Systems findings

Plumbing, electrical and mechanical. Where structure findings are driven by the ground a house sits on, systems findings are driven almost entirely by the decade it was built in.

That makes them more predictable than most buyers expect. A 1968 house in North Texas has a knowable set of candidates: a panel brand that is now controversial, aluminium branch circuits if it was wired late in the decade, cast iron waste lines below the slab. A 1994 house has a different set — polybutylene supply lines, a first-generation post-tension slab, an air handler in an unconditioned attic. A 2006 house has CPVC and a radiant barrier and very little else.

The subject attracts more folklore than any other part of an inspection, and most of it is repeated confidently by people selling the remedy. Federal Pacific breakers were never recalled — the Consumer Product Safety Commission closed its investigation in 1983 on cost grounds, which is a materially different and rather more troubling fact. Twist-on pigtailing does not fix aluminium wiring, though it is sold as if it does. A camera in a sewer line shows condition, not whether the line needs replacing.

Each page below states what an inspector is permitted to determine under the Standards of Practice, what requires a licensed plumber or electrician, and where a widely repeated claim does not survive contact with the source.