How long can a half-built house sit?

Recent Article Posted on MSN

There are risks to buying a home when construction has been halted for a time. Here’s what can go wrong at each of 3 critical stages. Plus: 5 ways to protect yourself.
By Marilyn Lewis of MSN Real Estate
All over the U.S., blocks, streets and entire subdivisions of homes are sitting half-finished because their builders ran out of money or went bankrupt. In 25 (mostly coastal) metro areas surveyed by research firm Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, 52,295 housing units are completed and sitting empty, with 6,097 of those located in projects where work has been halted or canceled.
For engineer and construction expert David Carlysle, business is booming. He is often called on to evaluate half-built construction: Banks want to know if projects they've inherited through foreclosure can be salvaged. Builders need help calculating the cost of completing a job. City inspectors often won't issue a building permit to restart a stalled job without an expert assessment of damage.
"Most of the time what we have seen is the builder ultimately goes bankrupt and the bank winds up looking for someone to finish it for them," says Carlysle, president of the National Academy of Building Inspection Engineers and owner of Criterium-Carlysle Engineers, in Birmingham, Ala. Banks either hire a builder to complete the job or try to sell an unfinished project to a builder who will complete the homes and put them on the market. But as demand for new homes has dried up, so have bank loans that would enable a new builder to step in and complete the job. And these abandoned homes can sit empty month after month after month.
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Exposure to the elements is a big risk, but not the only worry. Builders under financial pressure sometimes cut corners before finally walking away, Carlysle says. He tells of a 3,500-square-foot home — "the kind of house that would wow a buyer" — that was nearly finished when the original builder went bankrupt. Tipped off by a sagging wall, Carlysle found that crucial support beams were missing in several places. The original builder hid the shoddy work behind finished walls, skipping a city inspection that would have exposed the negligence.
There are some great deals on new homes today. But before you inadvertently buy trouble, here's what you need to know about the potential costs and safety concerns of interrupted construction.
3 vulnerable stages Homes are erected in a sequence involving three main stages. A break in the sequence invites trouble. Whether problems result, and how severe they become, hinges on three questions:
At what stage was construction abandoned?
How long was the project left unfinished?
How much wind, rain, temperature change and ultraviolet light was it exposed to? All these can damage or even destroy an unprotected building over time.
Stage 1: Roughed in When a house is "roughed in," the site is graded, the foundation built and the framing (usually wood) is erected. Some or all of the sheathing — boards of plywood or manufactured wood — may be installed as the subfloor and roof underlayment.
Exposure limit: Roughly two months from the start of construction.
Risks: If abandoned for even a few months at this stage, especially in high humidity or continuing wetness, a house can become seriously damaged. The longer the exposure, the worse the risk:
Manufactured wood products, made of glue and wood fiber, can swell and lose strength in moisture. "They can actually turn to kind of mush if they get too wet too often," says Claudette Reichel, an expert on housing and building materials at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center. The warranties and manufacturer recommendations vary on different products, but generally two months — roughly the time it takes to get a house ready to enclose — is their exposure limit, Carlysle says. Oriented strand board (OSB) used in floors, roofs and walls, can grow mold in a week or less under the right conditions, causing ugly stains and a health hazard. Plywood — thin, laminated sheets of wood pressed together with glue — will separate and warp. (Warped wood is unsightly but structurally sound.) "It's basically rated for exposure during the construction period and that's all," Carlysle says. "If it sits on the site for a month or so before the building gets started, then that clock is running."
Framing studs are less vulnerable because they're made of solid lumber and are narrow and vertical. But if water is trapped on the surface, even solid lumber can rot in a few months, Reichel says.
Foundations are likely to settle, buckle or crack after a heavy rain if gutters aren't installed yet or if the soil hasn’t been graded to direct runoff away from the house. Failing foundations cause uneven floors, ill-fitting doors and wall cracks.
If left uncovered, synthetic roof weather-barrier products, called "felting," break down after several months' exposure to sun, wind and storms, reducing their effectiveness.
Even nails eventually corrode. Dan Grisa, a contractor in Riverside County, Calif., who rehabs half-built homes for banks and investors, says he's seen nails rust right inside the wood framing of a half-built home.
Stage 2: Dried inA house is considered "dried in" when it is protected but not tightly sealed. At this point, the roof is finished and sealed with flashings to weatherproof joints and seams; wall cavities are filled with insulation; and the outside is covered in moistureproof house wrap. Inside, plumbing, wiring, ductwork and subfloor panels are installed. Floors and walls are defined and supported with panels of plywood or manufactured wood sheathing. Windows and doors may or may not yet be installed.
Exposure limit: Roughly four months after work has stopped
Risks: Moisture is the biggest risk at this stage:
Plywood or manufactured wood flooring or roof sheathing can mold or rot. "I've been involved in some projects where the house was not well dried in, so that water was able to penetrate in and sit on the subfloor," Carlysle says.
