hausdok

Please, Keep it on the critique and not on side discussions about how it's done where you are versus someone else's area. Yeah, I know, I'm guilty too with my comments about MS word; but that's my point - those are all side discussions. They are worthy of discussion but shouldn't be here. He asked for a critique - let's try to help him as best we can. OT - OF!!! M. P.S. Besides, he sent it to me as a pdf document initially; I had to ask him to re-send it unsecured in word so that I could reduce the picture size in order to upload it.

If the place has been re-sided and they used roofing felt behind the siding versus building paper, there may be petroleum distillates bleading out of the felt onto the siding. OT - OF!!! M.

This was kind of interesting. It was posted to my building science forum at JLC the other day. http://www.mikroshot.com/ ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, A Thermopride manufactured in the 1990's is like a Lexus manufactured in the 1990's; it's going to keep right on working really well for a very, very long time. I've looked at a Thermopride that was half a century old and it was in great shape. I don't think I've ever seen one that wasn't in great condition - even when they've been sadly neglected. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

No, some folks don't have word but just about every word processing program can open word. Word can be secured against editing. It's not hard at all. I know; if I can do it, a child could do it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

30 cubic yards of concrete and some green dye. [] OT - OF!!! M.

TIJ Sponsor's Press Release Dear Inspectors Journal Reader, Times have been tough…especially for inspectors and contractors. However, even in the best of times, most inspectors and contractors are overwhelmed by the business side of their business. Even when you go to the classes and join the groups, the “fixâ€

Hi All, Jason Zingler has donned his armor, taken some Zoloft and has asked me to post one of his reports for critique by the brethren (and sistren?). In order not to sting his psyche too badly, please do so before his meds wear off. [] Jason, my apologies, but you sent it to me in MS Word 2007 format and I have Word 2003. Some of the fonts got changed or lost their highlighting etc. Also, for future reference, the reason that you had trouble uploading it was the cover photo - it was almost a 1MG in size. After I resized it to 37Kb it uploaded right away. Go to Powertoys for Windows and download the free photo resizing tool there. OT - OF!!! M. Download Attachment: ZinglerReport.doc 1687.98 KB

By Michael Antoniak Appraiser Tony Bamert, Bamert & Associates, Champaign, IL, feels he’s been asked to assume some new and unwanted responsibilities on recent appraisal orders and wonders if his are isolated concerns or issues other appraisers are grappling with as well. “Traditionally, with any conventional appraisal, I’m not asked to touch the mechanical systems in a home in any way,â€

February 2005. For Nordyne, use the Tappan instructions. First three places are model and series followed by the two-digit year and two-digit month. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I made two sport jumps. Both in August 1977 with the Indianhead Sport Parachute Club at Camp Casey, Korea. First jump, no problem; second jump, a rookie jumpmaster tapped me out 30° outside of the wind cone on a windy day. Of the four of us who went out of that Huey, I got the closest to the DZ, which was a parade ground, but I found myself on an impact course with the high tension wires along the side of the road that borders the north side of the parade ground. I practically climped that left toggle to turn that chute and then had to tuck my legs way up toward my chin to miss the lines as the chute turned and then begin running with the wind. It took me right down onto the box of a big International Loadstar truck in a motor pool, dragged me along the roof and then off, where I got my feet underneath me long enough to put a big dent in the hood before I ended up on the ground with three broken metatarsals in my left foot. I never made a sport jump again. I don't regret it. Too loose - too cowboy. You know, some of those chimey stacks look tall enough that, with the right kind of a rig, one could probably base jump from them - or end up an omelette. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'm going to be a little bit lazy and ask the brethren a question this morning without exhausting my search first. The question is - is there a rule requiring a protective balustrade of some type around the perimeter of a deep exterior egress-type window well? I had one yesterday that was about 6ft. wide by 5ft. deep built from those stackable segmented concrete blocks. No balustrade around it; just some evergreen shrubs planted relatively close together. Obviously, when those grow larger they're going to form an almost impenetrable barrier around the well, but......is there a rule that says we have to have something more substantial. Waddaya say? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

A reader challenges Barry Stone's assertion that a cracked heat exchanger is dangerous and says that a cracked heat exchanger does not allow CO into a home because it's under pressure. Read Stone's answer here.

In this Ohio case, a seller disclosed some basement water intrusion and characterized it as "minor." The buyer's agent urged the buyer to have the home inspected but the buyer declined and agreed to an "as is" sale. After the buyer moved in and the basement flooded, the buyer sued the seller, alleging fraud. The court found in favor of the seller. To read more about this case, click here.

