All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

Has the tenant said they see mold on the walls/floors/somewhere?  Or is it just "I'm coughing and I think it's the mold"?

There's a possibility that the tenant is trying to get out of the lease for whatever reason.  This requires a little tact and diplomacy on the part of your PM, but have they gently asked the tenant if that is the case?

In Kansas City, I can get a decent-quality new gas furnace and central A/C installed in a house that size for around $4,000, and a really fine system installed for $6,500 or so.  That is with re-using the existing ducts, but getting the ducts in the entire house cleaned out really well would cost maybe $300 extra, tops.

I haven't ever had to deal with a house with a crawl space, but just like with a basement, you can make sure the gutters drain away from the house, and that the soil is graded to slope away from the house everywhere.  There are other options, like adding a small vent fan to vent the crawl space to the outdoors, putting a dehumidifier in the crawl space, and having the crawl space "sealed" - basically spreading out big sheets of plastic on the ground and running them up the inside walls.

Sometimes a bank will let you set up an account that the tenants can deposit their rent into.  They can put money in, but not take any out; only you can take money out.  The tenants can go to a branch of that bank and pay their rent into your account.

If I was going to do this, and if the bank was willing, I'd set up a couple of accounts - one that the tenants deposit into, and another one for my general rental business.  On a fairly regular basis, I'd move the collected rent from the "tenant" account into "my" account.  This is because I don't totally trust the bank to make the "tenant" account deposit-only; a clever tenant might try to use my name, the account number they know, and the bank's routing number to pay a bill or something.  I'd also try to find a willing bank that is relatively close to the property, or where the tenants probably shop - make it easy for them to do.

If you think your tenants might be open to the idea of paying online, there are a lot of services that let you do that.  The tenant usually needs to have a bank account or credit card to make this work.  I use Cozy.co for background checks and collecting rent. I don't use the other features they offer (application, maintenance requests, document sharing, listing syndication). I wrote a detailed post about it here:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Disclaimer: I only have one property so far. I am not affiliated with any sites mentioned.

I had to buy my first house before I figured this out.  The inspector missed a couple of fairly obvious things - they cost me less than $100 to fix, so it wasn't a disaster, but I did have to do the work.  Since then, I always advise people to assume that everybody their realtor recommends to them has a kickback arrangement with that realtor.  (Also, don't tell your realtor that you're making this assumption.  If you do, they will argue up and down that they do no such thing, it's illegal, they'd lose their license, etc, etc.)

I've bought two more houses since then, and I brought my own home inspector to the deal both times.

A window unit will blow cold air just like a central A/C will.  :)

From what I've seen, a single window unit works pretty well on smaller units, like studio or 1-bedroom apartments.  Once the units get bigger, you may need something like one window unit per bedroom; people don't always want to leave all the doors open so one unit can cool the whole place.

If there is more than one window unit per unit, and one of them craps out, you usually have the option of shuffling a working one into the bedroom(s) and then getting a new window unit tomorrow.  In the summer, Wal-Mart (24 hours a day) usually has some in stock; I'm not sure if they stock them all year, though.

You do have to clean the filters on them.  Often this isn't a paper throwaway filter like a central A/C has, but a section of wire or plastic mesh in the front grille that you can pull out and wash.  You might consider buying spare filters, so when you go for a maintenance visit, you can just swap in a clean one and take the old one back with you to wash later.

They should tilt towards the outside of the house a little bit, so the condensation drips out the back.  Normally this happens "automatically" when they are mounted in the window, but it's a good thing to check every couple of years, so they don't start dripping inside the house.

If the unit ends up dripping somewhere you don't want it to, some units have a place you can connect a drain pipe/hose and move the drip over a few feet.  You don't usually plumb this into a drain; you just use a few feet of pipe or hose to get the drip away from the doorway or whatever.

If the unit has more than one bedroom, it's kind of common for the outlets in two of the bedrooms to be on the same circuit.  Two window units on one circuit will usually be OK, but it doesn't leave a lot of room for the tenants' stuff.  You can usually run a few lamps, alarm clocks, phone chargers, etc no problem, but if the tenant wants to (say) use a hair dryer in the bedroom, they might end up popping a breaker.

