My granddad's trick for spotting water damage before buying a house near Austin

Honestly, I was getting burned on a couple of inspection reports that missed stuff near Lake Travis. My granddad who built houses in the 60s told me to bring a marble with me to showings. Roll it across any tile floor, especially near windows and doors. If it stops and rolls back, you got a slope from settling or water rot underneath. I tried it on a place that looked perfect and the marble rolled right into the corner near the patio. Turned out the subfloor was rotting from a slow leak. Saved me maybe 8 grand at least. Has anyone else got an old school trick that actually works better than modern tools?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric_ramirez671d agoMost Upvoted

Gotta disagree with you on this one. A marble test only catches big obvious slopes, not the subtle stuff that really matters. I've seen houses pass the marble test and still have mold growing behind shower walls or in the attic from bad ventilation. Modern moisture meters and thermal cameras catch problems way before a marble will even twitch. Plus, any halfway decent flipper knows to level the tile floor first, so the marble trick just gives you a false sense of security.

tylerw721d ago

Isn't the point of a trick like that just to flag the stuff you can't see, not to replace the fancy tools? A marble finding a slope means there's something going on, even if it's not the whole picture. I'd rather have a heads up about a potential issue than walk in totally blind.