Paul Bianchina, Homeowner doing everything right with this remodel! – NewsOK.com

Q: We are remodeling a home and doing most of the work ourselves. We are pulling permits and following up with the necessary city inspections. When it comes to electrical and plumbing, we will be contracting for these jobs.

My question is: Would a potential buyer be assuming a risk if we provide them with permits and city-approved inspections when we sell?

A: My hat's off to you for several reasons: being willing to undertake a big remodeling job on your own, pulling all the necessary permits, hiring pros for the things you're not comfortable with, and keeping your future buyers in mind. Talk about doing everything right!

To answer your question, most jurisdictions allow the owner of a property to do work on a building they own, typically even plumbing and electrical work, without having a contractor's license, so long as it's not the building owner's intention to sell the property within 12 months.

In addition, the building owner needs to obtain building, plumbing, electrical and other permits for any work where those permits are required, the same as a contractor would. The building owner is held to the same standards of workmanship as a contractor, has to comply with all the same building codes, and has to request and pass all the same inspections.

When it comes time to sell the property, your real estate agent will ask you a series of disclosure questions about any work that's been done to the home while you owned it. Some of those questions will pertain to whether or not any of the work required building permits, and if so, were those permits obtained.

You're obviously required by law to answer truthfully, which won't be a problem in your case since all of the necessary permits will have been obtained.

From there, it's in the hands of the buyers. They need to perform their own due diligence, and check with the city to ensure that everything is correct and legal with the property that you're selling them.

Assuming that you have obtained all the necessary permits for your work, and any subcontractors you hire have done the same, and assuming all necessary in-progress and final inspections have been successfully passed, the buyers shouldn't be assuming any risk whatsoever.

I need to caution you that I'm not an attorney, and there can be local laws and even homeowner's association regulations that can affect the sale and transfer of real property where remodeling work has been done. So if you want to be doubly sure, you might also want to pose this question to your attorney.

Q: I had a company come out to check my recently cleaned dryer duct work from the dryer to the wall, up the wall and across the attic. The technician said the duct work that runs up the wall and across the attic was put in going the wrong direction.

He said that is why lint is getting trapped because the duct was not connected properly and when the person prior to him cleaned the dryer duct out, he pushed it apart, and in addition his brush did not get far enough to push the clogged lint out to the exterior vent that comes out on the roof.

Can the duct work from the back of your dryer to the outside be going the wrong way? Also, is a bathroom vent that lets the air out that is installed on your roof different from a dryer exterior vent?

A: Each piece of duct pipe has one end that's crimped so that it's slightly smaller than the other end of the duct pipe. That allows one end of the duct to slip into the other end of the next piece of duct. The same is true of the fittings, with one end crimped to be smaller than the other end.

When a duct system is assembled, the installer starts at one end and works to the other end, inserting one pipe into the next. It can be done from either end, so there's no real wrong direction. Also, the people who do dryer vent cleaning often work from both ends of the duct system, so the brushes they use are very flexible and are designed to move smoothly across the crimped joints in either direction.

From your description, the only thing I can think of that the technician may have been referring to was that the original installation was poorly done and the joints in the duct system were either loose and came apart when a brush hit them, or there were some very sharp bends that got lint packed into them.

It's also possible that he's saying some flex pipe was used somewhere in the system. Flex pipe is not allowed by code because lint gets trapped in it; only smooth wall galvanized duct pipe should be used.

I recommend that you have a licensed heating and air-conditioning contractor come out and take a look at the entire dryer duct system. At this point it may need to be repaired or replaced. Since it appears to be damaged, I definitely would not ignore it.

And your bathroom vent and your dryer vent are two completely different things, with two completely different vent systems.

Have a home repair or remodeling question for Paul? He can be reached by email at improvingyourhome@ykwc.net.

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Paul Bianchina, Homeowner doing everything right with this remodel! - NewsOK.com