hausdok

Nah, I've still got my Baja. As far as I'm concerned, it's the perfect vehicle for this gig. Besides, my wife won't let me use her X3 for the job. Come to think of it, she doesn't let me drive that thing at all....ever. OT - OF!!! M.

Looks like you've given the Devwave folks a mark to strive for. OT - OF!!! M.

If it's still available, check out Picture Drop for Word from Devwave. It's the photo utility that's built into the Inspect Express program. just edit your photos in photo draw or whatever with the little arrows and captions and such and then save them. Then, as you write the report and want to insert a photo, put your cursor where you want it to go, click insert word wrap photo form file and it drops it right where you want it. At that point, if you want to, you can move it around with your cursor, modify the border, etc. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi All, OK, the inspector that submitted that report for your critique has asked me to post a response. Please, if you think you know who this is, keep it to yourself. Here is the response: Hi To All, I would like to thank each one of you for commenting on the report. It is an old ITA report form that I used at one time and I was thinking about going back to using. The reason is that there is inspectors out there that finished there report on site I am loosing inspections because I don’t. The realtors have their clients believing that the report should be finished there on site. I am looking at this report to try to print on site I am not good at typing and English along with spelling where my worse grades in school. This is not the only report system I have; the other one is word base and I can drop photos in with the comments. The problem is it takes me 3 to 4 hours to get the report out. I cannot get the program to make the changes in the program I want changed along with the boilerplating comments I want to use. Also the word program with not let me make templates that can be used with the start up page. The ITA program will. The bad side is the drop down boxes for the boilerplating only allows two sentences to be stored. So I have to make changes to some of the comments I have pick up from you good folks here at TIJ Kurt You are right about the "appears to be satisfactory" language. It is some of the Items I have to change. A lot of the wording is from what I was using a few years back. What was some of the comments you changed after you seen the photos? “I did not like the photos being separate from the comments; it seemed like there are two reports; one with comments, one with photos. It is the problem with that particular software; I think it provides disjointed reports.â€

Editor's Note: The following was submitted by Master Electrician Jim Simmons (User name Mr. Electric). Thanks Jim for contributing to the knowledge enrichment of the TIJ family. Mr. Electric says: This is a job I was inspecting recently. When home owners and siding installers get involved, it doesn't get much worse (see meter base and mast). Then they have GFCI breakers in the panel that won't test (because the neutrals do not connect to anything), then the double tapped neutral, then the dryer wire is splices to #12 wire (30 amp circuit), then the attic at the cans and fan they added. Anyone say fire!!! How about homeowner insurance - would they want this fixed??? Anyone see a need for electrical inspections when a home is sold???? Enjoy (the best way to view them is to download to a file then view). Click to Enlarge 66.5 KB Click to Enlarge 46.85 KB Click to Enlarge 33.97 KB Click to Enlarge 27.32 KB Click to Enlarge 23.74 KB Click to Enlarge 41.88 KB Click to Enlarge 61.09 KB Click to Enlarge 45.08 KB Click to Enlarge 58.01 KB Click to Enlarge 38.69 KB Here is my inspection report so you can see the other issues (customer name removed), and what my report to the owner looks like. Download Attachment: MrElectricInspectionReport.doc 141.75 KB Jim P. Simmons Mr. Electric 360-705-4225[/i]

Well, I've pretty much stayed out of this and other report-writing imbroglios, because I write the way I write and no amount of criticism is likely to make me change my style. These days, fully 90% of my customer base is foreign-born techies that actually need more description than the average person to understand how these things (houses) work. They seem to prefer the tedious explanations that everyone hates. In fact, it's the very short, non-technical explanations that they always seem to have the most questions about afterward. They do wish that I'd do the photo thingy, though. One of these days. That said, this does give me an opportunity to plug TIJ's sponsor, DevWave and their Inspect Express report writing software. The report format that Chris likes is Inspect Express and it runs in Word. It's designed specifically for those folks who have a hard time typing and all of the extra garbage that clutters up most report formats has been stripped out of it. One follows the report template, makes choices from drop downs and the software combines the choices with pre-written lead ins to form full, complete and, for the most part, correct sentences that describe the home; then one chooses the boilerplate to plug into the report. Basically, it garners all of the info necessary to ensure your report is in full compliance, information wise, with most association standards of practice, and then immediately after the description of a section is plugged in you can use the observations drop-downs to insert your boilerplate; that way, the descriptions of components and the observations aren't all intermixed and info is easy to find. For this inspector, used in narrative mode, it would build a narrative description of the home that would likely be better written than his own. With the assistance of a decent writer - perhaps a junior-high English teacher doing the work part-time - he could create his own grammatically correct and properly spelled boilerplate that's unique to his style, plug that into the boilerplate and probably see a huge difference in the reaction of his customers to his reports. The way I do my reports is to go completely through the program first using the pre-loaded descriptions and boilerplate. Once that's done, I go back in and re-read it from the beginning and edit the text to customize it to the house. Writer, if you're interested in learning more, check out Inspect Express by contacting Mike Brown for a demo at mike@devwave.com. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hmm, Spend $2000 to get a $1500 credit for a garage when all it takes is changing out $40 worth of pipe? OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, One two-pole 40-amp circuit (it draws a little over 37 amps). I don't have a photo but the in-wall cabinets looked very similar to the Bio-Radiant heaters with the switch hidden behind a cover. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Underlayment aside, I'd be concerned that the Bruce floor needs to be able to expand/contract independent of another floor membrane that itself will have some movement. I thought Bruce was one of those floating floors that's secured with staples so that it can move around as it needs to. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Looks like a level OT - OF!!! M.

