At the town manager’s request, an inspection of the Mack family home on 234 Mammoth Road was done to further assess if the town would be interested in purchasing the property. The home is a beautiful example of 18th century architecture and construction. With the home almost 250 years old there are some maintenance concerns, but the inspection found that were no major structural deficiencies according to the town’s Building Inspector and Code Enforcement Officer, Richard Canuel.
The inspection was done by a professional home inspection service, so that the report would be both a detailed and unbiased account of the shape the home is currently in. An issue the inspection found was rot observed on some of the siding of the house along with some siding missing on a few sides of the home. A critical issue found was with energy efficiency and a lot of heat loss the house is experiencing simply because of the gaps in doors and windows. The lack of insulation in the home was also another issue. The insulation was found to either be non-existent or needs to be re-done as soon as possible.
There are also a number of fireplaces and chimneys located throughout the home. The inspector noted that there are cracks in the chimneys, borders missing, and one particular chimney had exhaust coming from the side of it as well as from the top of it. This poses an issue with carbon monoxide exposure. A few of the fireplaces were shown to have the same issues of having cracks in them and borders missing. Another primary issue found by the inspection was the knob and tube wiring. Knob and tube wiring gets its name from the ceramic knobs that support it and the ceramic tubes that protect the wire as it passes through wood framing members such as floor joints. This type of wiring was used in homes until approximately 1950. Some of the wiring in the Mack home has been updated in the basement area.
Whether or not these issues will be a deal breaker for the town council is still unclear as they were without a full board at the time of the presentation.
The next step will be determining which things need to be fixed in the home and which things may need to be fixed down the road and getting a rough estimate of how much work will need to go into the house before it is purchased, if the town chooses to buy it.