mthomas1

Pretty much every liner manufacturer is going to specify a pre-slope below the liner, for example it's step 2 in the Oatey instructions here.

Firestone has a very nice on-line documentation system, for example here's the page with attachment layout information for various materials/applications: http://manual.fsbp.com/technicalresourc ... mentguide/

On that one, the garage door ended up on the roof across the street: http://gmy.news.yahoo.com/v/9293239

I looked at indicators, then installed these: http://www.autocloser.com/ Works exactly as advertised. I opted for the model with the motion sensor (probably safer than a conventional control), but I would not still install one if there were children in the household.

Originally Posted by Jeff Merritt the interNACHI site, reposted by permission: -------------- Since we last talked, Ideal discovered a software conflict that affects the testing of AFCI on the NEW dual protection style Siemens, Murrey and GE circuit breakers. We have worked with the engineers at these companies to resolve this issue and a free software upgrade is now available. The IDEAL models 61-059 and 61-165 are affected. We have had a shipping hold on these items since the problem was identified in February. We are now shipping product. Please ship your unit to Ideal San Diego for free software update and/ or repair or replacement. See attachment for the shipping address and be sure to include your return address. These will be returned to you upon upgrade. Please allow 14 days for turn around. Could you please also notify the other members of iNACH who own either of these testers and let them know that they should return them directly to the same address in the attachment above for free upgrade installation. Members who own the model IDEAL 61-058 ( the earlier version of the 61-059) can send these to the Ideal San Diego location with a check for $80 payable to ideal and they will receive a new 61-059. I hope this helps. Please feel free to call me directly if you have any additional questions regarding this return process. Send to IDEAL INDUSTRIES, INC. Att: AFCI Tester Upgrade 9650 Chesapeake Drive San Diego, CA 92123

New to me, anyway, at residential construction: fiber-cement panel system with plastic drainage-plane spacer material and plastic spacers between the panels. Each panels is about 2x4', attached to the underlying sheathing with six screws, with house wrap above the sheathing and a Brillo-pad like material with vertical channels creating a drainage plane. Can anyone identify the system, so I can run down the manufacturer's installation instructions? Also, it seems to me that the gaps in the spacers between panels are an invitation to insect entry and nesting. Is anyone aware of such a problem? Any other comments on this system, or inspecting it? Thanks. Image Insert: 48.48 KB Image Insert: 32.18 KB Image Insert: 17.27 KB Image Insert: 15.49 KB

From SoS's link: "Children are generally less knowledgeable about electrical products and their associated hazards than adults." From this afternoon's inspection: From Albert Einstein: "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."

Vulkem sealant But any good builder-oriented yard or supply house should have carry polyurethane sealants.

Kurt, did you use the gun or the pour grade on your copings?

For starters, anything that potentially compromises the grounding of a garage opener is a Bad Idea: if there is a fault at the opener you can energize the tracks... and the door. For an example of the bizarre stuff that can actually happen, consider this example of a when a series of wiring mistakes not only eliminated the EGC, but actually energized it! A defective cord, or one without a ground, or a cord with the grounding prong removed or broken off like these two (which both happen be sitting... in a garage) would compromise the ground and could result in an energized the door assembly which failed to trip a breaker if there was a wiring or equipment fault at the opener/light.

IMO, the underlying defect is that outlets located outside the bathrooms are powered from bathroom circuit(s). I'd write it that way, also noting as an FYI that GFCIs are powered from other GFCIs, and let the electrician sort it out.

Coming a bit late to this discussion, but it's the 80% AFUE furnaces that are "chimney friendly", not the Cat IV models.

Thanks. Lots to study there.

Recently ran across this AO Smith technical bulletin stating that insulation blankets are not needed on their storage type water heaters.

Here's Kurt's "saddle" style cricket:

I've seen plenty of "standard" Pushmatics, but this bus arrangement is new to me and I want to make sure I understand and report it properly. Is appears to me that what we have here is two separate 100A 240V buses, with each "section" controlled by the 100A breaker at the top of the buss (a sort of "split buss" equipment, as it were). However as I can't see the entire mechanical arrangement of the buss bars and their connections to the SEC's I'm not 100% certain. Is anyone here familiar with this panel? Image Insert: 158.64 KB Image Insert: 175.85 KB

Unexpected find of the week for me: checking the floor in front of the dishwasher, caught a toe-kick register that had been covered up by the cabinet installers.

Thanks - that's it in a nutshell.

