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I dunno, I'm kinda likin' it. Just looked at the site in Firefox and it seems to work. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Jim, Yeah, I thought that's what he meant too. With those, they just basically cut a hole or slot out of the panel and fit it over the door or around the window. However, the window details are the same, no? OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yeah, it needs J-channel installed. Here's a link to a pretty decent metal siding installation manual that provides details. There's very little difference between detailing the windows in the horizontal stuff or the vertical stuff. The vertical directions are all the way in the back. Enjoy: http://www.gentekinc.com/images/genteku ... uide_G.pdf ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Well, Cory, if you think my face is cute you should see my keester. Yeah, every time I do that to someone the sponsor's have a new litter of kittens. Nah, I'm not offended and I don't think Terry is either; maybe he's just having a bad day. I have 'em. When I do, I usually kick someone here if the neighbor's dog isn't available. I know that. TIJ is here for all inspectors; new and seasoned, outgoing or reticent, good natured and bad natured. You do contribute. Whenever someone asks a question here and stimulates good technical discussion it helps their fellow inspectors. It's a learning environment and it's a place where folks can chill if they want to. The only real restrictions here religion and politics; discussions about religion and politics are forbidden here because they are just too inflammatory and have nothing to do with home inspection. Oh, and rudeness too; we don't take kindly to folks swaggering in, tossing their weight around, insulting folks and stinking up the joint - that's my exclusive purview. [] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's obviously an ectoplasmic discharge from a captured entity contained behind that wall. When there's something strange in yer neighborhood; who ya gonna call? Ghost Busters! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Well, It ain't worth folks gettin' their knickers in a twist over. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Scott, Is it a newer home? Maybe it's HardiTrim. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I've heard of a couple of cases where inspectors said that they were hassled and were accused of being inexperienced due to questions they'd posted on TIJ or other boards. I think that not only are such fears unfounded but the accusations are unfounded as well; one should never be criticized for seeking to improve one's knowledge. Something that you need to realize is that it doesn't matter whether you are in this gig a week or 40 years, you're still going to be learning something new every single day and you will never know it all; any buyer/consumer looking for that inspector is delusional and any inspector that claims that he does know it all is nothing but a bald faced liar. Let me put it in perspective; who are you more comfortable with - a doctor that's willing to ask his colleagues questions, does a lot of research into the latest and best techniques, and constantly strives to improve his or her skills, or someone who went to medical school 40 years ago and hasn't bothered to crack a medical journal since and hasn't a clue as to what the most current and best techniques are? You don't need to answer; we all know what the answer will be if you're answering honestly. I know folks are reticent to come on here and give their name because they're afraid that consumers hunting for a home inspector are going to perceive them as somehow inexperienced because they are asking questions. I've never found that to be the case. I get lots of calls from people that found my writings on the internet someplace and more than a few have told me that the reason that they chose me over other inspectors is because it's apparent I am constantly learning and seeking to contribute to improvement of the profession. Be up front with your clients about your experience and they'll think better of you for it. Try to hide the fact that you are new and they're only going to think that you are trying to put one over on them and then they'll have less confidence in your trustworthiness and abilities. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'm seeing dirt piled against the bottom of that veneer - if they're using lawn sprinklers, the water is going to migrate up into the veneer and cause it to slough. Earth against brickwork is a basically a watering system for the veneer and cheap brick won't last. Oklahoma, Don't they have some pretty good snows out that way. What are the consequences of leaving soil constantly covering brick and then tossing a 10-inch blanket of snow up against the veneer? Won't the moisture wicked up into the veneer literally cause the veneer to go to Aunt Sadie's when it freezes? Don't really know. Brick out here seems to be good quality and pretty durable and we don't see a lot of freeze thaw in the wall veneers - mostly because most houses have at least a 2ft. roof overhang. However, we do see lots of damage on chimneys where they have cracked crowns and they freeze above the roofline. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Picky, picky, picky!!! [:-bonc01] Bear with them, Guys; it's difficult to work fast when you're only about 6 inches tall and it takes a bunch of walking and jumping back and forth to hit the keys. They'll get there eventually. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Either: Week followed by year for Bryant code 1964 to 1979 Furnace is the 38th week of 1973. Compressor is 4th week of 1974. or Day and Night 70 and later Letter month followed by year of manufacture - beginning in 1970 which would be: Furnace is February 1974 Compressor is March 1971. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Now, This is the kind of spirited and educational technical discussion that we designed TIJ to be used for, lo those many (7) years ago. Keep it up guys! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

What he says. There are at least four of us here that use it. The online tutorials shorten the learning curve quite a bit.I can say the same for Inspect Express; in fact, I tried the Home Gauge sample and hated the look of the report and the feel of the program as I worked through it. It really doesn't matter; it's all a matter or individual preference and the better programs - Inspect Express, Home Gauge, Horizon, 3D, Inspect It - all give you a lot for the buck. However, if he's buying based on price and wants to get the cheapest thing out there he's probably going to struggle with whatever he gets anyway. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Joe, Have you tried adjusting your monitor settings - height, width, centering top-too-bottom and side-to-side - using the buttons on the monitor versus the screen settings in your program? When I last replaced my monitor, it was a week before I figured out that I had to physically adjust those settings in order to get stuff to display correctly. OT - OF!!! M.

