mgbinspect

Whispering: (I didn't know you could re-size a furnace...) I meant reduce, as in replace it, .. And then the clientS STILL aren't happy - (nightmare).

Not to mention, there's always the possibility that the furnace size could be reduced, they're equally dissatisfied and then pissed that you caved in to reducing the furnace size and want you to put it back to what it was. []

Bain, That's cool. No offense intended and none taken. I suspect that we're all pretty much the upper crust in our respective towns. Peace.

You have a good attitude and ethic. Hey, if I find myself asking, "How did I miss that?" I write the check too - no questions asked. Thankfully, that's something that happens about once every two or three years. "Beating the rap" will cost one far more than a meager check ever will. Word travels fast, if your don't do the right thing and a good reputation will take you a lot farther than a little extra cash. May this cost far less than you fear and may your client have a conscience.

Bain, "Hiding" behind SOPs is probably a bit strong and maybe even an inappropriate assumption. I make my point, not based upon the standards as something to hide behind, but more as a standard that well-meaning inspectors de-value by grossly exceeding them. If one chooses to do that then charge more and be clear, "This isn't a home inspection". To do otherwise screws up the real beauty and intent of SOPs! Consinder the definition of the word "Standard". Standards of Practice serve PRICELESS purposes: 1. They set a professional standard (I started to type "Industry Standard" and could feel Mike O brow-beating me...) 2. They offer the public a clear and reasonable expectation. And that's critical. I've never hidden behind them, and frankly if you really screwed up, you can't hide behind them. Competitors exceeding them has never actually harmed me. I just think it's a misrepresentation of the service. Of course, we can always just do away with SOPs and let clients and attorneys have an eternal field day...

And, Jim has stated it well - grossly - a no brainer. No doubt we've all done inspections where something is crying out to us regarding comfort, under-dehumidification etc. I used to do the ole' 600 to 800 SF / ton rule on cooling, but HVAC contractors convinced me it's just not a good idea any more. Don't be too quick to roll over unless, as Jim says, there's more to this than you've shared. Meanwhile, you certainly have my thoughts and more.

I, for better or for worse, don't concern myself in the slightest with equipment sizing. As Marc said, it's beyond our scope, and especially with cooling, HVAC guys have told me numerous times old rules don't apply with the new super tight and energy efficient homes - best left to the expert, which tickles me to death. The problem is, that as inspectors, the more "expert" shoes you imply you have, the more you are expected to wear. I always tell clients, "You simply can't expect us to be Licensed Plumbers, HVAC guys, Certified Electricians and Chimney Sweeps, etc. Clients always readily agree, that's unreasonable. This is why I am such an ARDENT fan of the "Standards of Practice" They're there to protect us and to offer an official and reasonable expectation of our service for our clients. Well meaning HIs, who are driven to know everything about everything, put themselves and us in hotter water than we're supposed to be in. I like knowing a lot too, but I tend to hold my cards pretty close to the vest regarding exactly what I know and understand to let the Standards of Practice be what they are to us - a standard and shield. Kurt, don't accept the responsibility of an expert, if you aren't one! I've never understood, why an HVAC guy is so eager to say, "The home inspector should have caught this." Why should he have caught it - YOÚ'RE the expert, not the home inspector? It's a silly and illogical statement. I mean, the HVAC contractor CERTAINLY doesn't consider us his equal, yet suddenly he wants us to bear equal responsibility? I don't think so... Why have "Standards of Practice" if we refuse to permit them to be the standard? The installer is at fault.

Haha.. Tons of them here in Richmond. It was a Virginia Power thing, but Virginia Power is no more - It's now Dominion Power (VA and NC). The "Gold Medalion" was a big Virginia Power and Pepco (Potomac Electric Power Company - MD) thing Bottom Line - a "Gold Medallion" home was a 100% Electric home, Like Kurt says, and my temptation was to say they were complete with the first generation of Heat Pumps, but actually many gold medalion homes had electric baseboard heat!? A little piece of history...

Sweet! I may be tempted yet...

It's always fun trying to remove the cover without tripping breakers on those panels. [:-gnasher

Very common. Especially in Ryan Homes around that time.

Now that's fascinating. Has finding software you want been a frustration?

