this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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Lots of houses haven't had an inspection since they were built, and code was almost always more relaxed.
My parents built their house in the 70s, like my dad was a mason and he did all the brick, and any contractors for the rest was friends and family. And in a small county they all knew the inspector too.
I'm sure lots of stuff was overlooked because it was "good enough" and when it was sold 5ish years ago it was "as is" because a ceiling fan on a dimmer wouldn't have passed inspection.
Like it wasn't a lemon, everything was good.
But the buyers couldn't have known for sure because they waived inspection.
Tldr:
Lots of homes in America won't/can't pass inspection, and with the market someone is always willing to roll the dice to buy anyways.
even if it wat built in 2015 it probably would fail inspection for something today even though that sonething still works like new.
I mean, I helped wire a house at 14 just because my dad thought it would be good to learn, but I'm not a real electrician.
So others probably know more, but to my knowledge that stuff moves slow so not a lot would have changed since 2015...
That being said, new homes are built to meet bare minimum standards and corners are cut everywhere they can be. So it might fail inspection because things are breaking, but not for things that work but have become against code.
https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-priorities/codes/code-adoption/2023-national-electrical-code-significant-changes.pdf there are a few things in there that could hit any house. Gfci to non counter kitchen outlets for example.