Furnaces!

Some clients of mine recently purchased an older bungalow with the original furnace. The original was about 30 years old (yes it still worked) and was a conventional furnace, which lacks the efficiency of a modern day high-efficiency unit...
After the home inspection we had some concerns about whether the heat exchanger was in good order, so we asked to have the opportunity to get a furnace inspector in (at the buyers expense) just to have a look at it. After all, we didn't want CO fumes in the basement due to a cracked heat exchanger.

Heres where things got a little complicated, when we called the local utilities to get them to send someone out, we were informed that only the homeowner could order someone. This is because in the event of a cracked exchanger or damaged furnace they would be legally obligated to shut off the gas flow to the furnace... but the buyers didn't own the house yet!
We could, however, order a third party inspection from a licensed HVAC installer.

Just to run through the scenario for you, if the offer on the house was still conditional, and the buyers ordered the inspection of the furnace, and the gas was shut off - then the buyers decided not to go through with the inspection - then the seller would be left with no heat and no sale!

Certainly not a good proposition for the sellers....

However, if the buyers decided to order the inspection, inspectors shut off the furnace, and the buyers still followed through with the transaction, the sellers would be obligated to repair the furnace at their own expense, as under the Agreement of Purchase and Sale all fixtures, if included, are deemed to be working, unless specified otherwise.

In this case the furnace checked out okay, but in actuality it would have been favorable for the furnace to have been defective and mandatorily shut off.

- Jonathan Knight