A Processor must know what the walls and floors of a property are made of to properly place bids and damages, he must also know how to distinguish rooms such as a basement, laundry room and attic in order to properly label them. In this post, I will try to explain all of them thoroughly.
Video Transcription
Hello, this is Zayed Ahmed from ASL BPO, and welcome to another edition of Property Preservation Training. In today’s video, I want to cover some basics of the Interior of the Property. Properties in the are the US are very differently structured than that of say in Bangladesh and you may not be familiar with most of the terms used to describe certain things of the property. My previous videos and those that will follow are a series of episodes that will make a processor be familiar with all these terms.
The topics that we will cover today are,
A) Attics, Closet, Laundry rooms, and Basement
B) Interior Walls, Ceilings and Floors
Attics, Closet, Laundry rooms and Basement:
All properties like any other house will have hallways, living rooms, dining rooms, kitchen, bedroom, and bathrooms. Additionally, rooms that you will most probably not be familiar with are:
Attics: on properties with slanted or pitched roofs, the attic is the space that is directly below the pitched roof of a building. Since they are between the ceiling of the top floor and the slanted roof, attics have an awkward shape which is a distinct feature for them. The rafters of a house, which are beams or frames of the roof are exposed on the ceiling of the attic, another distinguishable feature that all attics have. Many attics will be filled with insulation materials to prevent heat loss of houses in the winter. Some, however, will be converted to bedrooms or storage rooms.
Closets are small rooms that act as a wardrobe to keep clothes and other things in. All bedrooms will have closets. Additionally, closet doors are a bit different than other doors as they are mostly double doors which are bi-pass and sliding.
Laundry rooms are also another type of special room where the washing machine and the dryers are present. It is specifically used to clean clothes. All laundry rooms will have a dryer vent which is a pipe that runs to the outside of the house for hot air from dryers to ventilate to. On the vacant properties that we deal with, it is a necessity that the dryer vents are capped and covered to prevent rodents from entering. Laundry rooms will also have washer hookups, which is basically a set of water lines for cold and warm water for the washing machine. Washer hookups always need to be capped as well to prevent leakage.
The basement area is a space underneath the house and is basically underground. Basements are normally used as utility spaces. It is here the boiler, water heater, the furnace will be installed. The plumbing and air conditioning system of the house will also be present here mostly. Some basements will also have a sump pump pit on their floor where the sump pump will be installed. Sump pumps are a type of pump that is installed in the basement to pump any water that may accumulate in the basement due to a flood or plumbing leak.
Interior Walls, Ceilings, and Floors:
The interior walls of properties are made in three layers. The innermost layer is the wooden frame, which is also sometimes called studs. There is an insulation layer in the middle, to help retain heat in the winter season. The outermost layer of the wall is called Drywall also known as sheetrock. Sometimes instead of drywall, the interior walls can be made of plaster as well. Bathroom walls are usually not made of drywall, instead, they may be made of ceramic tiles or concrete.
The ceilings can be made of either drywall or, as in many cases can have a T-bar system with acoustical tiles installed.
Lastly, most floors of properties are made of either hardwood or laminate floors. Bathroom floors will have ceramic tiles installed. Bedroom, Living room, staircase, and hallways can have carpet and padding installed on them as well.
That is all for this video, hope this enlightens you a little bit. In the next video, we will do an in-depth walk-through on kitchen and bathroom items that you will have to be familiar with. Hope you have a good day till then!