hausdok

I'm assuming that is poorly translated Korean.LOL, When I was in Korea, I used to tell my wife that if Koreans really wanted their products to sell well in America or Britain they really needed to hire Americans to write their owner's manuals. I figured there was probably a boatload of money to be made doing just that. My wife thought I'd completely gone around the bend. I still think it's a good idea. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I guess I'll be the first to comment; I've tried but I can't see any spliced #10 wiring there anywhere; the wiring in that lower photo looks like it's larger than #10. Where is it - could you label the photo for electrically-challenged folks like me that can't figure it out? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I'm not sure why it's a surprise. Here on TIJ, we've pointed out before that the 1978 ban had been lifted in the early 1980's and that asbestos is still being used today. It's in commentary in the archives somewhere in here. What comes as a surprise to me - and I guess I have to do some more reading on the topic - is that there'd been a second attempt in 1989 to ban it. I'd thought that when the first ban was lifted they'd given up trying to ban it because, by then, a lot of manufacturers were phasing it out of their products. I'd like to see a list of who actually still uses it in their products. I'd guess that most U.S. manufacturers do not but that many Canadian manufacturers, where it was never considered banned, do. Is there such a list of manufacturers and their product anywhere? Does anyone know? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT;!!! Mike

Hi, Thanks for doing that, Mike. Jim, if I had an inkling of how to do it, I probably would have done it; but, then again, I'm not certain that I would have been allowed to archive it on TIJ without permission from J.H. Corp. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Apparently you did miss something. Certainly, their work for the buyer is also marketing and there is nothing wrong with catering to one's best "customers." However, this article, if you read it carefully, makes it very clear that the "best customers" that are being referred to in this article are real estate agents, and the premise of the article is how to keep that "customer" happy, not the people who the inspection is being done for. Have you read Herner vs. Housemaster? If not Bing it or Google it and check it out. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

By Mike O'Handley, Editor-TIJ There have been some big changes on the James Hardie siding site and in their siding products. Hardie has set up what they call the HardieZoneâ„¢ System and they now offer siding with specific performance attributes relative to the climate where one's home is being built. This gives builders the ability to get the right siding for a climate every time. Hardie bases their HardieZoneâ„¢ System on the eight individual climatic variables that primarily affect long-term performance of siding. Using these factors they've arrived at ten distinct climatic zones. Though the zones are different, they found common variables in certain regions and this has allowed them to engineer the HZ5 product line for zones 1 through 5 and the HZ10 product line for zones 6 through 10. Besides formulating two different siding products to be used in different climate zones, Hardie has put up on their website a whole new series of installation guides that are based on regions (North, South and West) and keyed to their various lap (HardiePlank), vertical (HardiePanel) and shingle (HardieShingle) products. Especially helpful are their new Best Practices Guides. In order to accommodate local building requirements, Hardie has regionalized the Best Practices Guides and keyed them to climate zones. These go into much more careful detail than their installation instructions ever did. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to download the entire guide for my region all at once; and I ended up downloading it as a series of eight separate PDF documents. These new guides are going to be a powerful weapon in a home inspector's arsenal when dealing with intransigent builders who stubbornly insist that their incorrect installation of a Hardie product meets all of the manufacturer's specifications and must therefore be in full compliance with codes.

I normally state in the report introduction which direction the house faces. Then, when I'm describing exterior components or drainage issues, if I mention that something is at the "back" I'll put the direction in parenthesis to reinforce the direction; for instance, I might say, "There is an elevated deck at the back (south) side of the house." After that, I'll reference direction for the sides and front and back when I'm describing the exterior and direction only when inside. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Oh Dear, Didn't realize I was dealing with a fellow who's got a Peck complex and is on a mission to wipe out all interior waterproofing companies. I surrender. There's no point in even attempting any further discussion here because it won't be heard. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It sounds like John is convinced that to achieve a dry basement you must have crack-free foundation walls and you must have every hole through that wall sealed tighter than a gnat's ass in order to keep out water; and, that as soon as you've done that, all that exterior stuff - properly sloped exterior grade, gutters, intact downspout receivers, downspouts that empty far enough away from the house, etc. all become superflous. I'm not saying what you are saying is wrong John; what I'm saying is that there are different drainage issues in different climates and you seem to be making a blanket generalization about all drainage and foundation walls that all one has to do is find and seal the entry point in order to facilitate a cure. After doing this 13 years in this climate, I'd have to say that's flawed logic 'cuz, around here at least, we see lots of basements that are perfectly dry that would blow your theory completely out of the water. You should come to Seattle and see what we experience in our climate where the frost line is never more than about 8 to 12 inches below grade but we can experience 90+ days of rain at a time. You'd see an amazing array of really old cracked foundation walls; some with cracks so big you can put your thumb into them - with perfectly dry basements. You'd also see newer houses with cracked basement walls that are perfectly dry. You'd see that, where we find those cracks and water infiltration, we usually find that the downspouts are dumping right next to the foundation, or the downspouts are emptying into old concrete crocks next to the foundation where the overdig has settled and caused the concrete drain tile to separate, or where some ijit has installed an irrigation system right next to the foundation and directed it at a yard that slopes continuously to the foundation at the point where the water is coming in. Many of the older houses where we see infiltration pre-date the use of footing drains; so, even when exterior drainage and downspouts are configured correctly and the foundation walls are free of cracks, well sealed around penetrations and coated with a thick intact layer of mastic, they still get infiltration up through the cold joint between the foundation wall and the floor slab until a footing drain is installed inside or outside (it's inside most of the time) to relieve that pressure. I could take you to a home that's 100 years old and elevated well above the street with drainage around it configured fine where an owner complained to me on a rainy January day that for the entire 11+ years he lived in that house water had trickled across his basement floor every time it rained. There were cracks as wide as my thumb in a couple of the basement walls where for a century constant moisture under the home had caused that glacial till to settle and the foundation to crack decades ago. I could show you where I found old leaking crocks next to the foundation and added bubbler pots in the middle of a very rainy afternoon and where, by the time I got done connecting the last one, the basement floor had completely dried up, despite those huge cracks and the fact that it was raining cats and dogs outside. I could also take you to homes with beautiful crack-free basement walls where every penetration had been carefully detailed inside and out and the foundation wall was carefully coated with sprayed on butyl and DeltaDrain membrane was carefully installed around the exterior of the foundation where water was was still coming in until someone finished properly grading the yard outside so that it drained away from the foundation, or until downspout receivers or bubbler pots were installed to move that water a mere 6ft away from those foundation walls, and nothing more, to achieve dry comfortable basements. All in a climate that some folks would consider a little bit wet. It's not just one thing that achieves dry basements; it's striking the right combination of proper exterior drainage and getting the roof water away from the house as well as properly detailing the foundation walls. If you can't see that, I'd say that the competency issue is on your end, not that of the inspectors you so easily trashed. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It must be in a new version. I have an Office Premium package from 2003 and that version of Word doesn't have it. OT - OF!!! M.