Hi All, Had an interesting new home inspection yesterday. The home is heated mostly with in-wall forced-air hydronic heaters and in-floor hydronic radiant heat that uses an electric mini-boiler for heat. It's the first time I've seen this system. The client had remarked to me that her heat and hot water was supplied by an "on-demand" type water heater, so I'd expected to find a tankless type water heater under the house in the crawl. Instead, I found a conventional electric tank-type 50-gallon water heater next to an electric 9Kw mini-boiler that heats the water that's circulated to the wall heaters and the floor heat. I took the shroud off the boiler to get a look at its inner workings. It looks like it's essentially a small coil tank about 4 inches in diameter and about 18-inches long with a total of 3 heating elements (1 on top and 2 on the bottom) heating the water very quickly as soon as there's a demand ordered from one of the heating circuits. The system heats up fast - a lot faster than a hydronic system run off of a conventional water heater tank heats up; I'm just wondering whether the cost will be prohibitive - maybe not in the Seattle area with our comparatively mild winters. The system is made by Electro-Industries Inc. in Monticello, MN. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Brad, You were up until the 2006 version of the code when that requirement was removed. I'm not sure why they removed it. Given the amount of damage I constantly find caused around here by use of single-walled vents in cold areas, you'd think the HVAC code gurus would have known better. I usually point out to the client that until the last go-round a double-walled vent was mandated, explain why, and recommend that, despite the new rule, they consider having one installed at their own expense or at least formally ask the HVAC guy to replace it so that they'll have it on record if something goes amiss later on. So far, I've seen two 1-year old furnaces with single-walled vents where there has been a lot of excess condensation taking place. I think this is one of those things that they'll eventually have to do an about-face on. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yep, that's probably because someone cobbled an addition onto that structure. OT - OF!!! M.

You would think, but it's not. They are a simple triangle. Depending on whether it's a 4-inch or 6-inch lookout, it's made up of a 2 by 6, 3 by 6, 2 by 8 or 3 by 8 vertical leg secured to the side of the structure as I stated above with a horizontal member and a diagonal brace secured to the vertical leg. They're remarkably resilient; I've seen some that are over a hundred years old and they're still in great shape. It really depends on the care they get over their lifetime. On the other hand, I've seen new ones on installed on 10-year old homes that were called Craftsman Inspired" and they've already begun to rot. Inspired by craftsmen I suppose but not made by real craftsmen. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