Yep, Did some of that too; 118th MP Co.(Abn), Ft. Bragg. Those were the best days of our lives, eh? Gary is right though; you get away from something for a while and then you go back to it and it scares the crap out of you. When I was going through the Q-course at Bragg in '89, we did a nighttime equipment jump into Camp McCall. Our stick was sitting there in rig waiting to board one of the birds when one of the Tacs came over, pointed to our stick and the one next to it and said, "You guys're in for a treat. You're gonna get to jump a gooney bird!" He then got us on our feet and marched us down the line to a CIA DC3 that was being retired. Getting on that thing was a b***h! No walk-on ramp; we had to climb up a wood ramp in full combat gear with packs and weapons bag. Then, unlike WWII, we didn't have any sling seats to sit in - the interior was baby-butt-slick stainless steel, no rivits, no hold-downs, nothing to hang onto - it was all set up for sliding crates out the door really quick. We had to sit on the floor, nested like a bunch of stacking chairs, between the guy's legs behind us. On the way to the DZ, it had been 12 years since I'd left Bragg. Unlike 1977 at Bragg, I wasn't raring to go. Instead, I was sitting there on that floor scared sh**less, trying not to puke and asking myself if I'd lost my friggin' mind getting back into that stuff after so long. It was so cramped in there that by the time the end of the stick was out the door, we were past the end of the DZ. I took the top six feet out of a pine tree and got scratched up pretty good. One of my team members wasn't so lucky; he ended up hung up about 30ft. off the ground with a dislocated shoulder and a broken jaw and had to recycle. It's funny how, even if we're scared as hell, we still do the stuff that we do anyway, because it's our job and who we are. Today, they'd probably have to use a blow torch to get me to let go of that ladder cage and walk out on one of those cans again. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I'd bet it's ABS waste pipe expanding and contracting. Whenever my wife is running water in the kitchen the ABS pipes that pass over the ceilings of my office expand and contract and make a sound that's identical to the sound of water dripping on the ceiling. The black pipe extends above the roof where the sun heats it up for hours every day and it takes on heat from the house. Then the sun goes down and it starts to contract. Tick, tick, tick, tick...... ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, The ones in the photo above are 25 X 110 (106' really) but the average farmer opts for a 20-40, 20-60, or 25-75. High-moisture haylage, mostly. Sometimes corn or grain. The ones we put up on the roof of the Pabst brewery in Newark were 20-60's and hold hops. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Read the rest of it, I posted it too early by mistake and you responded before I'd finished. Ironically, I only fell once while doing this; from the ladder into the trough - a distance of about 6ft. It was Thanksgiving weekend 1965. The structure was up on the jacks and I missed my footing and fell onto the corner of the loader opening - a piece of sheet metal about 3/8 inch thick. It never tore my jacket but it knocked the wind out of me and punched a hole in my back just below my rib cage large enough for a man to put his rolled-up fist in. Al couldn't stand the sight of blood; when I rolled off that thing and into the trough he came running over, jerked me to my feet and asked me if I was OK. I was gasping for air, pointed to my back and just kept trying to catch my wind. Al lifted up my coat, I heard, "Oh my G....," and he passed out and went down like he'd been floored by Sonny Liston. The old man just growled, "Come-on, get in the car, let's get you sewn up so I can get back here. We're already behind schedule. Someone wake Al up and let's get this next ring on." Never fell again until 2000 when I went off that friggin roof. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Really Guys, When you work high you are conscious of the height but you don't really give it a lot of thought. If you did, you wouldn't be able to move. I started at 11-1/2 building these for my father. Click to Enlarge 43.89 KB We built the roof first, as shown in the picture, attached the ladder cage, and then jacked them up 5ft. at a time. Click to Enlarge 10.97 KB When we reached height, the bottom ring was tied into the foundation and then the vertical stiffeners were added. Once those were on, I was sent up in a bosun's chair with a 5-gallon pump sprayer full of soapy water and the structure was pressurized to about 10psi. They'd run me all the way up and then back and forth, first around one way until I'd reached the ladder, then lower me 5ft. and run be around the other way, as I soap tested the joints for air leaks. If I found a leak, I'd pull a 3/4-inch wrench out of a bolt bag tied to my belt and snug the bolt up until the leak stopped. Sometimes I had to loosen up the seam, take a putty knife, push some extra butyl into the joint and then snug it back up again. Once we got done soap testing, we had to go up on top, remove the dolly pivot, lower the dolly and block and tackle and then install the roof cage and handrails. Click to Enlarge 48.55 KB To install the roof cage, we had to, one-by-one, remove the nuts for the legs for the roof cage, put the brackets on and then add the nuts and washers. If we didn't do it carefully and a bolt dropped out, we had to take a long stick with a gob of butyl on it, stick a bolt in the goop, and then lean inside the center hatch upside down and reach out and stick the bolt up through the hole while the other guy stood out there on the roof waiting for the bolt to come up through the hole so he could capture it with the bracket, washer and nut. Once all the brackets were on, the roof cage was unpacked from it's bag, which had been hung on the side of the ladder cage, and the roof cage was assembled and tightened. After that, we'd unpack the breather valves and install them on the roof (There are huge polypropylene breather bags inside these things that are inflated by breather valves to minimize air infiltration.). Once everything was assembled, we climbed down. It was in the days before OSHA and we didn't have any fancy harnesses. We'd tie a length of sisal rope off around our waist and to the top of the ladder cage and then walk out on that roof using the nuts to gain purchase on that glass-coated steel roof. My Dad was the G.C. and at first wouldn't let me do it. I used to catch flak from the guys working for my Dad because I was the boss' kid and they'd taunt me about being a Daddy's boy 'cuz I wasn't going up and wasn't carrying my weight. My Uncle Al was job site foreman and my Dad wasn't always there, so I just bugged the hell out of Al until he let me do it. He caught holy hell for it when the old man found out but after that all the old man said was, G** damn it, Mike, don't you ever tell your mother that you were allowed to go up in that chair or put on one of those cages or she'll cut my n**s off." The first couple of times I did it, my knees were shaking so bad that my teeth rattled. After that, my nerves settled down. You learn to concentrate on the job at hand and on not making a mistake. Focus really well on doing the job and you realize that you're safe and that the height is meaningless; at the same time you know that if you screw it up it becomes meaningless really, really fast, so you don't allow your attention to flag, no matter how many times you do it. To us. That scaffolding looks pretty rickety. To that steeplejack it's just another day at work. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Regardless of the list serve, Meetings are announced well ahead of time on the state website at: http://www.dol.wa.gov/business/homeinsp ... tings.html ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

