1st time "old" home buyer advice needed

Might be looking at moving (need to be closer to work) so this scenario is more a need than a want. Right now I live in a home built in 1992 so the only real work over the last 12 years that I've ever done was paint, flooring, mostly cosmetic stuff.

I'm looking at older housing stock as thats what interests me and is in my price range. I have found some candidates that were built in the 1950s and '60s. However one that really has my interest was built in 1915. Its a stucco and brick rambler (1400 sq ft, 3 bedroom) w hardwood floors, wood burning stove and beamed ceiling in living room. Being its human nature to fear the unknown, I am about at this point as I know nothing about older home construction methods from this era. Or more importantly, what methods or plan of attack needed to fix or remedy any potential problems, with almost 100 year old electrical, plumbing, etc.

What do I need to look at in a home of this age versus something built decades later? Asbestos scares me and I know its been used in homes up through the 1980s. I know removal of that nasty stuff is expensive.

The other issue is heat. Not sure yet on the main heat source, but I do know it has electric baseboard heat which typically is $$$$.

Any tips, hints, pointers, etc are very very welcome

And yes, this is a real post by me, drainoil

Pop for the inspector. Those guys are good.

What do you know about basic plumbing, electrical, roofing, or foundations?

Get yourself a home inspector!!

My 1913 house had 60 amp service (with a 100 amp sticker put on the box). The furnace was no good - as we discovered the first winter. The roof leaked, there was knob and tube wiring and all the plumbing had to be replaced.

That was all before we did the stuff we thought needed doing...

An inspector, preferably an old experienced one is best, there's a lot a wacky stuff people did building and remodeling houses since 1915, some of it isn't safe and isn't seen very often anymore.

Expect to find knob and tube wiring somewhere - likely for the ceiling fixtures. It's more common than you know for people to upgrade only what's easy to get at and leaving/hiding the rest. You won't know until you pull a light fixture and look. Most home inspectors won't do that.

Be wary of vermiculite insulation. Some of it has asbestos in it and it was a common upgrade in attics.

Another possible issue is galvanized plumbing and lead drains. I found both of those in my 1927 house. Again, they were in places that were harder to get at. A home inspector can't open walls or see through them. It's buyer beware for really old houses.

How handy are you? How patient are you? Be honest with yourself about those two questions before buying a house that old.

Knob and tube wiring for sure, many times without grounded outlets especially on the second floor. Insulation in the walls will be minimal if not nonexistent. Leaky windows if original. Poor ventilation especially on upper floors and attics. Plaster walls. Unlevel floors, unsquare walls and door frames. Nonstandard everything.

If it has electric baseboard heat it was probably added by a homeowner because of problems heating the home with the old furnace/ boiler/ whatever. Too expensive to retrofit forced air on some homes.

Every project will uncover stuff that needs to be fixed before you can move ahead. We sprung for a home inspection on our 1915 colonial. Most of the worst stuff - joists that had been cut through causing the floor to sag, old wiring, a window that had been tiled over (!) etc - could not be found without pulling stuff apart.

I love living in an old house, but my wife says the next house will be newer.

Id be far more concerned about whether or not some moron tapped into or replaced the knob and tube with aluminum wire in the 60s.

Count the outlets. I rent a room in a circa 1928 house with a crawl space, and my awesome 14' square room has exactly one outlet. Heating and cooling the place is really expensive; the thirty-something windows let in a ton of light, butter windows let enough air in that I can feel drafts.

That said, I love the layout: it's a 3/2, but without any "useless" rooms like the formal living and dining rooms that become stuffy junk rooms with uncomfortable furniture. big bedrooms, and a large open space for the living and dining room.

Go with caution on the home inspector. Most are shills for the real estate agency, and know virtually nothing about old homes. Find an inspector yourself, who does know what old homes are.

Expect problems and damage. It's not the end of the world, it's just reality with old homes. From some termite damage somewhere to poor repairs elsewhere. Old roofing shingles, leaky windows, etc.

Generically:

Wiring. Expect it to be inadequate to todays usage. Really old homes had it added after the fact, with one outlet per room, ungrounded, all on one circuit. Newer homes could have that glorious aluminum wiring mess. Otherwise, look closely for poorly done "upgrades" to the wiring.

