Bain

http://www.biomedical-engineering-onlin ... ent/4/1/50

Square D.

Thanks, as always, Jim

So I busted this installation today for not having a main breaker to protect the SE cables from overcurrent conditions(And yes, I'm aware of the "six throw" school of thought). But then I began to wonder what exactly I was looking at. Did someone buy a 100-amp panel so there'd be more spaces, and not leave the main in place? Can the main actually be removed so easily from the panel? Also, this was an old house converted into a business. The only 240 circuits were for the A/C compressor and a 12-gallon H2O heater. Download Attachment: DSC05038a.jpg 138.54 KB

I'm pretty late on this one, but if the commode's still loose, the sub-floor may be damaged to the point that the flange screws have nothing to bite into. New wax ring or not, the commode's still gonna leak and exacerbate the damage to the sub-floor. Fascinating, too, is how there's always a learning curve, but we invariably wind up with similar methods of doing and/or saying things. I tended more toward euphemisms when I first started checking out houses, but quickly learned that saying something like, "I wasn't able to determine the source of leakage beneath the hallway bathroom because I didn't want to expose myself to raw sewage," reeaaally got the message across to buyers, sellers, or whomever. It certainly drives the point home much better than calling it "waste water," or something similarly dopey. Finally to Chris--the folks on this board are opinionated and oftentimes abrupt because they're bright and experienced, and aren't ambivalent about the things they believe to be true. But it isn't personal, and you'll actually begin to appreciate being challenged and being made to rethink your approaches to the ways you do certain things. I was quasi-blasted by Jim and Kurt a week or so ago for my opinions about reporting language, but then two days later, they both wrote very kind posts regarding some soffits I've been repairing. Stay on course, and this board will become a tremendous asset for you.

I've never seen this before. Mike, won't that big brick sponge around the meter make its housing prematurely rust and deteriorate? I don't think I've ever seen a reference for weepholes above a power meter. : )

And how are the doubled up joists connected to one another? Let's have a party with lots of bodies in the breakfast-nook bay window and on the deck and see what happens.

Roof vent, Donald. Arrrgggh.

I'm a freak about decks being properly configured. The deck in the photo's gonna fail at some point if it isn't repaired. Check out the homeowner's prop against the far left pier, and how the second pier from the left has deflected out of position. The far right rim joists--which aren't visible--had separated nearly an inch due to the pier beneath it moving outward. I had buyers walk away from this house last week, and wondered if I should have sent the sellers a certified letter telling them not to use the deck until it was modified. Download Attachment: DSC04908a.jpg 173.6 KB

Check your mailbox, Erby.

I'll certainly spread the word. And sadly, this work was performed by a company that's been around for decades. The same kind of company that'll come behind me or you and say, "Them home inspectors don't really have the training that's necessary to evaluate this furnace. There's nothing wrong with it. It's working perfectly fine."

. . . and for the first time ever, I called the local building insp. office, and gave them the license number of the Master HVAC installer, hoping he's get sanctioned or penalized, or tarred and feathered. The permit sticker is for the rough-in. The final never happened. Photo #1 A shiny one-year-old Trane furnace the homeowner likely paid four grand to have installed. Forget about the lack of combustion air. Forget about the return-air duct two feet away from furnace, 'cause even worse is . . . Photo #2 The flue pipe terminating into the underside of a roof vent. Download Attachment: DSC04954a.jpg 117.86 KB Download Attachment: DSC04949a.jpg 149.82 KB

Bill, The soffits aren't perfectly square, and the distances between the dentil molding and the fascias varies, even if only slightly, so I was measuring each T & G soffit board individually. More importantly, I'd already pumped a bunch of nails through the redwood, so it would be tough to remove without destroying it. Jim, I'm gonna try to caulk the joints first, and if they look horrible, I'll follow your advice. And yes, I considered many times while sweating away atop the ladder over the weekend how much more difficult it would have been to hold each piece of 3 1/2" material in place and drive a finish nail through it without causing the wood to squiggle out of place or even split. As for pre-priming the wood, it's an excellent idea, but with work and trying to have a life, I simply didn't have--or take--time to do it.

Thanks for the kind words. Guess I'll just keep slogging along at my reeeaaally slow pace.

. . . I spent part of the long weekend repairing a water-damaged soffit on my 1922 bungalow. The beaded, 3/4" T&G material is actually called beaded flooring, since that's the purpose it serves when the bead is out of sight and facing downward. I had never used this stuff before, and learned you can't simply cut the corner pieces at 45 degrees and piece them together. Done that way, the beads don't properly align. The way I got past this was to rip a 1" wide filler piece and then stagger the opposing corner pieces so the beads matched up. I looked at the other corners of my house and one corner had aligned beads. The other two corners had beads staggered by approximately 1", presumably because they've been repaired in the past. One other problem, was I couldn't cut the soffit material long enough to fit flush with the new redwood fascia boards. I had to leave the soffit material 1/8" or so short so I could slide the tongues into the grooves. I began to wonder if should have sliced off the tongues to get around this problem since I was face nailing the boards with a pneumatic gun. I have three more corners to tackle before cold weather arrives--painting will have to wait till Spring--and wondered if anyone, like maybe Bill or Kurt, knew of a better method to align the corners. John Download Attachment: DSC00028a.jpg 348.58 KB Download Attachment: DSC00030a.jpg 370.25 KB

You're very kind. I'll give you a call later this week. John

Erby, I owe you an apology and hope you'll accept. I have an English degree and have attended numerous--technical, included--writing seminars. I believe what I said in my last post, but I was wrong to be critical of you personally. I'm sorry. John

Well, but Erby . . . you may want to rethink. Colloquial writing is crucial in fiction and many kinds of articles. It's what gives the writer a "voice," and what makes a reader identify and empathize with the writer and/or her characters. However if you want to be regarded, respected, and paid as a professional, you may want to try "unidentified fecal matter" rather than "poop." Doctors, lawyers, scientists, pharmacists, choose any profession you wish, will likely never use a term as colloquial as "poop." A conversational tone is a good thing to strive for in report writing, but never forget that we are all judged by the way we speak and the words we use. Having said that, I'm off to my backyard to clean up Loki the wonder dog's poop. John

I'm a neophyte at this and my knowledge is pretty much limited to what I've read on Flir's website. I did recently, however, have a client who worked for an environmental company show up at the end of an inspection with the $20,000 Flir thermo-imaging camera. I was pretty much finished, and one of the flubs I discovered was a section of mildy water-damaged sub-floor beneath a rear exterior door. I discovered the damage because I always do a strange little tiptoe near the inside portion of exterior-door thresholds since there's oftentimes water damage caused by seepage beneath the threshold. Anyhow, after I convinced the client to let me play with the Flir for a few minutes, I pointed it at the threshold and, sure enough, the water damaged area showed up cool blue on the camera just like a trained pig. I was pretty amazed, and of course immediately tried to convince myself to fork over some cash to Flir, but haven't yet. I'm sure I'd end up damaging the thing, and repairs likely would cost a fortune.

I read Walter's columns in a weekly independent newspaper publisned in Lexington, and he's nearly always fun and informative. Having said that, and at the risk of being booed out of the room, I visited his website once and took a look at his sample report. He uses binoculars to check out roofs. He merely sticks his head through the attic scuttlehole and shines his flashlight around without checking for leaks around the roof protrusions. I think that's bad practice. I took a look at Jim Morrison's website once and he proudly and appropriately makes a point of letting folks know he squirms and sweats through every inch of an attic or crawlspace, just like I do and just like most of you do. Knowledge is a great thing, but it doesn't provide much use when you really aren't taking a close look at the roof, attic or crawlspace.

It's interesting and gratifying that as I've grown older and consummately wiser, I no longer desire to be accepted, liked, or successful for being anything other than myself. I've lost countless referring realtors during the past several years, but client referrals have risen dramatically, and I continually turn away business simply because I can't get to a job within the constraints of a buyer's contract. And many buyers--and some realtors--call me before signing a contract to make certain fourteen or twenty-one days are scratched into the inspection clause so I can check out the house for them. The question posed by this thread is actually flawed, since there are few houses that can't be repaired, rebuilt or whatever. A more appropriate question would be, "How much money, time and energy will I have to expend to morph this house into what I want it to be?" That's the proper question that needs to be asked. Example: I've checked out probably twelve houses over the last couple of years for a group of young people who all know each other, and who tell anyone buying a house that they should have me take a look at it for them to make certain they know what they're getting into. The most recent young couple was buying a 100 year old beast that was wholly horrible. I phoned the buyers two hours into the inspection and explained that I'd seen enough to know that renovating the old place--not counting cosmetics--was going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy-five to a hundred grand. I told them I could keep on poking around this awful house, or they could pay me for my time and let me write them a letter to get them out of the contract. They showed up fifteen minutes later, spent twenty minutes in the basement with me, and realized the house was a bigger job than they were willing and able to sign up for. They thanked me profusely, wrote me a check for $100.00 per hour of my time, and walked away from that old house feeling ineffably relieved. I checked out a second house for them this past week, and met them at a Starbucks to look at photos and explain what I'd seen. Of everything we discussed, one thing stands out in my memory. At one point the young woman said, "We trust you, John. They'll effect the necessary repairs or we won't buy the house." That made my day. Much more than the referral of any realtor ever could. And whether business dwindles, or ceases immediately because of my honesty, I'll at least know that I did the very best that I could for my clients and that because of that, I earned their trust. And what's more valuable than earning the trust of another? As a postscript, while many realtors are slugs, there are, indeed, splendid people in that field who want nothing but the best for their clients. And when those kinds of realtors send me business, I walk through the front door with a smile on my face knowing that I'm gonna do the best job I can, and that if the deal falls through because of me, t'ings are gonna be okay.

If I had feelings, Kurt, they'd be touched. You actually agree with me on something. : )

Something I do, especially in older houses, when there's so much that's screwed up, is take three complete passes of every square inch while rambling into my digital recorder. I'm always amazed how on, say the third pass, I see new mud tubes or a cracked joist, or yet another open-air wire splice. Checking out a basement this way is one of my little safeguards to help overcome the limitations of being human and imperfect.

Yes, it is. About the only time I pull out the CO detector by rote is in old houses. More often than not, the chimneys aren't lined, they've pretty much imploded, and the flue is partially or completely blocked. Naturally, all of the flue gases from the boiler or the furnace are billowing back into the basement. I watch the CO reading soar up, up, up, and shut the boiler down. Jim, your thoughts about the pigeons are fascinating. I just started reading, "Don't know much about mythology," and the author starts out by explaining how we have a sort of atavistic, evolutionary need to understand the world around us and our own little place in that world. You, Jim, find yourself in a life-threatening situation, and your mind instantly begins calculating everything that may happen next, including the behavior of the pigeons along with the consequences of that behavior for you both. I've been surprised in attics by squirrels, birds and bats--and though inane, as the sweat trickles down my face--my imagination kicks in and I begin thinking something like, "Okay, so Mr. Bat has been trapped in this attic for weeks with no food or water, he's probably rabid, and here I am presenting myself as a threat in his territory. He's gonna fling himself at me and start clawing and biting and how do I fight back without falling off the ceiling joists, but then do I really care about falling through the ceiling when a rabid bat is chewing my face off . . . " And on it goes. 'Course, not once have I actually been confronted or attacked, but I'll still likely have those zany thoughts ricocheting through my brain next time it happens just because of the genetic imprint in my head.

I always knew you had the heart of a young child, Kurt. You keep it in a glass jar on your desk, right? []