Small inspection victory: plumber calls out own mistake

As home inspectors, we have to do a lot of detective work to find problems.  Sellers and contractors often work pretty hard to hide evidence of building defects.  Very rarely do they help the inspector find problems, even if they know about them. 

Here we have a plumber who didn’t have enough glue to connect a pipe, and rather than pretend the work was done and hope nobody noticed, he actually wrote on the pipe with a Sharpie to call attention to the issue.   Since inspectors can’t pull on each and every pipe to see if they’re loose, there’s a chance I wouldn’t have found the loose pipe here.  If only other contractors were so honest and helpful! 

This plumber apparently cut through the floor supports because he didn't want to take the time to route the pipe around them – thereby creating a serious structural defect.