So now you've got nice springboards for an overhang. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, What you don't know is if there's a drain under that pea gravel. A sealed crawlspace like that needs a drain or it becomes a swimming pool liner filled with gravel and whatever else drains into that gravel. I'd recommend that they fix the leak, use a long piece of rebar to punch that barrier material in a few dozen places, install a drain to the outside, put down another barrier on top of that pea gravel and seal it to the barrier material at the walls, make sure the plastic at the walls is sealed to the walls but doesn't extend up over the top of the foundation, and then connect the drain to the barrier. Once that's done, clear the mesh so that the air in there can be conditioned and things can dry out, and then treat all of that wood with a fungicide (BoraCare or TimBor) to make sure that the fungi is knocked back. What's up with the repair scabbed onto the end of that beam? Did they fail to isolate the end of the beams from the concrete and it came under attack? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Because I'm in the same market as Rob and I know old houses here. It's not a purlin. In order to shield the walls from the rain, most old homes here have deep gable overhangs and eaves that are at least two feet deep. Lookouts are used to support those. I don't know about Illinois but Bungalows and Craftsmans here aren't built with purlins. About the only time I've ever seen purlins here they were part of the framing system on an A-frame homes or real log homes and then they were a problem. Purlins here are a sure-fire formula for disaster because they'll absorb a lot of moisture through the end grain and, during the rainy season which is about 6 months of the year sometimes, that moisture gets pulled deep into the member. That's when they come under attack from rot and insects. We have a bug out here that trolls for targets of convenience like rotting lookouts or purlins - the Pacific Dampwood Termite. They don't nest in very large colonies but they are big and they can do a lot of damage to a home with purlins. I had an A-frame about a year ago where the purlins looked fine from the ground but the rot and PDWT had moved well beyond the gable end wall into the framing. Sometimes we'll have more modern houses built in the 60's or 70's here where the architect thought it was a good idea to extend 6 by 12 beams through the walls a couple of feet, and out beyond the barge rafters, to simulate the appearance of lookouts. Those too are often rotting and hollowed out by critters. The only thing holding that piece of wood to the house now is a few nails driven into the end grain from the backside of the vertical portion of the lookout that's concealed behind the siding and is attached to the house. That plus a few nails toe nailed into it from that Barge rafter. Without that diagonal brace it's not holding up squat and if it's rotten one can probably yank it off by hand. The roof sheathing that's overhanging the end of the house is what's holding up that barge rafter now. That's really only every other board because that roof would have originally been decked with skip and the short fill-in pieces only extend a few inches beyond the gable end rafter and don't provide any support. Strike that. Correction; What I said above about stiffness of the overhang only applies if it's still got the original cedar shingle deck under whatever is there now. If the roof has ever been stripped down to the framing for a re-roof with asphalt, they've probably decked it with plywood or OSB, which will impart a little additional stiffness and resistance to bending than the skip can. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, I've had two. One was a custom-built home in Blueridge and the other was a custom-built home down on Lake Samammish. One homeowner had a creeper down there and it was lit with flourescent lighting. The home in Blueridge had a return air duct that ran from the second floor ceiling straight down to the crawl and little wall registers on the first floor with open boots under the floor joists. The thing that I don't like about them is the amount of dust all over everything in the crawl. On one home, the owner's young children found that the register in the dining room was a good place to dump all the stuff that they didn't like when mom was out of the room. The stuff was growing whiskers and everyone in the house was breathing whatever kind of yuck was being given off by the fungi growing all over that old food. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It is absolutely not a purlin - not even close. OT - OF!!! M.

That's right! I was wracking my soggy gray matter trying to remember where knew that name from. I had one of those white behemoths on top of the first inspection van I had. I swear it must have cost me 10 mpg. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nope, Only have the one and I rarely crack it's cover. I bet I haven't opened it 50 times in the past 13 years. I just read a ton of crap and pick stuff up here and there. Some of it's good, some of it's bad. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Yeah, I got them that time too. Maybe I wasn't going deep enough; I see that there are "pictures pages." OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yeah, they have a purpose; to support the overhang. There are typically 3 on a small gable and 5 on a large one. They look beefy but are typically secured to the building with mongo-sized spikes driven through the exterior sheathing into blocks in the wall cavity. Sometimes there are huge lags from the backside. Sometimes they're just toe-nailed to the sheathing without any blocks in the wall cavity and destined to fail. Lots of aluminum and vinyl siding guys yank off the diagonal portion because it gets in their way and then the eaves start to sag more, and more, and more.... ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

OK, I'm not certain what happened there. The report he sent me has photos but the photos apparently failed to upload with the report to the library. Mike Brown, can you help me figure out what's going on with this one? OT - OF!!! M.

The choice is up to you. I used lookout because it's the nomenclature used to describe that detail in old craftsman era texts. This is no-doubt one of the many craftsman-era homes we see around here on a daily basis. From the Illustrated Dictionary of Building Materials and Techniques Corbel 1. A decorative wooden bracket used to support a projecting weight, such as a shelf or countertop. 2. Any weight-supporting structure projecting horizontally out from a vertical surface. Lookout 1. A structural member running from the outside wall to the lower end of a rafter; used to support the plancier or soffit. 2. In a gable roof, a horizontal member attached to the last two rafters at the gable end and extending out to support the barge rafter. 3. A short wooden bracket that supports the overhanging portion of a second story. OT - OF!!! M.