Thanks for the responses, all. Apparently not an isolated thing. 1995 rambler with basement. Hidden Hollow area in Layton close to the Kays Creek trail. We are not the lowest point in the area by any means.
We did have an inspection, by the inspector recommended by our realtor whom I've known since grade school and trust completely. I've already told him to dump his guy, as he wasn't worth crap.
Your comments above are all in focus here. The previous owner looked at projects and said "yeah, I can do that" when they weren't qualified to even pick up the tool used to do do the project... Those things, however, I can deal with. Cosmetic crap is just that, cosmetic.
The two main issues we've had are with water. Of course we bought before there were many major water events (snow/rain) to observe.
1. They have a sunroom on the back of the house with insulated walls, windows, the works. Looks solid, but was built blocking the dryer vent and the combustion air for the furnace. Come to find it was originally a screened in porch (built by Champion long ago) that they bastardized with insulation panels, hardy board, etc. Leaks like a sieve from the roof and leaks between the structure and the house that lead to drywall damage inside. There's zero chance they didn't know it leaked, though I can give them a pass on the drywall as we didn't find damage/mold until we tore off their obnoxious olive green crown molding.
2. Basement had a sump pump in the furnace/laundry room and in the basement bath. Odd, again, as we weren't a low point and the house is raised slightly. Going back to asking questions, they disclosed they had water damage in the kitchen (other side of the house) from a leaky pipe, and in the basement from a ruptured sprinkler pipe. So we asked, through our realtor, why there were two sump pumps. We got a tale about how they lived in Sugar House (before building the house in 1995) and had issues there, and that these were just a precaution in the event of a flood, but hadn't ever been used since they lived there. We question that a few more times, they were insistent no issues. We took that and poured over the inspection notes and decided to do it.
Fast forward to yesterday evening, after all the rain we had Sunday, when I noted a whirring from the basement. Odd, I don't think I was doing laundry. It was the bathroom sump pump, clearly evacuating a decent amount of water. Told my wife, she commented how she though she'd heard something similar earlier in the day, and had forgot to mention when I got home. Suck. I had a moment of "oh no..." and ran to the other pump to find it brimming, float definitely up and nothing working. The floor in our basement family room, adjacent to the laundry, was squishy....
Now, I'm all about home (and vehicle) maintenance. When we moved in one of the first things I did was break out the ladder and clean gutters and make sure they had extensions to carry the water away from the foundation. Needless to say to find this was crushing. Now I'm just mad.
So that's that.... We do have a home warranty, bit as was mentioned have already found that to be somewhat of a joke. I told our my friend/realtor and he's pretty upset as well, he's going to look into what recourse, if any we have.
Heres to a new day. I'm at harbor freight currently, buying a manual evac pump to get some water out of the one sump before more rain forecast tomorrow....
I saw it was going to have issues and knew I was going to have to fix things but I'm still surprised often.