Plumbing may well have lead solder joints on the copper fresh water lines. Test is to let the water sit for day to see if it leaches in. Effective fix is to run the water for a minute before drinking and brushing the teeth. Test for flow everywhere you need it. Old lines build up crud and restrict flow. This applies to outflow as well. Make sure every toilet actually flushes, and every drain actually flows. Expect imperfection.

Lead paint. Use a cheapie tester if you wish, they're effective. Look for it mostly on window sills and the exterior. It wasn't nearly as common on primary interior paints. Expensive to remove "correctly", easily painted over as a valid band-aid.

Asbestos. Old 9" floor tiles often have it. Those really hard decorative roof tiles also often have it. Lagging on pipes is rare on residential heating, but it can exist. Leave it alone and it won't bother you. Polish those floor tiles or poof the lagging and it can. Very expensive to remove if done properly.

Windows. They'll leak heat madly. Usually single pane. Lots of maintenance work keeping the wood in them from rotting and keeping the glass from falling out. As in repainting them every year, and probably reglazing them at least in part every other year.

Insulation. May be there, may not. May well have settled leaving gaps of several feet at the top. Often "upgraded" to enhance rotting of roofs and such. Vermin to some degree are living in it.

Heating. Probably an old furnace or boiler, that works as efficiently as older units do. IE, it's not efficient. But, many times a burner upgrade is all that is needed. Boiler tube boxes haven't changed radically, and old ones do work well at getting the air or water hot.

Cooling. Probably not there. Window air conditioners will be your friend. If the wiring is old, you want as little a unit as you can put in the windows so you don't trip breakers or pop fuses.

As for home repairs, Hope Depot on the like won't have hardly anything correct for an old home. From how to patch a real plaster wall to iron drain pipes, they are lost. You have to rise above them and do due dilligence on your repairs. But, it's not insurmountable.

++1 on what Foxtrapper said.

Plus

The typical home inspector will not be testing for lead or asbestos. Lead should not be present in something built after 1978, BUT could be. Asbestos starting being phased out in the early 70s and should have been out by the late 70s. BUT, there could be old asbsestos products (floor tile and linoleum) in warehouses that got installed later. There was also different definitions about what was asbestos containing. <5% (originally) vs <1% (now).

Some inspectors don't know there stuff. Try to find a good one. The guy we hired to inspect our daughter's house was inspecting the house next door when I drove up.

I've always wanted to buy an old house and fix it up. But now a days not so much. Old houses that have no closests or very little closets, no insulation , piss poor kitchens, etc, I don't think I want to go that route. I like low utility bills and no old house is going to do that without a lot of upgrading.

Also be aware that obtaining a regular HO3 homeowners policy (at least in FL)can be difficult on an older home unless it is in pretty good condition.

Old homes seem to have the best properties, old growth trees with good coverage, sometimes nicer neighborhoods, nicer architecture.

Seems that insulation, HVAC, and electrical require creativity though...

Your profile says you're in Minnesota, what town? I'm in Minneapolis and live in a 100 year old house, I could maybe give some pointers. You mentioned it's a rambler, which seems odd as that style house didn't show up until probably the 1940s.

I'll second the plumbing. We just bought a 1921 craftsman in Oregon and within a week I was having to fix galvanized drain pipe leaks. The wiring was updated when the house was re done last year so I haven't really had to deal with that.

Sounds like everyone's covered the bases. Try to get references for the inspector. Goods ones are hard to come by, the bad ones wouldn't know a light socket if they french kissed it..

I love our old home, original structure built in 1912, added on to in the 50s, and again in the 70s. There isn't a square or level surface anywhere on our property. No games of marbles in this house, but it has character. Hoo boy does it ever!

We found a hand-dug terra-cotta lined well under the kitchen floor, approx 40 feet deep that still holds water. Our functioning well is much deeper. We also found an old cooking fireplace buried in a wall in the central room of the house.

All of the points above about electrical, plumbing, insulation, windows, and general weirdness definitely applies to this house as well. When electricity was added around 1950, they decided the best way to do it was to run the wiring on the outside of the siding, then brick veneer the whole house. HA! What a riot.

Insurance!

Get some quotes. Make sure they know you have an old home with a wood burning stove, and whether the stove will be providing interior heating (the answer should be no). Check the distances between the stove and the walls against what the insurance company wants.