One disadvantage to a window unit, especially if it's on the first floor in a less-than-great neighborhood, is that it's relatively easy for the bad guys to push it into the house from the outside, and then climb in through the resulting hole.  Most bad guys aren't bold enough to try this when someone is home, but I've heard of it happening when the tenants were away, or when the unit was vacant between tenants.

Disclaimer: I only have one single-family property so far. I am not affiliated with any sites mentioned.

I use Cozy.co for background checks and collecting rent. I don't use the other features they offer (application, maintenance requests, document sharing, listing syndication). I wrote a detailed post about it here:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Disclaimer: I only have one property so far. I am not affiliated with any sites mentioned.

I use Cozy.co for background checks and collecting rent. I don't use the other features they offer (application, maintenance requests, document sharing, listing syndication). I wrote a detailed post about it here:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Check with the local Home Depot, Lowe's, etc.  Sometimes they have free classes on "how to install a ceiling fan" or "how to paint" and similar.  Usually they are listed on a big board right inside the entrance to the store. They are trying to sell ceiling fans and paint, obviously, but you will definitely learn some things you didn't know before.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional electrician.

The receptacle is a NEMA 6-20R, which should be 240 V, 20 A.

The plug is a NEMA 5-20P, which should be 120 V, 20 A.

So no, you can't use an adapter.  The outlet provides twice as much voltage as the appliance with that plug expects.

A/C stuff:

You can shut off the power to the outside A/C unit and open up the wiring compartment. The capacitor is usually a big silver can, not quite as big as a Coke can, with wires on the top. Normally, the top of it has a lip, and the top panel where the terminals are sits flat, maybe 1/16" or 1/8" below the lip. If the top is all puffed up, above the lip, then the capacitor is definitely bad.

If the capacitor looks OK, you can try something else... if you're careful. :) Find the contactor in the wiring compartment that turns on the outside unit. It will have 240 V AC wires from the house on one side, and 240 V AC wires to the compressor and fan motor on the other. Often it has a plastic button on top that you can push to close the contacts, even when the thermostat inside the house is not calling for cool. By hand, spin the fan blades up as fast as you can. TAKE YOUR HAND AWAY FROM THE FAN, and then push and hold the button on the contactor. If the fan motor starts spinning the fan faster, then the capacitor is bad. If the fan doesn't spin on its own, then probably the fan motor is bad. Take your finger off the button when you're done. (If you're not sure which way to spin the fan, try it both ways.)

If you decide the capacitor is bad, take the old one to the friendly local HVAC supply store and ask for another one. Grainger also has them, and you probably shouldn't pay too much more than Grainger's "web price" for it. You may be able to source the exact Lennox part (more money) or use a generic fits-all (cheaper, might have to modify the bracket). The microfarads (uF) should be the same as what you have now; the voltage should be the same or higher (370 V and 440 V are the common ratings).

If you decide you need a fan motor, check Grainger's price, and compare against the local HVAC supply store. Again, there will probably be an exact Lennox part for more money, and a generic for cheaper. The generic might require you to crimp your own terminals on the ends, or select from more wires than the Lennox part had - usually there's a sticker on the new motor that will help you figure it out.

2006 is new enough that there might be a circuit board in the outside unit, and sometimes those go bad. If you can make the fan motor and compressor run by pushing the button, you might disconnect the 24 V wires to the contactor from the circuit board, and connect the 24 V wires from the indoor unit directly to the contactor, bypassing the circuit board altogether. Once you do that, if you can make the thermostat inside the house call for cool, and the outside and inside units both come on, and you get cold air, then the circuit board in the outside unit is bad. Once again, there are exact parts, and (sometimes) generic parts.