Your report is your product. I'd never buy a reporting software based on cost; it would have to have every feature that I wanted in a software. If that means more expensive, so be it, I'd make it up by adding the cost into my fees. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, It's about 3.55 per inch. OT - OF!!! M.

Yeah, I know. They need a special moderator just to keep me from sidetracking everything. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yep, gnomes. I talked to Mike; apparently, some of the stuff he wants to do to improve the site won't work if he keeps it configured to completely fill the screen. OT - OF!!! M.

Hey All, TIJ no long fills up my monitor screen and I don't remember doing anything to change it. Is it just me, or have the programming gnomes up in B.C. been doing something with the site settings since I was last in here about 11:00 am? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

LOL, About 12 years ago, I inspected a home that had a big indoor pool. The pool heater was located in the garage. Don't inspect pools but I figured that I could inspect that gas-burning appliance installed in the garage though. I took the shroud off the heater and found a big 'ol hole through the back of the exchanger that was spewing CO into the garage. Above the garage was a bachelor's apartment where the owner's teenage son was living. Anyway, I wrote up the darned heater and the owner, an attorney, called me a few days later demanding that I retract what I'd written about the pool heater, "because it was outside of the standards." At the time he was quoting the ASHI standards to me and I was a NAHI member. He insisted that I had a choice of retracting what I wrote, paying for the heat exchanger that "I" had damaged or facing him in court. I pointed out to him that I wasn't even an ASHI member, that there were no licensing laws or mandated state SOP at the time, that the selling agent had stood there and watched me take that heater apart and discover the hole and that I was a retired army investigator and therefore probably had more credibility than a disgruntled lawyer/homeowner. When he began to get louder and tried to sound more menacing, I said to him, "Have you ever watched Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood? He said, "Yeah, why?" My response, "Can you say, "sit on it and rotate?" I hung up to the sound of him telling me how he was going to own me. I never heard another thing from the guy. I've been threatened by another homeowner - a builder actually - that threatened to sue me if I didn't retract what I'd written about some new homes they'd built where they'd mixed engineered lumber I-joists with sawn lumber rim boards and hadn't installed any spreader panels, squash blocks or web stiffeners at required locations. They'd claimed I was performing engineering. Heck, all I was doing was comparing what was there to the installation manual published by the joist manufacturer. A letter from my attorney, at a cost of $425 convinced them that, unless they wanted the local paper and owners of those hundreds of homes they'd built like that to learn about the reason for the suit, it would be prudent to leave me the hell alone. Never heard another peep out of them. They've since stopped mixing engineered lumber with sawn lumber in their floor platform systems. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I see those occasionally. That house started out post-on-pier. They dug out a basement hole and put the posts on footer pads - usually a big 'ol rock. then they filled in the area between the posts with a cripple wall and then placed forms below the cripple wall and poured a concrete wall up to the bottom of the cripple wall (sometimes right up around the sole plate of the cripple). Then they stripped the forms and covered the cripple wall framing with one-by on the outside and lath on the inside and parged both sides so the whole thing looks like one continuous wall. Now they had a basement. Later on, the posts rot out of the foundation walls, leaving a slot where the post used to be and the only thing holding them up are the cripple walls bearing on top of the foundation wall. Lots of times, those in-fill concrete walls don't have footings and without the posts bearing on the piers, and without a spread footing, they tend to settle. Sometimes they pour them around 4 by 8 posts instead of 4 by 4's and then the concrete on either side of where the post used to be will decide to settle in different directions because there's nothing tying in the wall on either side of the post. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It must be a soil condition thing. The owner of one of the biggest tank abatement companies around here - who is also known as "Mr. Oil" - says that any tank in the ground around here for 40 years or more is a leak waiting to happen. I used to use water-reactive paste and stick all oil tanks. Not any more, I was finding so many of them with significant amount of water in them that, unless the agent can tell me that for a fact the tank has been replaced within the past decade or so, I just automatically recommend they have a tank company come out, test the soil around the tank for VOC's, and then, if levels above the acceptable threshold are found, get the tank replaced and any contamination cleaned up. Even if the tank is new or newer, I still disclaim it as underground and uninspectable and recommend they make sure that they get the current owner's tank policy transferred to them with the sale of the house. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

If no one else is going to ask, then I have to. How does that happen if it's coated with oil on the inside? I'm just asking. Easy, water is heavier than oil. it displaces the oil and over time does its thing. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, A few weeks ago, I inspected a very nice custom house that was about 11 years old where the guy that applied the cast stone didn't use any flashings between the veneer and the siding, where no kickouts were used, where no through-wall flashings or weeps were used over overhead doors and foundation vents, etc.. The walls were rotting on the front of the house and the clients stopped the inspection and walked. Yesterday, I inspected a very nice new custom-built house where the faux stone guy did exactly the same thing; hell, I dunno, maybe it's the same contractor who is still in business. Anyway, this guide has been included as an attachment to the report. It'll be interesting to see what this custom builder's response will be. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Is there such a thing as a lightbulb that exceeds 1800 watts and had the normal sized socket? Any huge draw lights that I've ever seen have huge sockets. I've used 1500 watt heaters on 15-amp circuits that were loaded up with lighting, radios, computers and such and have never even tripped a breaker. I'm not sure why this is such a big deal. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike