This is a photo of a sink located in the center island of a kitchen. The main water was shutoff at the home, so I could not perform all of the standard plumbing examinations that I normally do. However, even in such a situation, I do try to look for loose faucets, shoe goo used to hold pipes together, rusted fixtures, signs of past leaks, etc. In this case, after locating the door to look under the island sink, I got quite a surprise. Despite it being an older home, the sink had never been plumbed in! There was no drain system nor was there any incoming water, hot or cold. Not only that, this was not merely a case of connections not being made -- the main supply and drain pipes did not terminate anywhere near this island sink. This is another example of why an inspector needs to look closely at things, even if main systems are off: electricity, gas, water. A careful visual inspection, despite the obviously adverse conditions, will often turn up more pertinent information than might at first be expected.
Thanks for looking.
Steven L. Smith
Bellingham home inspector
Check out "This Day In History" -- music and vintage television from the 1950's through the 1980's. I enjoy writing these articles because they take me back to my days in radio broadcasting. Click on Elvis' gold record, below, to revisit those golden hits of yesteryear.
Shucks. This isn't a sink, it's a pluming piece waiting to be made into a lamp.
I had a dishwasher that was never hooked up which produced quite a mess at a new home inspection.
But, never a sink with no water and no drain.
"produced quite a mess at a new home inspection"
Yes, a dishwasher would. An inspector really has to be careful to look under things prior to running. I once turned on a kitchen sink, thought it sounded funny, opened it and the tail piece was dumping into a plastic trash can. Had I wanderered off for a few minutes, I would have come back to water all over the hardwood floor.
Cindy,
It passed the county inspection because, frankly, the code inspectors would never see anything like that unless it was by accident. Not really their fault, just not in the scope of what they do. They look at the big picture (is there plumbing basically?) but do not take the time to look at every outlet, drain, etc. They are, more so than a home inspector, counting on the professionals to do their job without errors. In condo inspections I always tell people on upper floors that a leak at their tub is less likely to be a problem for them than for the poor sap located below. Honestly, if a tub drain in a condo was not hooked and the person in the unit below was not around to squawk, as the water came down, a home inspector probably would not know there was a problem either --unless something sounded really weird. We are limited to what we see and we cannot access units below. Now, if there was a crawl space below, there we would see a leak that the code inspector would not. When the code inspector finishes inspecting the footing/foundation/crawl space, early in the project, he or she does not go back there again.