Chad Fabry

I inspected a two unit where the dryers (elctric) were vented using 4 inch galvanized pipe. I looked inside and there were no lint deposits and it was pretty smooth walled. 8 foot, straight runs to the exterior. I noted it, but not as a defect, and now I'm wondering... what do you folks think?

download Irfan view or microsofts power toy resizer first. We''l have to chip in for bandwidth if you're posting 1.75mb files. Brian will have to result to creative carpentry. Some states still use phone lines for internet.

Make the corrections in red so I can understand them. Be brutal, show me how inferior I really am.. make yours so good that I'll consider suicide. Boy, that'll show me. (Don't forget a materials list just to rub it in)

Careful Steven, I may email YOU the cheap cad drawing and ask your advice. We're all buddies here...right?

With a 30' wide stall the aisle between the wall and the sgower will be 40 inches.. I'd like to keep it that wide. I'll see if I can post a plan from my cheap cad program.

Thanks guys, I'm torn between having the aisle between the shower and toilet 4 inches narrower making it 36" or the cubby @ 32 inches. I may just make the cubby walls two inches thick..that'd solve the problem. Glue up some plywood or use some solid surfacing material. Already decided on the fan tech. There'll be two bathrooms back to back and it's the perfect solution.

This winter I'm finally going to update my master bathroom. In the past, while my wife and I were in the bathroom at the same time, using the commode was less than private. I'd like to install the reading chair in a "cubby" but it'll be only 32 inches wide. I thought I remembered a code saying that the walls had to be 18 inches from the center of the toilet, making the minimum width 36 inches. Is that true? There'll be no door on the toilet area.

I lost the job. When I called yesterday to confirm the time and date with the buyer, he was quite surprised to hear from me. His REALTOR, in an effort to show how sorry she was about not being able to make the original inspection we had scheduled, arranged and paid for an inspector to come the following day. She was supposed to call me and cancel on behalf of her client. That part must have slipped her mind. Her inspector was so excellent that he was done in a little under two hours. I'm quite miffed.

Someone date this one please: Richmond, SH23G serial 176-859 If they show efficiency ratings that'd be nice to know.

I'm not sure how it gets split up, but the client suggested to me that the REALTOR is making nearly 100 grand. Maybe there's a double dip here. The sale price is 1.4 million

I agree with Jim. (I'd be an idiot to disagree) A poor connection can only pass so much current so nothing actually got overloaded except the connection. Friggin hair dryers draw nearly 15 amps and that looks like it was a 13 amp connection.

It didn't go Sunday. Apparently the Realtor couldn't break away from her obligations to secure what is likely to be a 100,000 dollar commission. The inspection has been tentatively re-scheduled for Saturday morning. She wanted to know if when I was done with the 7,000 square foot 80 year old house w/ seven bathrooms, and the 1500 square foot guest house, and the boat house, if I could give her a copy of the inspection right then. I'm glad it was re-scheduled.. I'm nervous about a job this size and I've had the opportunity to read up on my weak areas. Those include plumbing, hvac, electrical, structure, roofing and report writing. Besides those, I'm all set. Thanks for asking though, and thanks for the advice..you and Mike both. I'll post when it's over.

Code wise I have no idea if what's been done is allowed. I rely on the guru's for that. I can't think of any problem the installation could cause. Given the crowded conditions in the main though, it sure would have made more sense to have the grounds in the sub.

One of the most significant rites of passage into this profession involves sending 50 steak bucks from Omaha Steak Company to Hiram Appleby / 2425 Dewey Avenue/ Rochester, NY 14615 I assure you that it's a coincidence that Hiram has the same address as me. After that's done John, read very post here and on other forums. Some of the answers are wrong so if there's any question in your mind do your own research. For a year I've spent the hours between 4am and 8am reading online and the benefit has been tremendous. Adding to that education is the fact that inspectors are a egotistical, narcissistic lot that like to have the answers for everything. So you'll be trying to research answers to questions posted on the board as they arise. I haven't taken a courses yet, and I'm sure I'm doing it the hard way, but I think my education has been as complete as any offered. What I left out is that I firmly believe the cream of the crop is represented here by the ten or twenty "guru's" of the profession.

Does hooking the sub to the main with metal conduit count for the ground?

My old house had UFFI as well, but when we pulled the siding it was probably only 50% of its original dimension. There was just enough of it to be a royal pain to dispose of (it doesn't burn, don't try it)but certainly not enough to be of any insulative value. The best way to get rid of it is to stick a kid with a respirator in a trash can and have him/her stomp it as you feed in product. Roughly two square can be compressed to fit in a a contractor's garbage bag. I read about the ceramic paint and remain quite skeptical. My preferred method of leaving it on the ground hoping for high winds was nixed by my wife.

I'm all for your suggestion of peer review and competence testing. The problem is trying to police the process. The peer review board would, by necessity, be employees of the state. Just working for the state requires a 50 point IQ drop. The other issue is keeping the review process clean and objective. There's a lot of room for pocket padding there, especially if the review is done by an individual rather than a board. Possibly, the review board could be made up of a pool of inspectors that had to fulfill an obligation..like jurors to make sure the applicant had the right stuff.

From what I've seen of fiber cement the only bad thing I can find is that it telegraph's the irregularities of the framing. The walls need to be straight. Don't buy any of the tools, Bill. I'd be happy to loan you shears and a cordless Makita fiber cement saw. The deatils listed for the siding over stucco sound good to me as well.

Yep, thanks all.

I guess I get that statement...does it mean if there's a short between hot and ground (not the neutral) that not enough current will pass to trip the breaker leaving all the stuff that's connected to the ground (not the neutral) hot? Like the device boxes and junction boxes?

I read that before and that's the knowledge that has me confused. I can't think of any harm the parellel ground path could do if there's the ground to the house panel is also connected. Isn't it essentially the same as having two ground rods driven for the service?

That's what I was after too. I should have asked it that way. The pump was a 20 amp 240v pump. There was 3wire, w/ground 10 gauge uf cable supplying juice to the receptacle. There was a bare ground coming from within the box attached to a driven ground rod. I didn't pull the cover so I'm not sure how everything was hooked up, but in my mind the receptacle was grounded to the panel and to the driven ground rod.

yeah, late November in Rochester is so scenic. Can you say "gray"? I'll know in a week or so which inspector had the biggest uhhh... which inspector seemed more credible. If it's not me, I may pay for your ticket myself; I have thirty pounds of tenderloin in the freezer and I can grill it to perfection. All the trades have been called in to see who's correct and which one of us is a REALTOR kissing, fair to the house, needs glasses kind of guy. Screw them. I'm right and it's inarguable. At least I hope it is.

I'm biased. I'll probably sneak past the minimum requirements for grandfathering and I feel rather secure in that knowledge. But, I am aware that there are quite a few shylocks that will also be grandfathered and that makes me ambiguous. On Monday I inspected a home that I wrote 20 pages of expensive defects and improper installations only to find out that on the previous Saturday another inspector had given the structure a clean bill of health. I'm pretty sure this will be my first appearance in court as an expert witness, and the opposition has 2,000 inspections under their belt. I don't.

I've spent 20 years in an environment that oscillates between 5 and 10 ppm. Only now am I showing signs of a twitch.