Today I Learned: You should test the washing machine water drain line during your home inspection
Imagine buying a beautiful new home, only to find water gushing from behind your brand new washing machine on move-in day. That's what happened to us, and here's how you can avoid the same mistake.
(This is a personal anecdote from several months ago, so please take the "Today" part of Today I Learned with a healthy degree of flexibility.)
When you purchase a house, you'll typically have an opportunity to perform a formal inspection of the property before proceeding with the purchase, and if you uncover a serious issue, you may be able to negotiate with the seller to resolve it or you may walk away from the purchase altogether. Many folks, including myself, hire a third-party professional home inspection company to perform these inspections since they usually have the skills, knowledge, and equipment to perform an inspection properly.
Some houses aren't sold with major appliances included, like clothes washing machines, clothes dryers, or refrigerators (in my experience, new builds or recent renovations/flips often fall into this bucket). In this case, you will likely have the hookups required to install major appliances, but you'll have to buy and install them after you close on the house.
So here's the tip:
If you buy a house that doesn't include a washing machine, pour a gallon or two of water down the washing machine drain line (this is formally called the "washer drain standpipe"), and make sure the water drains as expected and does not leak.
Why? Well, when we bought our house a few months ago, it didn't include a washing machine, and neither us nor our inspection company thought to test the washer drain line since no washer was present. After we closed on our house, we purchased and installed a new washing machine, turned it on to test it out, and proceeded to watch water pour out from behind the wall during the washer's drain cycle. Oops.
Ultimately this was a fairly simple issue: the previous owner hadn't hooked up the drain line pipes correctly after a recent remodel (nor had they tested it, obviously), but fixing the issue required opening up a decent section of drywall behind the washer and paying a plumber several hundred dollars to perform the repair.
So learn from my lesson: Test your washer drain line before purchasing a house.