To anyone that's interested and has the time, there's a board meeting today at 0930 hrs at the Doubletree In Seatac. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Brad, I talked to Rhonda yesterday. DOL has a whole group of investigators that are charged with investigating violations of the rules. One of those is assigned to do home inspections and is a retired cop. He's going to be auditing training courses in order to get up to speed and the board members will help too. I don't think Soumi will have much luck moving that guy. If he was a good cop, he'll be fair and impartial. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

ATLANTA, Dec. 7 Buyers Protection Group, Inc. ("BPG"), an Atlanta-based real estate services firm, has completed its acquisition of two businesses from LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc. ("LandAmerica"). The acquisition, which recently received regulatory approval, provides BPG with home warranty operations in 30 states and home inspection services in 14 states. The acquired companies will be transitioning to the BPG name in January. With a focus on the top 30 housing markets, BPG will maintain dual operations centers in Burbank, CA and Alpharetta, GA. The company currently has 280 employees and is expanding its sales force and home inspection professionals as part of a controlled expansion strategy. "Both companies have solid reputations and more than two decades of experience helping consumers and real estate professionals with their home purchase transactions," said BPG President and CEO, Revell Fraser. "Our ability to maintain strong local relationships and a healthy financial foundation has enabled us to take an independent path and purchase the companies." The home warranty and home inspection companies were previously owned by LandAmerica, a large real estate services company which filed for bankruptcy in November 2008, primarily due to problems in its title insurance and 1031 Exchange businesses. "Despite the financial struggles with LandAmerica and severe decline in the housing industry, the Home Warranty and Inspection subsidiaries remained profitable," added Fraser. "We were doing well in a very difficult environment and our employees remained committed to the business, so it was a natural decision to pursue buying the companies." LandAmerica Home Warranty Company, founded in 1987, provides one-year home warranties with significant concentrations in AZ, CA, and TX. LandAmerica began investing in the home inspection business in 2001, and is now the nation's largest employee-based residential and commercial inspection company. BPG partnered with The Stephens Group, a family-owned investment firm, on the transaction. The Company was advised by Croft & Bender LLC and Miller & Martin PLLC. # # # # Source: Buyers Protection Group via PR News Wire

So, I don't remember. Did we ever post that write up? OT - OF!!! M.

Reprinted with permission from Ebuild New Product News Scientists addressing an early November conference in Tampa, Fla., on defective Chinese drywall have offered a more detailed explanation of why the material produces gases that corrode copper elements in buildings, such as wiring and air conditioner coils. According to reporters who attended the “Technical Symposium on Corrosive Imported Drywall,â€