Chad Fabry

If the flue is less than 10cm it has to be a pellet stove. I'd refer to the installation manual for the heater. 10cm is barely over 2 1/2 inches and dampening on a lot of these is a factor of controlling combustion air.

I recently hired someone to create a website for me and I didn't research either their ability or effective websites. The result of this indiscretion is a really crappy website that looks like I made it. Now I've hired Mike Brown @ Dev Wave(one of the folks responsible this forum) to make the site what it should be. My question is: what have any of you found to be the most effective meta tags? If you're placed high on the search engines, how'd you get there? Is there a limit to meta tags and are the ones you choose diluted by additional ones? What the hell is a meta tag?

I'm giving this thread to my wife so she can see that I'm not the only person that thinks this isn't a great idea. But to be honest, she thinks we're all a bunch of kids playing w/ each other. It's the avatars that stole our credibility. She saw Ricahrd Moore's cow and my duck. The Gig's up.

George, Yo must have missed it.... my WIFE wants the fireplace.

Even low temp silicones are good to nearly 500 degrees. The reds and grays are normally good for about 650. In real life, none of them do well at over 400 continuous exposure. I doubt that'll ever be 400 unless there's a chimney fire.

I know this isn't the best idea. I already own all the stuff to install radiant floor heating. I was going to use a Bosch demand water heater as a boiler just to do something different, but my wife really wants a gas fireplace and I figured I'd kill two birds w/ one stone. Our electric is nearly 15 cents a KWh and my house is roughly as air tight as a screened porch, so electric is out. I can duct through the attic but I really don't want to as that'd make the supply run about 70 feet long. They do make very nice, furnace rated "wood burning look alike stoves" that I can vent to the chimney, but anything I wouldn't be embarrassed to install is over 2 grand. I'm not cheap, but I am practical. As for cooling...listen up, I live in upstate NY we have like 10 days a year where I'd like A/C. It's not an issue. The house has a tower that's 40 feet tall and 8 big windows up there. In the summer at night I open the windows in the tower and on the first floor; the convective currents will blow a candle out. In the morning I shut it all down and lock in the cool night air. Kurt, I am going to make a nice bath including a whirlpool that I'll probably use 7 times total. The bathroom's pretty big, about 16x18 and it's the only room that I'll have that doesn't fit the style or age of my home.. I allow myself that one indiscretion. I've been pretty faithful to to the "feel" in my restoration. Putting up tin ceilings this week end..hope there's not much of a learning curve.

1) yes, if the gfci is wired in series, if it's wired in parallel it'll be the only protected receptacle 2)no 3)maybe, if the box is big enough to contain the additional conductors 4)yes, but I'm not sure what it is. Someone'll answer this. I think it's three feet from a water source, but that may apply only to receptacles.

The damper is for the energy conscious to divert the warm, moist air from the dryer into the home all winter. This person is so energy conscious that they even insulated the cold water pipe.

I'm building a master suite in my home which includes a bedroom, sitting/lounge area and bathroom totaling around 600 square feet. It's retrofitted in a space formally occupied by three bedrooms and a lot of walls that used to be there aren't there anymore. A few of these walls that are now missing included the forced air heating system, so there's no heat and no good way to install ducting to the new room. I figured all along that I'd buy a furnace rated gas fireplace for heat and planned on venting it to the lined masonry chimney that's centrally located in the area. The problem is I'm not finding any natural draft gas fireplaces. They're all direct vent and I don't want to use them because there'll be an ugly draft hood on my siding spewing moisture laden air under the three foot eave and a b vent through my roof will be even uglier. Does anyone know of a high quality natural vent unit in 40k BTU range?

First let me state that I'm not an asbestos freak and to be honest, mold doesn't bother me either. I inspected a home for the current owner to determine the cause of ice forming under the eaves and to offer advice on water problems in the basement. While in the basement I noticed all the ductwork taped up with the old style white mesh tape that looks like it was applied wet. Is all of this style tape asbestos based? While I was down there I also noticed that a plumber had recently installed a large hot tub and had hacked a 5 inch hole in a 4x8 (or there abouts...it was a log) beam for the tub drain. The beauty of this is the beam held up the already under designed floor directly beneath this 200 gallon tub. You guys are going to have to be patient with my stories as I start this business because my wife doesn't care.

After reading this thread I've decided to discontinue my practice of blowing into the drain line.

geez, I hate being wrong. Now I'm ticked off too.

I bet that, as clever as this person was, he installed a threeway switch set w/ the other at thr room entrance for convenience.

