Richard Moore

At the other extreme, I had a 404 sq ft studio condo on Sunday. Suffice to say that I still had some time left afterward for both the wife and the dog. []

Worst case scenario would be the total annihilation of the human race. It goes like this: Jeremy in Hamilton, Ontario fails to sufficiently tighten the wire nuts when installing a new light fixture. One of the hot wires comes loose and starts arcing which leads to the house catching fire. Unfortunately, this happens during an ice storm and before the fire trucks can negotiate the treacherous streets the whole neighborhood is ablaze. Somewhere in Russia, an underpaid technician sees the thermal bloom picked up by a defense satellite. Due to too much vodka in his system he copies the coordinates incorrectly. The new coordinates happen to coincide with a missile silo field in Wisconsin (long abandoned, but the Russians don't know that). Fearing a preemptive strike, they launch, America retaliates, and the whole thing escalates until we have Nuclear Winter, the food chain fails and everyone starves to death. Gee...thanks Jeremy! But, if you follow Jim's advice, that's not too likely.

Look at the damn ugly French doors below. I think it's a case of 5 narrow glazed doors "falling off a truck" and their new owner not knowing what else to do with the odd number. Calling any of that, including the house itself, architectural is a real stretch!

I would just like to say that I'm against people posting pointless posts to pad post numbers. (2285)

Coupled with the front "panels", my first guess would be they were going for the Japanese tea house look. http://www.pbase.com/danpolley/image/22863838 Although, if that is an eye I'm seeing over the "mouth" of the extension (a stylized salmon or shark?), it could well be native American influence.

Imperfect? Frankly, I think the tool sucks! It places way too much emphasis weight on the number of 3+ syllable words. "You should seek information from the homeowners association on future plans and reserves for inspection and maintenance of all common areas." scored a whopping 17.92 while "You should seek info from the home owners club on future plans and reserves to inspect and maintain all common areas." came in at 8.4. If you think that including words like "information" and "maintenance" in a sentence makes a report unintelligible, then maybe you're just too dumb to be trusted with a house!

Very cool octopus intrusion! Reminds me of a confusing patio/balcony I recently had. Download Attachment: Courtyard.jpg 75.45 KB

I'm giving John "a look" for the contrived and pretentious use of the French preposition "sans".

There's this bit at the beginning of the NEC... 90.1 Purpose. (A) Practical Safeguarding. The purpose of this Code is the practical safeguarding of persons and property from hazards arising from the use of electricity. I think that is also a good description of one of our purposes as HIs. Sadly, there's no way the codes can cover every dumb thing a jackass could possibly come up with. BUT...we have the luxury, and the obligation, as home inspectors to use common sense instead of an "official" cite when something is obviously FUBAR, whether it's in the book or not. A panel at floor level, right next to a damn washing machine!!! I wouldn't bother even trying to look that one up before calling it an unacceptable hazard.

I've always used Alt-0176 for ? . Alt-248 also works. Is Ctrl-248 maybe something you assigned in Word? EDITED...Huh! OK, the posting box showed the degree symbol but my actual post also came up with a question mark. Wierd! ANOTHER TRY copying and pasting the symbols from notepad. degrees ?, ? Yup, there's something goofy going on with the site! Chad upset any Russians lately?

Some of the framing wood looks very "fresh" so I'm curious how old the home is. A little more history of the house (age, mods, etc), and the OP's occupancy, might be helpful in guessing if this is could be a chronic problem or one that recent events have caused. A wide angle shot or two of the exterior would also be nice. Just sayin'.

I was bored, so I went looking for online permit searches in Steuben County. I can't say I had much success. I picked a few homes at random. The county assessor site lists various "Improvements" such as decks, etc, but that seems to just be to say those are present. Is that what you are looking at? Site is http://www.steubencony.org/rpsweb/frmcriteria.aspx There also doesn't seem to be much info before 2002, so I wonder if that's when they started putting any stuff online. If this is what you are going by, or anything else online, I would be cautious about reporting the lack of the house permit without going to the actual building dept for a full document search. Frankly, I don't think this is your concern anyway. Your client hired you to do an inspection of the existing structure, as it stands. A defect is a defect whether or not it has "papers".

I occasionally have similar symptoms with my Valor fireplace. I traced it to small soot balls forming around the pilot area which, I assume, somehow affects the thermocouple sensor. When it starts misbehaving, I open it up, vacuum the area, and it runs fine again for a year or so. Disclaimer: I have no idea if that's your problem and recommend a fireplace professional investigate.

I get 12,525 using slightly rounded figures. 8.35 (lbs in a US gallon of water) x 25 (your temp gain in F) x 60 (minutes per hour)

I'm having trouble picturing "sheet metal" CNC equipment that could produce all those details. Are some of the intricate bits milled out of billet? Nice to have a client that doesn't balk at price. Commercial property?

I thought it was a well connected fancy sheep! Yep. The head lamo of the infamous Peruvian high plains woolly Mafia is Al Pacca. He's known to make you a sweater you can't refuse.

No, No. This is a dirty filter! Download Attachment: dirtyfilter.jpg 146.25 KB

I also know very little about them, but it seems to me that there's a very good reason the inside of those things are painted heat-absorbing black rather than reflective white! Certainly, the ones around my neighborhood don't look like that. Someone screwed the install would be my first guess, although I suppose it's possible they are defective units. Knowing you, I'm sure you are also seeking more info from the manufacturer but, meanwhile, I doubt you would be going out on a limb to call those.

Maybe. Maybe not. Chad has many fetishes. I'd say you had a 50-50 chance of getting either a nicely restored car or a cross between a steam boiler and the DeLorean from Back to the Future.

Totally ignoring all your hard work, what's with the blue tape on the ceiling mounted wet-finger voltage detector?

I'm not offering any legal advice, but both you and the landlord are subject to WA's Residential landlord-tenant act, which you can find at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=59.18 . There is an easier to read synopsis of your rights at http://www.lawhelp.org/documents/159321 ... bbrev=/WA/ . It includes suggested steps you should or could take (including getting a lawyer involved). Obviously, neither can cover every specific issue that could occur within a house. You can follow certain steps but I suspect it gets "messy" when the landlord actually responds, but with half-assed repairs. On the problem itself...if your hand went through drywall just by leaning on it then, yeah, it sounds like a real issue. Of course, if you really punched the hole.....??? Also, what do you mean when you say "the dryer vent is just going right into the drywall?" Is it not ducted and terminating outside?

John, the bolded emphasis at the Gas-tite PDF is on the single bond connection. As in..."For single and multi-family structures, a single bond connection shall be made downstream of the individual gas meter for each housing unit and upstream of any CSST connection." That is not saying there should be one downstream of the meter and others upstream of any CSST. It's saying there should be one that satisfies both requirements.

If I'm reading your post correctly, you seem to be suggesting that the length of CSST would need extra bonding(?). As long as the rest of the gas piping is already bonded in some way, you should not need any additional jumpers, etc. The connection at the red shut-off maintains a continuous path for grounding. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Not totally excusing the inspector, but shouldn't we be giving the electrician a lot more grief? After all, the sparky was the one who actually spent some dedicated time screwing this up just because he didn't, presumably, have the appropriate clamp on hand.

I'm going to disagree. I think a split bolt (which it looks like) is exactly what you want for that. For example, look at the tech specs for this one... http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/THOMAS ... Pid=search It listed for up to 2/0 max main with a minimum 14 tap. Others are similar, but with differing size mains and taps. In other words, they all (most at least) seem to be listed to mix conductor sizes.