If you don't feel comfortable doing any or all of this, an HVAC tech knows how to do all of it. Some of the cost of that knowledge will be subtracted from you. :)

Outlets:

1970 seems really late to not have grounded outlets, but I guess it's possible. (I think the electrical code on this changed in the early 1960s, but not every city adopted the new code right away.) You may find that the original kitchen and bathroom outlets have grounds and nothing else does, because those outlets were required to be grounded before the rest of the house was. Note that for early grounded outlets, sometimes the ground wire was split out of the cable outside of the box, and then wrapped around one of the nails or screws that held the box to the stud. The receptacle gets ground via its mounting strap being screwed to the box. (The kitchen receptacles in my 1956 rental were done like this. The modern way is to bring the ground wire into the box where you can see it.) So, if you take the cover plate off and don't see a ground wire in there, that doesn't mean it isn't grounded.

A simple check for grounds is to use a 3-prong-to-2-prong adapter, and one of those 3-neon-lights outlet testers. Remove the center screw, plug in the adapter, put the center screw back (through the tab on the adapter), and plug the tester into the adapter. If the two "good" lights come on and the "bad" light stays off, then you have some kind of ground.

A better (IMHO) test is to use an incandescent lamp in a socket with wires on it. Use a 100 W lamp if you have one. Take the cover plate off, and then plug the wires into the receptacle slots. The light will come on; notice how bright it is. Now, unplug the wires. Touch one wire to the metal box, and then try the other wire in both slots of the receptacle. Only one slot should make it come on. It should be about as bright as you remember. If it is, then you have a good ground at that box. If it's dimmer, or flickery, then the ground connection is a little shaky.

If you don't have grounds at the 2-prong outlets, the deluxe way is just to rewire with new cable with ground. That's what I did on mine, and it rents for less than half of your "potential rental value". A probably-OK way is to install a GFCI outlet as the first outlet on each 2-prong outlet circuit; it's not quite as good as having a real ground, but it helps prevent some possible failures.

A 1970 house may not have been born with a dishwasher or Disposall. Sometimes those were added on to an existing circuit. (My house was that way when I got it; I'm pretty sure it would have popped breakers if you were running those appliances and then plugged in a clock radio in one of the bedrooms. :) ) If that's the case, you might think about splitting those out onto their own circuits.

@Don Meinke also raises many good points, in particular the FPE breaker box, lead paint, and outside receptacles.

You can do a simple test for lead paint yourself with some 3M "Lead Check" swabs from the hardware store.  They look like a cigarette; you rub one end of them against the paint and the chemical in them turns colors if there's lead.  You can also scrape up chips and send them out to be analyzed.  Some home inspectors have an X-ray gun they can use on the paint to see if it's lead.

I added front and back outside receptacles to my rental.  Mostly this was that so tenants wouldn't run extension cords through windows and doors... and partly it was so I could run my nuclear-powered lawn mower while I was doing rehab.  :)  In Minnesota, if people still have block heaters on their cars, that might be another use.

A baseball cap, stocking cap, or similar if you're poking your head around in basements, under cabinets, etc, just to keep the spiderwebs and dust off of your head.  The baseball cap sometimes keeps a little bit of crud out of your eyes if you are poking at something overhead.

A rag or some paper towels, for wiping dust and crud off of things like the serial number plates on appliances so you can read them.

Sometimes a small mirror is helpful for looking at the back side or bottom side of something, or into a joist cavity, or similar.  You can get a fancy inspection mirror with a swivel head and telescoping handle at the hardware store or car parts store, or on the low dough show, use an old makeup compact with a piece of solid coper wire duct-taped to it.  :D

Sometimes your phone fits in a place where your eyeball doesn't, so you can take a picture or video.  Just don't drop your phone down inside the wall or something.  :)

I like to take a picture of the street number, either on the mailbox or on the front of the house, as the very first thing I do.  That helps me tell one house apart from another when I'm looking at the pictures later.

I like to bring a pad of paper and a pen and make notes that way, even when I have my phone or tablet with me. For some reason, writing things down help them to "stick" better in my mind.

I second @Jim K. 's recommendation of some kind of multi-tool.  I have a Leatherman Blast, which gives me a knife, needle-nose pliers, a Phillips screwdriver, and a couple of sizes of regular screwdriver, plus other stuff.  There are many kinds to choose from; I've also used a Gerber one in the past.