:00:01

Welcome to Thoughts from the Crawl Space, a podcast where our goal as home inspection experts is to support and serve our community.

Whether you're a homeowner, home buyer, real estate agent, or investor, we believe everyone deserves solutions to their homeownership challenges and inspiration along the way. Your path to success starts here. Hello again, everybody. This is Jamie with Gold Key Inspections Services.

Today we are going to talk about that one room in the house that's the most common to be in, the one you want to be in, the one where people gather, the kitchen. What's in that kitchen? Well, that's where memories are made. That's where you make the food, that's where you hang out.

And in that kitchen, obviously, there's lots of appliances. So what does a home inspector do with the appliances?

The original Ashey standards, way back in the day, don't even speak to the inspection of appliances. There are some houses where, frankly, they don't even have the appliances. It's vacant, it's been flipped, it's a foreclosure, whatever.

And so, technically speaking, in some standards, there's not anything required to be done with the kitchen appliances. There just aren't. Now, inspectors are not prohibited from inspecting appliances. And so that's where we fall.

We want to give you at least a basic evaluation of each appliance in that kitchen, within reason. So today we're just going to talk a little bit about what we do on appliances, what we do, what we don't do.

So one of the, I wouldn't call it a fond memory, but a clear memory I have is going in the house, starting a dishwasher up, going back outside, walking around, coming back inside to find that the kitchen is now about a 1 inch of water all over the floor because the dishwasher has been leaking. Dishwashers are probably one of the most problematic appliances in a kitchen, and it should be obvious why.

Number one, you're running water in a with a door and electricity. So three things that don't necessarily go together. You like water to be in a contained area. Right. So what do we look for on a dishwasher?

Well, number one, we're going to go and we're going to open up the door and make sure that the spring that's attached, you can't see it, but it's attached so that the door does not slam down. That door is actually heavier than you think it is.

And so when you open the door, it should slowly fall down or maybe even require you to help assist it to go all the way down. And that's what we're going to look for, number one. Number two is the dishwasher secured in the opening.

There's, there's clamps that come with the dishwasher where you can screw them up into the bottom of the countertop or on the sides of the cabinets. More and more it's the sides, because modern countertops are granite or stone, some kind, anyhow, that is difficult to screw anything into.

You don't want to screw into that kind of material.

And so there are sometimes epoxy that will basically glue it to the bottom or something that holds it from moving and that shifts just simply so it stays put in place when you're doing the dishes. Opening and closing. Many people use their dishwasher almost every day. I find that it falls into two camps.

Some people don't want to ever use the dishwasher, and some people want to use it every day. Our household has fallen into the camp of primarily using the dishwasher.

Especially when you have kids, you have constant loads, maybe one or two even a day. And so very important that that door operates properly.

It's very important that, that the whole, you know, body of the dishwasher stays in place and doesn't move around. Another aspect that we're looking is simple. The racks, do they slide in and out properly? Is the hardware inside of it rusted, Is it corroded?

If they've had really bad water over the years and they haven't softened it, is it full of rust and so forth? Now, one thing that obviously we can't do within an inspection is test the dishwasher in every mode.

Most dishwashers have at least three, if not six different modes. And those can range from a rinse cycle to a two and a half hour power cycle. Right. And so we're not going to choose all of those.

We're going to pick one. And generally you can tell no matter what cycle you pick, is this dishwasher going to leak because it's still spraying water around the inside of it.

It's kind of like on a sink or a tub, you can run water for five minutes or you can run it for 20. It's going to tell you about the same thing as far as the leakage part of it.

And so generally we're going to probably choose to use one of the shorter cycles. We don't want it running when we're not around it too much and we don't want it running when we're outside. We don't want it running after we leave.

And so another option started on a long cycle and hit the cancel button to see if it actually will cancel. And when it cancels, it should automatically pump out any water that's in there.

That gives you an opportunity to make sure that the dishwasher actually does pump the water out, because that is one of the things that we look at on a dishwasher. So, number one, the door. Number two, is the body secured in the opening?

Number three, the tracks and looking for any rust and corrosion inside of there. Number four, does it actually pump the water out? Number five, does it heat? Are you getting hot water out of there?

