carle3

What is prudent and what is neccesary can be two different things. You have yugo's and you have rolls royce's. When dealing with a production builder 6 sheets of plywood across 500 homes can be substantial to the bottom line. Not condoning it just that it's out there.

Just a quick note. Yesterday I had a Rheem 85% effiecient furnace that when heat was called for the cycle of operation was for the air handler to run for a minute it would then shut down and then the induction motor would turn on. After a minute the ignitor lit and then gas burners lit. After that sequence the air handler would then turn back on. As I read these post one could jump to the conclusion that the air handler should never be part of this sequence.

In S.E. Wisconsin we have a lot of wells and city water supplies with hard water. If was found not only does the humidifier work better with warm water but that there was the added benefit of less scaling from the softened hot water. This resulted in longer filter life.

Looks like some student architect's great idea. As a builder I always loved those guys.

The State of Wisconsin limits libilty to two years although no limitation on dollar amounts. The controlling agency is the Department of Regulation and Licensing.

I would punt. Never go beyond your abilities. If you do not know or do not understand an installtion then explain that this goes beyond your training to evaulate the system. Explain the technical issues and that this a unique product ot non-standard installation. Let them know there is a possibilty that nothing is wrong but for thier safety you recommend a professional opinion. I believe people will respect you for your honesty and turn a bad situation into a sales oppurtunity.

I have had some trouble with Protecto Wrap. This is a rubber based self sticking product that comes in rolls in 6" to 12" widths. It is real similiar to Ice and Water Shield but a heavier product. We would use this as a sealant over the flanges of the windows. I found that on a hot summer day that the product would break down and leak out a black substance.

I did a lot of building with cedar. The brown staining is probably tannin acid. It is what gives Cedar its rot resistance. It is not unuasal to have this staining on lighter colored stains. Moisture migrating out from the back side of the claboards will make this normal condition worse. This as you surmized is what you are seeing on this house.

This is why I find this board so great. It is the people willing to step out of the box and share thier expertise with others that make the inspector community a very special fraternity.

OK correct me if I am wrong but modern day house wraps although water repelent are gas permeable therfore allowing water vapor trapped in the wall to migrate out through the house wrap. As far as needing air to move moisture, seems to me moisture will want to equalize and does not require an incentive to move this proccess along.

Donald, Not that I seen this soffit pattern before but Certainteed had a line of fibrous cement board.

Not to beat a dead horse but use a humidistat to check moisture levels in the house. Even though the humidifier is set low you have had a ton of moisture dumped in the house during construction. Your next steps will be with the builder, if he is unwilling to work with you on this then go direct to the manufacturer and get one of thier rep's out. They will ask you much the same as I have. My experience has been that moistures is generally not a problem with the window but one of the house. Even the best glass coating result in limited R-values. Leaky windows tend to reduce humidity levels. This is why you may see no moisture on the windows of an older home.

Is the moisture between the insulated glass? If so it is a seal failure. Glass needs replacing. If not check these: 1. Do you have blinds on the windows? If so you are restricting the heat from getting at them making the glass colder. Open the blinds a few inches to allow warm air to the glass. 2. what is the humidly level in the house. If it is mid thirties or better it is too high. Reduce it by using bath fans when you shower. Turn your furnace fan on an let it run. Run a dehumidifer or air to air exchanger if you have one.

I try to limit expectations during the initial phone call. This last week we had 12 inches of snow and who knows when I will be able to evaluate a roof again. I inform my clients of the limitations again at the time of inspection. I write in the report that the roof was not viewable due to snow covering. I always take a picture of the front of the house and put it on my cover page this also helps in showing the conditions at the time of the inspection. I try to direct the client to find out the age of the roof and give them general life spans of the products. I also make sure I investigate those attics paying close attention to typical areas for leaks. I do not offer to reinspect and have not had any problems to date with this. This issue not only effects roofs but also grading issues. Darn tough to judge grade under a foot of snow[:-blindfo

Real men don't need no stink'in knee pads. []

I think most vetran inspectors will tell you not to join a association thinking that it will provide you some sort of marketing prowess. You will be disappointed with any organization. Join for the education oportunities, be it seminars, monthly chapter meetings or just fellow comeradery. With this in mind I found it important to pick one that was active in my area. I have been active in meetings a seminars and rarely do I not leave with added knowledge about housing or the general buisness practices. I also believe in the representation of our profession at the political level so I also looked for one that was active in lobbying goverment on our behalf. To date the logos I display and actively market with have accounted for zero sales.

