carle3

I had a water intrusion problem that I swore up and down was from the split face. We tried sealing it with silicon concrete sealers and tinted latex block sealer with no luck. This is something I could not figure out until I caught wind that Semco was having some problems with their windows. Turns out they changed their window frame design. The design failed and was allowing water in through the mitered frame joints. Sealing for me did absolutely no good, just drove the moisture elsewhere.

I love the Ultra Stinger. I have two and rotate them between inspections. Now if I could figure out how to stop my camera from running out of battery when I am at the back end of a crawlspace.

Whom ever has the money has the power. Once you turn the money over to the builder you will lose all leverage. If this is an issue you are willing to take to the matt and lose the home over then I would at the very least require money in escrow till the matter is resolved to your liking. Yes, the replacement of the flashing once all the coverings are done will require removal or modification of those materials. Once something has been taken apart it never goes back together the same way again.

Just a thought, a routine scan around the floor of the toilet with a moisture meter would have alerted one to a leaky seal. I agree that our ablitity to sell this as a premium or seperate service is going to be hampered by those that are desperate to gain buisness and are givng the service away. I debate on making this purchase but can not justify the expense if I can't charge accordingly. Unfortunatly I think it will be only a matter of a couple years here and the public will expect every inspector to pull one of these out of his tool bag. Look at Steve Ramos and his TV program, this kind of programing/advertising is going to continue and push us into delivering this service.

No such thing as "grandfathered". In fact the municipality will require things to be updated should the owner take on a remodeling project. I hate this term and believe it sould be striken from a Home Inspectors vocabulary along with "illegal." I don't believe in weighted observations (satisfatory, marginal, poor). Write the 3 "W's" what your observation is, what the consequense is, and what to do about it. I think one is on poor footing trying to catagories how important a defect is or is not.

Just ran into one of these situation last week. Mine was dealing with a furnace in a garage. The house was pre-inspected. I found a auxilary heat source in the detached garage. It was an old home furnace that had been stuffed in a closet with no ventilation. On top of that the cold air duct was cut into the cieling of this closet. My client gave me the pre-inspection report to read at the end of the walk through. It was a check list inspection report. The previous inspector had marked this item not inspected because the gas was turned off and made no mention of the visible defects that had nothing to do with the gas being on or off. I suppose disclosing that it was not inspected covers him but I think this is the same mentality as Mike ran into.

Just thinking that the heat and the air conditioning seldom are running at the same time to create a issue.

A couple days after the fourth is the weekend and I like to have a couple over the weekend too. After that is Monday and Lord I hate starting anything on a Monday just bad Karma. Oh, and Tuesday is Trap night, not good either. And that takes us to my vacation. Can we start this in August?

This furnace looks like it is elavated the 18 inches and is an auxilary heat source for the garage and not connected to the home's heating system. So why would this supply register not be allowed? There would be no fear of fumes infiltrating back into the home with this being a seperate system.

This is a localized issue but in Milwaukee you better well lift up that drain cover and check and see if the Palmer valve is there and fuctioning. For those who don't know, in Milwauke the drain tile was routed to the floor drain and out to the municple sewer system. The Palmer valve is a spring loaded flapper that opens to allow water out and snaps shut to keep out all the nasties in the event of a back up. If the valve is inoperative it can sometimes be resurrected back into service with a little oil and persuasion. If missing or the persuasion method does not work then a sump crock will need to be installed. A expense you do not want to be funding.

Gary, Yeah, I remember the old saying "I cut it twice and its still too short!"

Chris, Yes, you can make reference that you are an associate ASHI member. The key here is the associate designation must be discolosed if you are going to advertise. This also pertains to verbal dialouges as to your membership.

This has become an all to common find as of late. As a past framer I would have never attempted to use a strong backer as anything more than means to stiffen a truss gabled wall. To try to make these function as a structural element is not sound framing. My findings are that with truss construction a lot of framers are no longer trained in the art of stick framing a roof.

We just started having contracted buyers agency agreements last July in Wisconsin. I have actually seen cases where the agent was upset because the inspector didn't list every little scratch in the house. I think they were looking for ammo to beat the listing party up on price. This could be interesting.