BTW, does Mac even do routine security updates and service-packs or is that purely a Microsoft phenomenon?

"Half again"...

I KNOW I post some grammatical and spelling (mostly typo) disasters! Like you, I am a blazing fast typist. Typing was one of the most valuable courses I ever took in college, but 80% of the time I'm typing on a 3" x 1.5" mobile phone screen with my two thumbs. It's no easier trying to proofread on such a little screen viewing a couple lines at a time. Consequently, I'll post something and look at it a few minutes later shaking my head totally ticked at myself promising I won't post so quickly again. [:-banghea Then, I edit and edit. I need to write it in Word where I can REALLY look it over and then cut and paste it. That being said, I'm not inclined to critique others on writing, since I live in a very thin glassed house.

Hmm.. The laptop I'm speaking of is a year and a half old. Came out of the box with Vista and I upgraded to 7. No complaints so far. I definitely don't question your experience. And, you clearly know more than me about software. I just build PCs, install the OS, make sure all the hardware is recognized and functioning and throw a few essential software programs on them. That's usually the last I see of them. And, frankly, it's no longer cost effective to build them. I used to be able to build twice the machine you could buy for the same price, but in this new economy, PCs are a giveaway. Usually what ends up really slowing my PCs down is anti-virus and online backup software. Those two seem to be the biggest typical offenders for me. Webroot Spysweeper/Anti-virus and Sugarsync online back up both running in the background always had my PC randomly freezing for 30 seconds, like a drooling idiot. For whatever reason, the MS Security Essentials put an end to it. But, I can't say anymore, because I'm certainly no OS expert - don't even want anyone to think that I think I am. I'm just happy with my PC's performance which has markedly improved. Three of my four PCs are still running XP - no big complaints. Probably part of the reason I don't experience blue screens etc. is that I don't push a PC very hard either - just surfing and word processling - no gaming. The hardest they ever work is uploading and downloading reports. One is merely a print server for the publishing business. One is just for graphics and word processing. So, my PCs have it pretty darn easy. End of story. Sorry this has gotten so far off thread (Mac), but if you don't mind me asking, (Jim Morrison), what's your main reason for converting? My son and I have entertained the thought several times over the years and always chickened out due to such limited software choices. So, I'd sincerely love to hear what your aim or hope is in going that direction.

Indeed, it does, however, appear to be a noticebly better pile of cap than the last few Microsoft BMs. [:-propell "MS DOS stands for Microsoft Disk Operating System. There is no MS-Dos in windows 7 as the OS is now windows. The command prompt available to users in windows 7 is version 6.1.7100." The thing I notice most is Windows 7 permits multiple windows and applications open (which isn't new), but you can preview them instantly by simply holding the mouse over the open file icon so you need not open all windows to find the one you're looking for. So far (fingers crossed) the overall performance is markedly zippier. But most importantly, what makes windows zippier is using the lightest possible anti-virus, which I touched upon earlier. Having used Bit Defender, Norton, Webroot Spy Sweeper, AVG, and a couple others, I must say that removing them and installing Mircosoft Security Essentials has, to date of course, been a pleasant surprise. Surfing and page loading time is much faster. As I've said before, it gives me no satisfaction in declaring this for Microsoft's sake, but I am thrilled to be enjoying a PC that isn't hanging and pausing every time I ask it to do something. It's pretty exciting... [:-thumbu]

The one I saw a couple weeks ago was due to ceiling insulation being stuffed tightly into the soffits - virtually no soffit ventilation, which pretty much eliminates cross-ventilation. All the ridge vent or gable vent in the world won't work very well without a properly breathing soffit. Even prior to true soffit ventilation, there were usually enough gaps in soffits to provide decent cross-ventilation unless completely blocked by insulation.

