A: You made a gutsy preemptive strike by investigating and repairing each and every potential leak and defect in the sewage and electrical systems. You also have potential cause for concern on your pressurized fresh-water plumbing supply pipes if they are CPVC, any other type of plastic or copper. Galvanized steel plumbing will deflect nails, so no worries if you have that type.
Nail-pierced, nicked or grazed copper may show no untoward signs of leakage until the nail rusts enough, or the pipe corrodes enough to allow leakage.
In one case I'm familiar with, it took more than 30 years for a copper radiant heat system to rust out the nail and spring a leak — this from a drywall nail at original construction!
So you aren't entirely risk-free. But none of us is. Millions of houses have nail- and screw-damaged plumbing and wiring unbeknownst to anyone.
Heck, I get nervous every time I bolt down a water heater in a finished room, nail in a piece of baseboard or stick a good-sized screw in a kitchen wall, for fear of damaging a pipe.
The wiring seems to let you know fairly quickly when you have a problem. Shocks and dead lights tend to get your attention rapidly.
The venting system is another matter altogether. The only water it will see will be rain that happens to fall directly into the pipe at the top of the roof. And that isn't even enough water to make it around past the first fitting, much less leak out and create a problem on a vertical pipe section.
The other considerations are sewage smells and gases leaking from the pipe. But these systems are not under pressure, and the venting system otherwise will function fully, despite the fact that it has a small hole, a nail or portion of a nail imbedded in it.
David Lalonde, a journeyman plumber with Day & Night Plumbing and Heating, tells me that if he were called to sniff out sewage smell problems in a house, a few pinholes in a vent pipe "wouldn't even be on the radar."
Sewage smells as a result of defects in the venting are due to incomplete, broken or completely disconnected pipes, not pinholes.
Again in your favor is the fact that very little of the venting system is located on outside walls.
Darrell Hay is a local home inspector and manages rental properties. |
