I recently did a home inspection on a really nice newer home in Cedar Rapids, IA.

The inspection overall went well with just your run of the mill deferred maintenance items and a couple of small repairs. Until this…

It’s nice to have good equipment such as a thermal imaging camera and moisture meter available to you so that you have the best chance of discovering these type of things.

This little discovery appears to be weeping water in from behind a full face brick veneer on the exterior. The moisture meter in the picture is saying roughly 90% saturation and it hadn’t rained for several days.

The next step will be to pull off the base board and get into the wall cavity to verify the source of the moisture. We’ll let someone else take care of that. If there is a flashing issue behind the brick veneer as I suspect there will be, this little gem of a find will possibly cost a few thousand dollars before it’s all said and done.

This is not a typical find for a home inspection and it should be known that x-ray vision is not part of the inspector repertoire. However, by making sure your inspector has a solid foundation in construction or plenty of experience in the inspection field you might have a better chance of finding something like this.

This was a beautiful newer home in a nice neighborhood. It just goes to show that just because you pay 335k doesn’t make it a perfect house.