Massive Fail in New Construction Home in Texas Has People Dumbfounded

If you're buying a home, you should absolutely have it inspected before finalizing the deal, and if you choose to waive the inspection, you're making a potentially risky gamble. Even if everything looks good on paper and on a cursory walk-through, home inspectors know how to identify major flaws that the untrained eye might otherwise miss.

Even then, sometimes there are mistakes so glaring that you've gotta wonder how they ever made it all the way to the inspection stage without getting noticed. This South Texas home inspector found a potentially massive fail while inspecting a brand-new build, and it's an oversight that had his followers scratching their heads.

This is a perfect example of why getting a home inspection is a must before buying a house , because even new builds can have ridiculous mistakes. While touring this new home's laundry room, @956inspector noticed something "off." The washing machine hookup and power sockets were in the right place, but, uh... where was the dryer vent ?

Related: Home Inspector Reveals The Must-Check Closet People Should Eye Before Buying a Home

The OP was pretty flustered by this apparent oversight, as were his followers, who went in and started clowning on the confounding construction flub.

"Just connect the dryer to the WiFi," joked @billy344565.

"Extra heating for the home," quipped @b02571. Maybe they could have spun this into a selling point, were this home not located in South Texas...

A lot of commenters suggested that the builders may have drywalled over the dryer vent and forgot to cut a hole for the vent. Apparently, this is something that happens with surprising regularity, if the comments were any indication!

"Should have been caught even before mudding [the process of joining the pieces of drywall]," said @ec_1966. "Had the same sort of thing happen in one of the houses I painted. No vent fan in the laundry room. Didn't cut and install till 3 days before closing."

One Possible Explanation

Earlier, I remarked that this was a "potential fail," an "apparent oversight." Truth is, while this looks like a big mistake at first glance - and it could still very well be one - a lot of commenters offered a plausible explanation for why this room doesn't have a dryer vent: ventless dryers, aka condenser dryers .

If it shows just how out of the loop I am with "laundry tech," I didn't realize that ventless dryers were a thing until today. I initially thought commenters talking about ventless dryers were making jokes like the folks talking about venting it via WiFi or Bluetooth. But no, ventless dryers are very much the real deal, although they appear to be significantly pricier than traditional dryers on average.

According to Whirlpool, ventless dryers work by using a heat exchanger to condense water from the humid air , which then either drains through a hose or falls into a container that needs to be manually emptied. Though traditional dryers are still in use (I use one), ventless types are growing in popularity, so a laundry room without a dryer vent might not be an automatic fail.

Still, even if the exclusion of a dryer vent here was intentional, this just goes to show why a home inspection is always a good idea. If you were counting on having a laundry room that could accommodate your traditional dryer, moving into a home with a setup like this would be a pretty nasty shock!

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