It's one thing if we just have cold, but it should have a heating element in there that actually heats. So is that happening now? Obviously, there's a few things we can't tell. I can't tell you if it's going to clean the dishes very well.

I can't tell you how it's going to run in all the other modes. There's several things we can't tell about it, but we want to look at the positive. There are things that we can tell about it.

And so that's what we're going to check. Does it respond to the controls? Is the control panel damaged? Is it dented in any way? Does it look like it's safely secured as far as electrically?

And then another thing is the drain dishwasher should have what's called a drain loop or a high loop.

And that means it comes out of the dishwasher and it should go up before it empties and have a loop before it empties into the drain, which is usually the tail piece coming down from the sink. Now, why do you need that high loop?

With a high loop, helps to prevent if you have any kind of backup in your drainage system that it doesn't run down that hose directly gravity fed into the dishwasher and contaminate your dishwasher. So a high loop, sometimes it's called an air gap, so you don't have the pressure that pushes the water back into the hose.

Those are all things that inspectors typically look for on a dishwasher. A lot of things to look for, they're. They're kind of aggravating. They. They leak unexpectedly.

Just when you think one looks great and you should have no problem, Next thing you know, you got water running out from below it. And so then you got to get the towels out and get to work.

But the dishwasher, probably the top appliance that we're looking at in A kitchen number two refrigerator, well, you got to have that, right? That's where all the food is. So the refrigerator has a couple of functions.

And primary function simply, obviously keeping stuff cold is the refrigerator, cooling is the freezer, freezing. So we're going to check the temperatures in both of those with thermal cameras. Wouldn't have to be a thermal camera.

That's just a little easier than setting a manual thermometer in there and waiting for it to adjust to the temperature. But either way works. And typically a refrigerator is set to about 37 degrees and a freezer is at zero. And those are some pretty good guidelines.

Now, it doesn't have to be zero to freeze. Obviously anything below 32 technically freezes. But we want things frozen solid and maintained for long periods of time for a freezer.

So we're going to look at that. We're going to look at the door seals, the door seal around the refrigerator door, the freezer door or drawer, whatever type you have.

You know, modern, modern refrigerators have a lot of features on them. And another feature that they have in some cases is water and ice out the door. Very convenient feature.

Also a very troublesome feature is those break. They just don't do what they're supposed to do. Sometimes the filter wears out much more quickly because you're using it a lot more.

But we're going to check to see that you're getting ice and water. And if you aren't, well, maybe it's because there's water not even connected at the back. Maybe it's turned off.

Maybe the unit just simply doesn't work anymore. But regardless, the primary features are cooling and freezing. That's the main things we're going to look at on a refrigerator.

You know, some of the things we're not going to look at on, on a refrigerator is the back of it. We're not going to pull it out and make sure it's clean, which you should do all the time.

We're not going to pull it out and look underneath to look for anything. But what we have found over the years is that the voids under a refrigerator can become a place for debris, rodents and things like that.

If rodents chew wires, that's a problem. One of my worst stories ever from home inspecting involves a refrigerator.

So I got to the house, the refrigerator was part of an estate sale, or an estate that was being sold, I should say, and the it was not plugged in. So at that time I plugged it in just to confirm it was working, went about my business, did the Rest of the inspection.

And I was almost to leave the house, and I decided to sit down there and finish the report.

And as I'm sitting there about probably five or six feet away from the refrigerator, suddenly there's arcing and sparking underneath the refrigerator. So I jumped up, I pulled the refrigerator out, I unplugged it, but by then it was too late.

The back of those refrigerators are covered, especially older ones were covered with basically a cardboard panel. Well, by now this cardboard panel had caught fire. And so smoke starts billowing out of the back of this thing.

So I yank it out, I. I push it on its front, all the doors and the drawers go flying out. Yank off that cardboard, and there was a hint of flame in there. So I raced out to the truck looking for a fire extinguisher. Couldn't even find it.

You know, when you're in a panic situation, you don't think clearly. And so I looked back in the house, I had left the door open, and I could see like an orange glow and. And I knew I was in trouble.

So I grabbed a couple towels, raced in, and I just beat that fire out and put it out. And we had significant smoke coming out, but I got it put out. I checked it with the thermal imager to confirm that it was continuing to cool down.