House wrap grows brittle and loses protection after several months of exposure to sunlight, wind or driving rain. Synthetics, used in house wrap, roofing felt and flashings (tape used to seal joints and seams) can hold out four to five months at most before they must be enclosed under siding or roofing, says Bijan Mansouri, technical applications manager for Fiberweb, maker of Typar house wrap and other membranes. After that, synthetics lose the ability to repel and transmit moisture. "The longer a product is exposed to sunlight, the more it basically breaks it down," Mansouri says. Wind-driven rain and freezing and thawing also drive moisture through synthetics and into the house, inviting mold and decay.
Moisture can enter wall cavities. If dampness is sealed into walls, it can ruin insulation and encourage mold and rot. "I have seen that in homes where the house wrap and finishing was not properly applied and water gets into the areas under the eaves," Carlysle says. "We've opened those areas and found essentially black mush in there."
Stage 3: FinishingIn the final phase of construction, exterior walls are covered with weatherproof siding and windows and doors are installed, sealing the home from the elements. Inside, wallboard is installed; cabinets and doors are hung; and flooring, paint, appliances, heating and air conditioning, fixtures and trim are added.
Exposure limit: A well-made, watertight house can sit for many months — even years — as long as the heating and cooling systems are running and someone inspects the home regularly for leaks and damage. Without running heating and air conditioning, a house – particularly one with sensitive electronic components – shouldn't be abandoned more than six months, Carlysle says.
Risks:
Mold grows easily on damp interior surfaces and inside wall cavities if a home's heating and cooling equipment is not running.
Owners of vacant homes commonly leave the water turned on but the heat off, to save money. Freezing and thawing breaks pipes and appliance hoses, then leaks or gushers erupt when things thaw. "A lot of empty houses have been damaged by frozen pipes," Carlysle says. "After we've had a cold spell, I have been past houses with water running out the doors" and down the street.
Moisture also is a threat to gypsum wallboard, says Scott Feste, spokesman for United States Gypsum Co., which makes Sheetrock brand wallboard panels. Although wallboard panels can tolerate water if dried quickly, mold will grow on them in prolonged dampness. "You don't want to expose them to prolonged periods of high humidity," Feste says. Of less serious concern, the unpainted surface of wallboard discolors in strong light; stain-sealing paint covers the problem.
Finished solid wood floors can be ruined as boards separate and warp if they shrink and swell from getting wet or staying in constant humidity.
Doors and woodwork may be ruined by swelling and cracks if temperature and humidity controls are turned off.
Even a furnace, air conditioner and appliances suffer. "Electronic components are ruined by humidity," Reichel says. Even in a warm, dry home, heating and cooling systems and appliances should be run every few months or they may stop functioning. "Any purchaser of property that has sat for a while needs to make sure the heating equipment and controls are operational," Reichel says. "Hire a heating and air conditioning contractor to go through the equipment and check it."
Empty homes these days are an invitation to vandals, thieves and squatters. Thieves strip everything of value from an unguarded home: appliances, sinks, toilets, granite counters, furnace, air conditioning components, trim, wood floors, light fixtures and even copper plumbing, which is sold for scrap. Home inspectors tell of homes where vandals punched in walls and ceilings, smeared feces on the walls and floors and took a chain saw to roof trusses. If severe damage is covered up without having been properly repaired, a buyer could inherit a mess.
How to uncover a home's history It can be tough to spot trouble beneath newly finished floors and fresh coats of paint, but you can mitigate your risk by following these steps:
Talk with neighbors who watched the house go up. If somebody says, "Oh, yeah, that house sat there for months (or years)," get serious about looking further into the home's history.
Follow the paper trail. Visit the city building department to see a home's inspection records and, if possible, talk with the inspector who watched the house as it was built. Some cities keep great records, others are lousy or nonexistent, and inspectors aren't always willing to dish on a builder. But it's worth a try, since this is often a new home's only record.
Look beneath: When checking out a home, try to see the underside of the floor from the basement or crawl space. Look for water stains, particularly at the edges and where it meets the (vertical) floor joists. Stains can mean there was a fire (and water was used to extinguish it) or that the house had sitting water during construction (a bad sign). If a dropped-tile basement ceiling obscures your view, push up the tile to see. While under the main floor, also check for water stains directly beneath all windows and doors. These indicate leaks during construction.
Get a diligent inspector: Hire a certified home inspector (cost: about $200 to $300) or structural engineer (cost: about $300 to $500) to thoroughly examine any home you're considering purchasing. Engineers are qualified to diagnose structural problems, home inspectors are not. (Read "4 tips for finding the best home inspector. Search here for a member of the National Academy of Building Inspection Engineers.)
Hire a specialist: If you really are interested in a house but suspect problems, hire a building forensics specialist, usually an engineer, to inspect in detail. Such comprehensive examinations cost about $1,200 to $1,500 and may involve boring into walls in an inconspicuous location to test for mold spores or to insert a fiber-optic camera to scan for rot and structural problems. The specialist may bring in a plumber, electrician and roofing or heating contractor to dismantle and go over every system in the home.
Even if you do all of this and don't uncover telltale signs of trouble, there is still a substantial risk to buying a house that's been abandoned for a time. Home sellers and contractors can cover up problems so well that even a superb inspector can't spot them.
Asked if he'd buy a home for a great price that may have been abandoned during construction, Carlysle says, "Just based on my experience of seeing some of the things that can go wrong, I would probably be one of those who would say, 'No thanks, I'll find something else.' "

Thank you,

Marc White
828-406-2134
Marc@CedarFallsRealty.com