If it's in a location were people are likely to step on it, I call it out. One reason: I know someone who badly cut their foot on the the knurled knob. Same for many types of after-market metal tread edges. One reason: my adult brother ended up in the emergency room after one neatly planed off the 3" of the bottom of his foot. The edge probably stuck up 1/32". It was enough... Same for top-hinged laundry chutes. One reason: a couple who were just utterly paranoid about this. I though they were nuts - till I later found out from the agent that their 3 year old daughter had died when she was strangled by the unrestrained lid of a toy box... ... built by her father as a birthday present. You can bet THAT re-calibrated my opinion of such concerns... And it's been this way of a lot of this sort of stuff: tempered glass in entry doors, anti-tip brackets and a few others - the experience has been having a client - as I start to give my rap about why this or that is a Bad Idea - roll up their sleeve and show me the scar or the place where they had plastic surgery after the scald that's been the wake-up call - I figure that if I run into people who have had the problem, it's a real concern and ought to be reported. YMMV. ---------- Loved this one last week: million dollar new construction, various fireplace problems, developer is going on about how he's not going to fix them if it's too expensive, his mason has done lots of them this way, no problems, he's never see a home inspector stick a camera up above the damper before, etc. Client is very politely not buying in. A few minutes later she mentions to me that some friends had recently built a VERY expensive home in CA, only to wake up to to a smoke filled bedroom after the first time they started a fire in the romantic bedroom fireplace... half of house destroyed, the rest smoke damaged... It was clear the developer was going to have some difficulty downplaying the fireplace problems.

"This type of floor register is a trip hazard when when located where people can step on it, for example it can collapse under the weight of a "stiletto" type heel." Image Insert: 17.31 KB

Because Homeguage has the ability to embed extensible comments (called "smart text") within other comments the program is extremely flexible, for example you can build your own "menu" system such as Electrical Panels Load side Isolation Bonding to create comments with only mouse or stylus input. For example this is the top level smart text which builds my comments for all findings related to any defect within panels (click to enlarge): Image Insert: 96.15 KB With this I can build this comment in a half-dozen mouse clicks (click to enlarge): Image Insert: 27.2 KB Note that there was nothing in Homeguage that forced my to structure the comment in that manner (Observation/Analysis/Recommendation) - that was entirely my own choice. I also have the choice, for example, of whether to include the "Analysis" section in a comment and a number of other ways to format the comment text on the fly. Also, the way I have Homeguage set up it produce BOTH narrative and checklist (as many as 7 checklists, actually ) format reports for every inspection client, with Homeguage automatically cross-referencing between them. The catch? I had toss the canned prose and smart text structure, and to "program" every snippet of smart text and keyboard in every word in every comment myself. (In many cases I write smart text extensions and additional comment text as needed AFTER keyboarding it into the report "freehand" the first time it's needed so as to get reports out quickly). I have it the way I like it - and more important, the way my clients and their attorneys like it- however it took hundreds of hours to get there. And while you don't HAVE to do any of this to use Homeguage, IMO this sort of extensibility is HG's real strength.

Another vote for the DMC-TZ series, I use a TZ1 bought refurb; refurb+3 year extended warranty is around the same price as the camera new with the manufacturer's warranty only. The biggest downside that the button which activates the menu is located right where were a right-handers thumb goes if you are trying to use the camera single handed. Mine has a folding sun-shield / LED protector I got for $5 at Radio Shack, fits and works perfectly. Mileage varies on resolution and I shoot at high res - SD cards are cheap, and being able to get into Photoshop and bring up shadowed detail has occasionally proved quite valuable. I also keep a Kodak dual-lens V570 in the bag, it's very handy for wide angel shots and it's tiny size is ideal for getting down floor registers, up above fireplace dampers and into cleanouts and the like and the wide-angle lens provides extreme depth of focus, as for example when trying to ID the material of this in-slab HVAC supply duct: Image Insert: 89.85 KB Image Insert: 93.07 KB

That web site is an abomination.

Thanks, I'll hunt it up.

Service disconnect is the 200A breaker in the panel (first pic) 4" to left of a "load-side" panel (second pic), bonded to same by conduit with ground wires to bushings at both ends (to the respective panels). Feeders run from 100A breaker at service panel to load side panel. Ground and neutral are not isolated at the load-side panel. When the load side panel is in such close proximity to the service panel, and bonded in this manner, is it still considered a "load-side panel", or is it now part of the "service equipment"? Image Insert: 148.35 KB Image Insert: 77.09 KB