And it was. We burned the carpet under the fridge. We burned a little bit of the linoleum with some of the sparks, but other than that, no damage was done.

Other did the other than, you know, to my heart racing 150 beats a minute. But we called everybody, got everything settled down, but it turned out that the wires under that refrigerator had been chewed on by mice.

And that's what ultimately caused the sparking and arcing. So make sure if you're going to put rodent traps or anything like, that's not a bad area to put one in, is under or around the refrigerator.

So regularly clean it. That's not something we're going to do as inspectors. Just a little maintenance tip there for you to do as you go about your business.

So once we check that, we're going to also check the oven and the range. And you could throw a cooktop in there. Sometimes they're separated. You have a wall oven and then you have a cooktop.

Could be gas, could be electric, could be the induction type. Whatever kind it is, we're going to attempt to check it. We're simply going to turn on the burners, make sure the burners work.

We're going to turn on the oven and make sure it can get up to temperature. If we set it for 350, we want it to get to 350. Some vary by 25 degrees or whatever. We're not going to be exact on that.

We just want to make sure this thing's heating up. If it only gets up to 100, we got something wrong with the flame or the heating element. So we're going to check that.

We're not going to cook anything. I can't tell you how even it bakes. I can't tell you the convection part works better than the standard part.

We're not going to check all those details.

Just like on a fancy refrigerator that has the screen on it and tells you how much milk you have left and orders it for you from Amazon, we're not going to check all that. We're just going to check the basic functions. So on a range, does it heat up on the top? Do the burners work?

When you turn on a gas burner, it should ignite within three seconds. If it doesn't ignite within three seconds, then you have gas pouring into the house and it becomes a safety issue.

And sometimes the orifice for the gas just needs cleaned. Sometimes the burner itself has gone bad, whatever it is. If you have a burner, usually it's the one you use the most.

Most of the time, that's front, right? That's the biggest burner and has the most power on modern ranges.

And so if you have any problem with the burner igniting, you need to take care of that and get that serviced. So wall ovens, we're just going to turn them on, we're going to heat them up to the same temperature.

We're going to make sure, you know, if you have an upper and a lower, that both of them work similar to what we were just talking about.

Another thing that's in the most kitchens, and however we're finding this a little less and a little less is built in microwaves, I think we can debate the, you know, health effects of microwaves on food. There's been studies that show has this effect on food, or that effect, whatever.

If you still use it for various things, you want to make sure it works and works safely. All we're going to do on that is we're going to take a cup of water, we're going to put it in there.

You don't want to run a microwave with nothing in it that can damage it. But put it in there, check it for a minute, see if it heats up. Done. And that's what we're going to check on a microwave.

Now some inspectors will take microwave leak detectors and go around the edge of the door with, with that as they go. But if, if your inspector doesn't do that, they should at least check for the functionality of it. Is the handle broken?

Is any of the wire mesh that the built into the door damaged in any way? If it's damaged in any way, it's time to get rid of that microwave and get a new one.

Microwaves are cheap, relatively speaking, and if there's any damage to them or problems, you just need to get rid of it. So we're going to check that the fan works on it. Normally it's a recirculating fan.

It can be an exhaust vent as well, but we just want to make sure it works. And the light, the light usually has two settings, regular and night light. Check that to make sure it works.

So we're going to check those functions and again, we're not going to put it through a 10 minute heating cycle. We're not going to do anything beyond the basics on the microwave just, just to see if it functions.

Another unique little appliance that you don't think about very often is the garbage disposal. Garbage disposals are pretty handy for getting rid of food waste and such. But when we check it won't, number one, we're checking that it runs.

Sometimes they get, especially in a vacant house, if you have any moisture going on, they kind of freeze up and they seize up. That's why your, your garbage disposal comes with a wrench that literally can go underneath and break that loose.

Well, sometimes that doesn't work either. So we're going to run it, run it with water. We're going to check for any irregular sounds coming out of it.

If something is caught in it or one of the teeth inside of it has come loose and it sounds horrendous. There's nothing else in it other than you just have loose pieces in there and it's time to get rid of that thing.

So not, not an appliance I would mess around with. I wouldn't worry about fixing it too much. Again, they're relatively inexpensive, not the easiest things in the world to install.