It's called a stadium buddy.

Hi Chad....sorry....I did not mean to ignore your evaluation....I was missing one piece of the puzzle....when tripped the power is cut. I think Jim has it right....I have been miss interpreting this as a defective GFCI receptical and it is really a fault in the equipment grounding conductor for this circuit. I just did not know if it may have been a limitation of the tester that could also create this.

Hi Jim, No, this is a condo unit from 2000. But not having a Sure Test I am unable to check for a boot leg ground (short of taking it apart). I didn't know if the amount of current that the tester faults to ground may not be sufficiant enough to trip this paticular GFCI yet since the receptical trips on its internal test it is still good and within manufactures specifications. I did use 2 different testers just to verify my equipment.

Kurt, hmmm...mash...gooood..... reminds me of the old song...The Monster Mash...god help me it is getting late I did try a search on tripped or non tripping of GFCI's prior to posting this and came up empty but I am sure it not the first go around on this.

Seems to be the topic of the month for me. I have a GFCI receptical that tests as being grounded and having correct polarity with a GB GFCI tester. The GFCI receptical will not trip when using the GB GFCI-tester but will trip on the recepticals own test button. Is this a bad GFCI, or a poor ground that is causing a faulty test on my GFCI-Tester? In the past I have always marked this as a faulty GFCI receptical. But in knowing how the GFCI-tester uses the equipment grounding conductor to create a fault I am now questioning if I am wrong here.

When doing a home inspection for the buyer you are there with the sellers permision given in the home inspection contigency as defined by state statutes, a radon test is not part of this. A buyer needs to write radon testing in as a seperate contigency in thier offer to purchase. If the offer to purchase has been formalized then it is too late and they will have to what till they are the owners.

I too, copy the information down on site and then go home and hand key the information on the terminal. One thing to be aware of is that you pay a higher fee for a keyed in entry vice a scanned entry. I checked into a cellular model and was a 2 years lease at $60 a month. There was also a $24 month statement fee. To purchase the unit it was $1800. It gets you the lower rate but you have to be doing a lot of plastic to justify it.

This is similar how my discussion went with my fellow inspectors over the course of a couple beers. I found it amazing how widely our opinions varied. From "hey your electronics could be at risk to the death and destruction opinion. After seeing the S trap thread I think the next beer and round table discussion I am going to drop that topic on the table. I think in the end these discussions are good because we do need some commonality in our reports. In the end it is important because the client is not educated enough to know what is accurate and what may be inspector babble from the good ole\d inspector training schools.

See this is a good discussion. I am a product of the inspector schools so some of what i base an observation on is a carry over of that. I do make note of all ungrounded plugs. I feel in the case of a appliance plugged into an ungrounded outlet, in the instance of a fault that the energy potential will stay at the appliance until given a path. Since the objects most likely to provide that path would be the plumbing fixtures I list that threat as a safety concern. In the bedrooms and living rooms that condition is less likely to occur. I do list it but gear that more to the damage it can cause electronic equipment and surge suppressors. This is why I found this topic so interesting to discuss. When we began talking about this I found as a group we were all over the board on our views and understanding of the ground its purpose and the why we call a ungrounded plug GFCI or not a safety concern at kitchens and baths and not when found in a living room. Oh Paul, the seminar was one for the Wisconsin Association of Home Inspectors but the discussion was over a few beers and not part of the presentation.

Hi Jim, Yes the point of conversation revolved around an ungrounded GFCI at a kitchen sink or bathroom sink situation. As a rule I call an ungrounded 3 prong outlet on a 2 wire, or 3 wire for that matter, that is at the kitchen, laundry or bathroom sink a safety concern. Our point of disagreement came when a GFCI was involved. I was at a seminar over the weekend and this discussion brought other inspectors into the debate, at which time I realized what I thought was a cut and dried issue was not. Now I am curious as to how divided this debate may be.

Yes....that I know....the point of the question is that a normal three prong outlet with an open ground and near a water source is a safety concern ....now we change that and install a GFCI outlet....safety concern gone or still there?