Marc, I'm glad someone else is familiar with OpenOffice. I agree that it isn't as powerful as MS Office, but then if you consider the power of MS Office Suite, being as close third is pretty darn amazing - especially as a free open source product. It's well worth looking at and should be plenty for report writing. I was unsure that it was available for Mac and am glad you were able to confirm that it was. An interesting tidbit on Windows 7 - I've been building PCs from scratch for about 25 years and built about thirty of them between my own and my kids'. Along that road I've relied upon a local PC repair guy, when I hit a snag. I also call him for recommendations and advice. Typically with MS products he has always advised to wait a while because MS will work out bugs over a couple of service packs. When Windows 7 came out, I called him and for the first time EVER he said without any reservation, "GET IT IMMEDIATELY!" He confirmed what I already had heard - it is resource friendly and fast. Now one thing that shocked me and a lot of folks don't know - you can only upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista and NOT XP!!! In order to put Windows 7 on an XP machine, you have to format the hard drive and purchase the full blown version of 7, which is twice as expensive or get your hands on and install a VIsta upgrade prior to upgrading to 7. I found that FUNNY and a typical quirky Microsoft hurdle. I purchased a mini notebook about 7 months ago, which was just prior to the release of Windows 7 and you'll notice that NO minis ever came out in Vista. They all came out with XP even though Vista was the latest Windows version out. That's because XP was lighter and actually proved to be a much more stable platform. Vista was a beast and was as unpopular among techs as Windows ME was. Another thing that may be helpful to know - the newly released and free Microsoft Security Essentials (anti-virus and spyware protection) has gotten really decent independent reviews as being light and not a resource hog. I have personally found this to be true and have actually uninstalled my "paid for" antivirus and anti-spyware software from three of my four machines, even though they had months of license left, because they are running and especially surfing so much faster with Microsoft Security Essentials. It's great! One independent reviewer even claimed it caught a trojan none of the popular software did. And, inspite of this glowing endorsement, I'm, by no means, big Microsoft fan. They've just put out a couple of decent products in a row of late. One thing I did not realize about Mac until a couple weeks ago - had it not been for the anti-trust deal a while back and Bill Gates deduction that it was cheaper to bail out Mac than suffer the legal alternative, there would be no Mac. I did not understand this. I know there are a ton of graphic designers and photographers that swear by Mac and I have no doubt that in those arenas it is the ultimate. In fact, my cousin's husband, who is a photo journalist for the Southern Baptist Convention, of course, uses a Mac. I've never been able to bring myself to make that leap due to such limited software choices. Being a bit of a software junkie, I'm afraid I'll find it frustrating as hell to constantly discover that a software I want to try isn't even available for Mac. It is, however, nice that the dark virus developers never seem to target Mac. That's a big plus...

Marc, Rainwater entering the vent pipe is pretty much a non-event, when you consider how may drops actually fall cleanly within the 4" diameter circle. To put that concern in perspective, I inspected a 10 year old home where the builder forgot to install the continuous ridge vent. It had a 45 foot long 3" opening to the sky for ten years. Apparently they had cut through the cap shingles so it was not even noticeable from the ground. In spite of this gaping hole, the only telltale sign or affect was a slightly grayed 18" stripe down the length of the attic on the insulation and ceiling framing - no interior stains or fungal growth whatsoever. That was it. Of course, being at the peak, water runoff wasn't a factor at all. Drops literally had to fall through the opening to enter the attic. It was an interesting observation. I would have expected far greater consequences, had I not actually seen the end result for myself.

I honestly don't know if this works on a Mac or not, but it's worth looking into. Sun Micros Systems has out a free open source office suite which is available through openoffice.org. It pretty powerful and opens, views and saves docs from Word, Word Perfect, etc and saves them into it's own format or the original format. It also can convert docs to PDF and HTML, so it's wuite a suite. I didn't have much need to change horses, but I did find it pretty impressive, especailly when you can say goodbye to ever paying for word processor or spreadsheed software ever again.

Nice!.. Ran across this a couple weeks ago myself. The smell was a tip off before I ever even got a light on.

There ya go, Kurt. That was more my thinking too - something substantial (although I didn't know quite what), but short of replacement until such time as it makes more sense. A man after my own heart. It's hardly sleazy. it's just plain sensible in this case.

Gee whiz, I sure hope that photo wasn't of me, from during the two year period I was away from the forum...

Why is that always the case? It's like whenever the listing agent tells me the seller is a licensed electircian, I always think to myself, "Uh oh..." and it always ends up being an electrical hodge podge of minor violations. What's up with that? But back to traps. My favorite is when the disposal ends up accidentally serving as a trap - lovely...