The Best of the Worst 2017

The House Whisperer • December 22, 2017 • The House Whisperer

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Wow, I can’t believe that we have come to the end of the year already. At the risk of sounding old, I swear 1985 was like three weeks ago. How the time flies! That said, welcome to my third annual Best of the Worst finds of 2017:

This is a coil inside an air handler. Yuck. Can you imagine all the air in your house passing through this monstrosity? The under educated home owner had never done any maintenance to the system for many years and didn’t know she was supposed to have a filter. Needless to say I found the cause of the sore throat and stuffy nose she was only getting at home.

This was a first for me; I’ve seen plenty of horizontal air handlers in attics before with a little more room to work with. This was one of the most challenging installs we had to do all year. This was in a hallway above a washer and dryer with no room to work. The saddest part for me was without building another room on the house there was just nowhere else to put the unit.

Oh yes, I found this one the hard way. If you look closely you will see the exposed wire there that gave me a nice little zap when I went up into the attic. That exposed junction box was about two feet away from the hatch and I brushed my leg over it crawling up in. Apparently things being moved in and out of the attic had rubbed the wires bare. Our homeowner here was lucky that a little shock was all that happened versus a house fire.

1957 PRISTINE fully restored Belair tucked away in a Coral Springs garage. White leather interior and she had 38,000 original miles. Owners pride and joy and being a bit of a car nut myself I took great joy in being in that cars presence

Yes that is actual ductwork in a client’s attic. It was a cooler day when I was there so it wasn’t sweating that badly. On the day we went to replace it was literally raining in the attic. Sorry Mr. Homeowner this is one I have to say I can’t fix it you just need to replace.

2017 Roof View of the Year, enough said.

Blower motor assembly we pulled out of a four year old unit. Yes that is all covered in mold and again this home owner chose not to have maintenance done to the system and had further declined to install UV lighting which could have prevented that nasty mess in the first place

I guess who ever installed the new air conditioner over this ten year old hot water heater thought the heater would last forever. I felt bad for the home owner because when she has to replace the water heater the cost just doubled because that air handler is going to have to be un-installed to do. I just don’t understand people sometimes

These folks just had a death wish. Gas water heater sitting in the corner of a laundry room and just venting carbon monoxide directly into the house. I made them turn the heater off until we could get one of the plumbers there to fix it. Please remember gas appliances can be deadly.

It took me two years of driving my boss crazy and I had to wait until my old Kia had 95,000 miles on it, but I finally got the truck I wanted. I want to give props to the Ford Motor company, the 2017 Escape is one nice ride. Special thanks to Big G. for FINALLY getting it for me.