I found a nice How To on the Lyco's site. http://insite.lycos.com/tutorial.asp there is about 20 pages of information to go through but I have found it to be one of the better documents pertaining to this subject with links to some free tools for evaulating your site. I was amazed when I went to market leap, my site was only on yahoo and msn, no listing elsewhere. I was surprised as I have applied for listings on google quite some time ago. I sure hope I haven't done something to get my site banned. I also ran that validator tool on my site and have found errors. This is a canned site that you just add your own flavor to. I am coming up on renewing my hosting contract and might be looking for a change. Have those of you that ended up with web hosting packages from the training mills migrated away from the canned products and gone to different hosting venues? How many of you build your own site and how many pay for custom sites?

Been wrestling with this isssue myself. When I search google for these keywords all I get are the national list. My site doesn't even exsist unless I search specificaly for my company name. I have made some changes to title and meta tags but it takes time for the crawlers to come back and index your site with the new information. I track hits on my site just to see it it has been crawled and if my listing has moved up any or if it shows on the key word I want to come up under.

We started using them quite a bit in our neck of the woods. Needed a means for fresh air and also have the ability to control it. High humidity levels were out of control with all the moisture that we were dumping into the house during construction. We did find that the clients needed to be educated of there use as they do have a tendancy to dry the house out if not careful. We would spec the ones with a humidistat that would run the unit under high humidity conditions. We also would use the models that not only transfered heat but would also recover humidty to the incoming area. Relative humidity of the outside air around here can be in the single digits during the wintertime. When I find one of these during inspection I open them up and check out the filters. I have found most full of leaves and debris with clogged cores.

Anyone try putting an RSS feed on there web site. I could use some information on how and where. I was interested in adding to mine one that scrolled real estate or mortgage news. This is a little new to me. I was hoping to find a free service. A link to a web site with coding information would be good as a starting point.

One other suggestion especially in new house construction. Be careful of high cfm vans in homes with limited or no make up air. These fans have the ability to draw down enough air that the house will try to make it up through other means and that is typically through vents you do not want air being drawn back into houses through (i.e. furnace and hot water heater venting). You may end up trading one problem for another.

I had a house this summer that had a overhanging tree. The ants would go from the tree to the roof. The roof was a DIY (Destroy It Yourself) home owner job. He added a second layer of asphalt 3 tabbers over cedar shingles with no starter course or felt. The apex's would allow the cedar to get wet. An attraction these litte critters could not resist. They managed to destroy the fisrt course of roof boards. Owner to this day will not cut that tree down.

Hi Kurt, Isn't that a hartford loop? Just kidding

Boy this could really be dangerous. The pressures over the heat exchanger under normal load is higher than that on the inside. Any cracks usaully let air into the exchanger. Under this situation this fan is actualy causing this now to be a low pressure area. Any cracks now are definetly going to emit combustion by products.

I use a tablet PC that I am able to update as I go room to room. I also insert pictures but only when I feel it will enhance the report or dealing with a distant client. I went and bought the fastest ink jet printer I could find. At the conclusion I give the client the customer survey and maintenance manual while I tweak and print the report on site. As a construction manager I have always been good at multitasking. Having a client talking in one ear dealing with a sub on the phone while contemplating how I was going to fix something on the next job site. On site production was just a natural for me. Like Glenn said I make my deductions and move on rarely going back to mull them over. Carl