Heating, Ventilation and the Air Conditioning Unit, which is short is called HVAC is an essential part for all properties. It is important for a processor to know what the HVAC unit is made of, and to correctly identify them.
Video Transcription
Hello, this is Zayed Ahmed from ASLBPO on another edition of Property Preservation Training. In today’s training guide we will be talking extensively on the Heating, Ventilation and the Air Conditioning Unit of the Property which in short is also called HVAC. We will also be talking about plumbing and the electrical system of the house and materials associated with them.
All properties should have an External Air Conditioning Unit present, although sizes of these units can vary depending on the property itself but generally, most that are present are 13 SEER 3 to 5 Ton ones. If these external A/C units are ever missing, we need to report that they are so and state the cause as Vandalism. As more often than not due to these houses being vacant, vandals may rob and take away the External A/C unit. It is for this very same reason that sometimes we will need to bid for Installing A/C unit Security Cage if the cage is no there.
Some houses can have Window A/C unit or a Wall A/C unit, both of which are the same, having a portion of them inside the house while another portion on the outside, except that one is attached with the window and the other to the wall. For us, whenever we see one present we will need to bid to remove them and then bid to block the opening that is generated from the removal. To block the opening, two bids have to be placed, one is for temporary measure which is to bid to board the opening (boarding is to install a plywood usually of ½ in thickness). And the second one is for permanent solution, which is: if it’s a window, we need to bid to Re-glaze (which means to install glass pane on the window) and if it’s a wall to install siding, stucco whatever the exterior wall is made of.
All houses will have a heating system running through the base of the wall at the lower end, which is called the baseboard heaters. They are mostly electric but some houses can have radiant baseboard heaters which means that instead of electric heaters they have pipes through which hot water circulates to heat the house.
Houses that have radiant baseboard heaters will also have a boiler present in the basement of the property. Boilers can either be steam boilers or hot water boilers and are a fuel burning apparatus that heats water to be circulated throughout the radiant baseboard heaters to heat the home. Boilers are either fuelled by Gas or Propane.
Two other appliances that all houses will have are Hot Water Heaters and Furnace. Hot Water heaters although are also used to heat water like boilers but unlike them are used for the sole purpose of heating supply water that people use. Most properties will have a 40 or 50 Gallon water heater installed on them. Instead of a boiler many properties will have Forced Air Furnaces to heat the house (which heats air and circulates it throughout). In such cases all the rooms will have will have vents and registers installed in the walls and floors through which the heated air will pass to the rooms.
Hydronic radiator heaters are a part of heating system that uses boilers that circulate hot water to heat the house and can be seen installed on the lower portion of the walls in the Property.
All the items described above are essential components of the HVAC system, it is important that if such items are missing or are inoperable that we provide bid and note it down as Damage.
Moving forward with the Plumbing System, many properties that have basement will also have a sump pump pit with a sump pump installed. Sump pumps are a type of pump that is present in some basements to pump water from the basement in case the basement gets flooded. The way to recognise whether a basement has a sump pump or not is to see if the pit is shown to be present in the picture. In case that the sump pump is present, electricity in the vacant house must be kept on so that the sump pump can operate, since our work is with vacant properties, in most cases the electricity will be turned off in which cases it is essential that we report in the when submitting our work that sump pump is present but the electricity is off.
A hose bibb or spigot is always located in the exterior part of the property, it is a type of faucet for water supply that is used to plug the hose pipe to.
All properties have an extensive plumbing system present in the property, the water supply lines are made of copper while the waste/drainage pipes are made of either PVC, PEX or galvanised pipes. Gas lines on the other hand will be made of coated iron pipe, or HDPE. Water/Gas supply lines have valves installed in them to turn off the supply in case of leakages. Valves can be of two types, either ball or gate valves.
Next with lightnings and electrical system. All properties will have an electrical meter, a service panel box (with circuit breakers) and a weather head. A weather head is an entry point from where overhead power or telephone wires enter the building, it has a shape of a hood with a waterproof cap on the end that allows the wire to enter without letting in any water. Any of these items, especially the first two, if are missing or damaged needs to be reported in, bid for inspection by professional electrician to further assess the damage will also have to be provided by you. It is also to be noted that we need to ensure that the properties have the following items in undamaged conditions:
Light fixtures and ceiling fans, if they are missing, we need to bid to replace as well as bid to cap any open wires hanging out.
Outlet switch and Outlet switch Cover plates (which are two different things, one is the switch, the other is the cover plate on the switch) as well as the electrical junction box.
All properties will also have a thermostat installed, which is used to regulate the temperature of the house, rooms will also have Smoke detectors and Carbon Monoxide detectors (CO detector for short) installed to act as alarms in case of fire.
That is all for this video, hope that it enlightens you about all the important things we must remember about the HVAC, plumbing and Electrical systems of the property.