Well, I was going to try and post a pic. I'll come back later when I can get it to 80kb or less. It's no trouble, I'll put it on a pc with xp, modify it, copy it install it here on my coal burner and upload it. You'll all get to see the ice dam photo sometime in May. Mike Brown technical genius saves the day... Here's what happens in NY when bath fans are vented through the soffit Download Attachment: icedam1.jpg 51.6 KB

That'd put Ice and Water shield in the role of primary barrier. I suppose it could be done, but I wouldn't do it on my house.

Hi Terry, In an earlier post I presumed that a thermistor would be used to control blower speed. Thermistors don't sense moisture they react to temperature. If the evap coil were 50 degrees the thermistor would have a specific value of resistance,say 200 ohms. As temp of the coil increases the resistance through the thermistor decreases and the data from that event can be interpolated by the system's operating controls to control blower speed. There may be a direct correlation to moisture content as figured from other input devices like motor load and temp input and output but the thermistor itself doesn't measure humidity, it reacts to temperature.

On shingle and shake roofs and siding, I lay 30# felt w/ an 18inch lap as a first step and then course in 12 inch felt strips between each course of roofing/siding. Felt's dirt cheap and it hardly takes any time to do it. It makes for a pretty damn water tight system that'll dry out if it does get wet. I did a carriage house w/ cedar shingles when I was 18.. that's 26 years ago and the roof is still in excellent condition. I fell off the cupola on that job ....but that's another story.

If the vertical leg of the drip edge extends down the fascia and there's no overhang, and the the gutters are to be attached w/ spikes instead of hangers, I don't see any choice in the matter. You're in Florida and have all those funky tile roofs and for this to be a concern there must not be any overhang. That's where the problem is. If the gutter installer lowers the gutter to miss the drip then all the rain will overshoot the gutter. I've never seen a gutter spike go through drip because the roof sheathing extends at least an inch beyond the fascia around here. It is a possible point of water entry, but it's highly unlikely. I'd just say something technical like "the gutter installation looks like crap"

I'm not an A/C guy...we have only about ten days a year that you really need it here. Wouldn't a thermistor be used to monitor evap temp and blower control be factored off of that? I don't see how decreasing air speed is going to remove more moisture in a closed system. Wouldn't the difference in moisture removal per pass be offset by by more passes per hour w/ increased fan speed?

I thought about this some. I guess the potential to be electrocuted while working on a panel or in the home exists even with the mains off.

I have a redundant system running all the time at my business to cover the event of computer failure. The reason I like the portability is I worry about my business burning down. I have 1,000 gallons of oil, another 2,000 gallons of waste oil, half a dozen acetylene tanks and 12 or 13 cars full of gas inside my building when I go home each night. Call me paranoid. I take the USB drive with me and I load it on my box at home. It let's me sleep. For a while I used to back up to an internet site, but the first time I needed it, the data was corrupted. I wasn't happy. Now that Kurt taught me about the Maxtor, I feel compelled to own one. Since Kurt's responsible for this burning need, I feel it's only fair that he send me his.

Everyone probably knows all about this, but in case any of you are even more technically challenged than me I figured I'd share this. Backing up my data has always been time consuming. First I used tapes, then I used zip drives, then I wrote to CD's. Recently I bought a gizmo the size of a key chain that plugs in my USB port w/ 512Mb of memory. The computer see's it as another drive and what used to take twenty minutes now takes about a minute when I make back ups. It cost 150 dollars and I think it's worth every penny. I can take data with me literally dangling from my truck keys. It loads and unloads fast and all the files are as accessible as they are on any drive. XP recognizes it as soon as you plug it in. WIN 98 requires a driver to be installed.

Since everyone has been so helpful, I'm asking for more. Kind of like a kid at Wal Mart that just got the OK on action figures and now wants to accessorize them. If you have a brochure that you feel works for you, I'd like to see it. To be fair, I must warn you that I'll shamelessly plagiarize it if I like it. I will at least replace your name with mine..I promise that much. For each one I receive I'll reciprocate by sending back some of the lovely climate that I experience for 110 days a year. Please indicate your preference of salt, slush, sand, snow, ice or sub zero temperatures. Chad Fabry 2425 Dewey Avenue Rochester, NY 14615 OK, I'm done now, Chad

I first came to TIJ hoping to be educated in home inspection. I've been in business a long time and "knew" how to go about the business end of things. What I learned was, that as a group, home inspectors are extremely funny and bright. More importantly, they're almost without exception, professionals. The input and insight I get from you folks is important and valuable. Thanks all for your time. Richard ...that's just amazing... I'll put it on my website (I'll pay someone to put it on my website)

Ellen, Not too many roofs are applied with an unerring adherence to MFG's guidelines. All it takes to void a warranty is a few "cheater" courses to account for an out of square roof. Even if those courses are on the opposite side of the house where the failure is, chances are they void the warranty. The guidelines are for the MFG's benefit and work to exclude probably 75 percent of all installations from warranty liabilities. At least that's what I think.