Google staph infection whirlpool tubs and you'll find everything you need. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Go here. This is the perfect little setup to put under a swale. http://www.varicore.com/PDF_Documents/I ... _guide.pdf ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

How old is the house? If it's older than about 1962-63 it's probably tin-coated copper. All of the solid aluminum wiring that I've ever seen was NM in either black or white; no rag wrap and none of the new modern yellow and orange. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, There's no need to "add" dirt if all you need to do is take some away. Why don't you and the neighbor get together and put a curtain drain right on the property line and then regrade both yards so they slope into a drainage swale located directly above the drain? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Gary, It's good to hear from you. Come on around more often! I'm not surprised that the government finally declared Libby a disaster area but I am surprised about how long it took them to finally get around to it. I guess they were waiting for the court case to end, figuring that a settlement with W.R. Grace would ensure that tax money didn't need to be spent. The trial ended a few weeks ago and the execs at W.R. Grace were cleared of any wrongdoing, so those people basically got screwed three ways from Sunday. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hmmm, I dunno, Scott! You've got issues![:-yuck] Click to Enlarge 34.96 KB

Hi, No, they work fine for me too. Mike B., have you got suggestion for this kind of thing. It happened a couple of times over the past couple of days. OT - OF!!! M.

Would one of you folks tell be how to fully populate a bulldog. Well, first you get a male bulldog, and then you....

Which takes us back to the original question; should it be a custom of this profession to routinely remind buyers that they have to do due diligence? If telling buyers to do a permit search at every inspection becomes an accepted custom of this profession, doesn't it then become a defacto standard and won't some buyers then try to blame the inspector if an inspector didn't think to tell them to do something that every Home Buying For Dummies books tells them to do anyway? I think everyone agrees that when there are indicators of unpermitted work or do-it-yourselfer slop jobs that suggesting that the client do a permit check is entirely reasonable; but to suggest it should be done as a matter of routine, even when the work is done so well that it looks like a pro did it or might be undetectable and wasn't revealed by the seller, who is the one that should have divulged it? I dunno. Seems like we're opening the door just a crack there and giving folks just one more thing to needlessly screw with us over. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Your comments weren't deleted, Michael, the topic was split into a separate topic. I left what was relavent to this topic here and split the rest off into a separate topc about how long home inspectors are responsible for their reports. That thread is here: https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum ... IC_ID=9891 OT - OF!!! M.

Jeez Louise! Ever had a penicillin shot? There's no such thing as "toxic" mold. There is mold fungi and for those out there that are allergic to it it is toxic; just like peanuts are "toxic" to those who are allergic to them. The "toxic mold threat" is a media invention. Please don't let yourself be spooked by journalists looking for a "scoop" and nutcases pushing junk science. You need to know something. Every single breath that you take, you inhale some mold spore. I swear, sometimes I think that if mold were 1/1000 as "toxic" as the media likes to make out, every one of us would be walking around with one of those oxygen bottles and a little clear rubber masks permanently stuck to our noses. Follow the EPA guidelines for cleaning the stuff up and go on with your life. You were in a crawlspace; well, if you weren't wearing breathing protection, depending on where you live and the number of deer mice in your area, you probably have more chance of coming down with Hanta Virus than getting sick from exposure to less mold than you'd find on old lettuce at the grocery market. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

yes - just feeling a little funny this am.I sea. OT - OF!!! M.

That's weird. It works fine for me; are you using IE or Firefox? OT - OF!!! M.

According to a recent Q & A column by home inspection know-it-all, Barry Stone, "many" do. It's hard to know what he means by many but the implication is that a lot of us recommend that clients research permits. I don't know about the rest of you, but the only time I'm concerned about whether a permit has been pulled for something is when the quality of the work is so bad that I suspect a couple of lobotomized chimps did the job. In my opinion, permit searches fall under the heading of due diligence and a prospective buyer ought to be doing it without any prodding by me. What say you; is Stone right or is he just making stuff up again?

Was the "daze" intentional? I can't tell. OT - OF!!! M.