But we're going to check for irregular sounds. We're going to make sure it works.

We're going to make sure the switch for it is not in an area that you could accidentally hit while you're, you're get your hands down in the drain. In other words, we've seen Houses, especially older ones, where the switch will be right in front where you're standing on the sink.

And your body could easily manipulate that switch and cause it to come on when you don't want it to come on. So we're going to check for safety features that way. And of course, we're going to check to see if it leaks.

And usually you can tell that a lot of garbage disposals actually are two pieces, two halves just glued together. And so we have found at that glue joint that sometimes you can get some seepage out of there or some cracks.

So there's any kind of water stains coming out of the body, not just leaking from the sink, but coming out of the body or rust. It's just time to get rid of that thing. And probably the final thing we look at on a garbage disposal is the electrical connection.

And this is usually where we find the most problems. Two things. One, folks make up their own extension cord, wiring and plug, which shouldn't be done.

And two, the actual connection going into the bottom of the unit, there's always a hole in the bottom to go into the housing where the electrical connection should be.

And there should be a grommet around that electrical wire going into that housing so the vibration doesn't potentially wear away the coating on that wire and short circuit that wire out. So that's another thing we're looking at on there.

One of the things that we check on a range that is not related to the function of it, but that safety feature just reminded me of that, is the tip bracket. So on a range, you should be able to grab the back of it and pull on it, and it doesn't move maybe more than half an inch.

And that's called the tip or anti tip bracket.

was instituted, I believe, in: 1995

And it was brought about because you get pots of water boiling or cooking something on the stove, a small child wants to see what's going on. So they pull the oven door down, they climb up on it, and they stand on it. And that could. Without that bracket, it can tilt the entire oven.

Worst best case scenario, the food's going to come flying off. It could hit them, it could land on them. It could injure them.

Worst case, it tilts the whole oven and lands on them and causes serious injury or death.

So that bracket, and this is one of the most surprising things I see is that anti tip bracket which comes with every new range, usually taped to the bottom of the drawer underneath. We probably see it actually installed about 5 to 10% of the time. And that's a very, I guess, sad testament.

But to be appliance installers, but it's crucial to put this in. If you don't have one now, you can buy one, you can go online, just go for an appliance anti tip bracket and you can get one for a few dollars.

I'd highly recommend you doing that. We do have videos on our website on how to install that and if you don't know, call an appliance technician and they can get that done for you.

So some of the things that we do not inspect. All right, countertop microwaves, we're going to inspect the built in ones.

But countertop microwaves are portable essentially and they're usually going to go with somebody. Same with mini refrigerators like the college dorm type. Not going to inspect those. Washers and dryers, we're not going to run these.

Some folks do, we choose not to. Running it without anything in it is not going to tell you anything other than if it comes on.

And we're going to check, take a look at the dish, dishwasher, the washing machine connections behind it to see if they're corroded or the lines are cracked or anything like that. But we're not going to actually run anything through it. The dryer, we're gonna again, we're gonna check the connections.

We're gonna check the dryer vent to see what kind you got there. We're going to check to see if you have electric or gas.

Is the gas line run in a safe manner, is it the right type of material, things like that, almost more related to plumbing. But we're not going to run the washer and dryer. We don't check standalone ice makers. You'll see those that are almost commercial style.

It's a constant supply of ice. We're not going to check those.

Now obviously if it's leaking or something, we're going to make note of it, but we're not going to check the function of that overall. Small appliances, mixers, that kind of thing.

Now we're just mainly checking the basics of the built in appliances to make sure they're safe, basically functional.

Not necessarily the cream of the crop, not necessarily they're going to satisfy what you want with cooking or cooling or anything like that, or cleaning, but they're going to give the basics for the kitchen and make sure you're not prone to injury or something like that. So if you have any questions about appliances, appliance technicians are kind of in rare supply these days, but we know some really good ones.

If you have questions about yours, give us a call. We'd love to help you out in any way we can. Thanks for listening today. Thanks for watching.

Please share this ish this episode and stay tuned for next week. Have a great day everyone. Thank you for listening this week.

You can catch up on the latest episode of the Thoughts from the Crawl Space podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. For more information about Gold Key Inspection services, go to goldkeyinspect.com.