hausdok

Yep, Draft issue. That's a 90° elbow in a single-walled vent in an unheated garage. Those gases are slowing down and cooling too rapidly and condensing in that vent. What's the rule? No bend greater than 45° but one bend of 60° is allowed - isn't it? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike.

Hi, I couldn't care less who makes it. They are really outside the scope by my contract but the wiring and plumbing is not so I check them and run them the same way I check and run a built-in dishwasher. I'm only interested in knowing if the danged thing works ('cuz it's a permanently installed/fixed appliance) and whether it's properly wired and plumbed and leak-free. I warn folks up front that we aren't there for the "accessories" and that we'll turn them on to see if they work, will check to ensure that they are properly plumbed and wired, but won't guarantee them beyond the time it takes to get in my car and back out of the driveway. Folks seem to get that. Yung fills them all to at least two inches above the jets and then fires 'em up. If a jet or two isn't working and she can't figure it out, she reports it to me; if it won't circulate for beans, she reports it to me; if it won't drain, she reports it to me; etc.. Because of the potential liability involved, if she sees goop come out of the pipes, she reports that to me as well. When I finally get to that part of the house I remove the access cover, check to see that the thing is properly plumbed and wired (from what I can tell by looking through a 1ft. by 1ft. door), make sure it isn't leaking into the area beneath, and that it's GFCI protected. We tell them not to use it until they sanitize it and leaks, poor circulation, jets that don't work, sloppy wiring, sloppy plumbing, poor water volume, poor drainage, etc. are reported in either the plumbing or electrical sections, depending on which applies. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

According to an article in today's online version of the Wall Street Journal, a new law in Austin Texas that requires owners of homes that are more than ten years old to get an energy audit and provide that information to the sellers is causing confusion over the differences between an energy audit and a home inspection. To read more, click here.

Hmm, I see a lot of those suckers. I'm thinking that if a smart guy were to come up with a really good way to thoroughly clean and sanitize these entire systems, including the air pipes, while doing it onsite without pulling them out - there's money to be made there. OT - OF!!! M.

Not so long ago, Canadian home remodeling guru, Mike Holmes made his first foray into the home inspection arena with the establishment of a home inspection company that carries his name in Ontario, Canada. Holmes, who has the ability to do something that a home inspector doesn't - tear into the walls of a home - frequently rails about the incompetence of home inspectors, though he's never been one himself. This article explores the Mike Holmes phenomenon.

Hi, I just blew up the photo to look at it; it looks like there is a round pattern, like a bucket, with a dark stain where a chemical had run down the side and followed the rim and then whatever it was had spread out across the floor and was rinsed into the drain. I'll bet their janitor has been placing a heavy can of cleaning solution right there while cleaning that toilet and the chemical he's using has been sloshing over the edge onto the floor. When he gets done, he just rinses the splashover down the drain. There's probably some kind of emulsifier in the detergent that's reacting with the asphalt in those tiles. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Well, the article doesn't state how long a period elapsed between when the inspector checked the tub and when those folks took possession and used it. Could the home have been vacant and nobody filled the tub in such a long time that there was time for the crud to develop? If there was, then Barry is talking through his hat, isn't he? Then there's Barry telling them how to clean the circulation system - I think that's, frankly, nuts. What all home buyers should know is that whirlpool tubs are a prime source for infection and they all need to be properly cleaned and disinfected when one takes possession of a house. Even when you don't see the black gunk, there can still be bacteria there and these things have the real potential to spread MRSA. Check out the information sources at this search string: http://www.bing.com/search?q=staph+infe ... -SearchBox I make it a practice to warn folks that whirlpool tubs can be the source of staph infections and I recommend they either get on the net and do some research to find the proper way to clean and sanitize one of these systems before they use it or they call a professional to do it for them. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Texas Home Inspector Joe Hanselka has been nominated to be included on a list of the "Crossroads most Fascinating" people; a list compiled annually by the Victoria Advocate, Texas' second oldest newspaper. From a list of more than 60 names submitted, Hanselka has made the top 25 cut for the unique, humorous style he uses to inform and entertain would-be home buyers. Readers of the VA will now boil that list down to those they consider to be the top 5 candidates and list them from #1 for most fascinating to #5 for fifth most fascinating. Good Luck Joe! To read more, click here.

There was a time when his column seemed to offer homeowners primarily tips on home maintenance and such; but now Barry Stone's columns seem, with much more frequency, to be opinions proferred about inspector liability, with only a complainant's side of the story and no input from the inspectors involved. Is that fair? Isn't it sort of like Judge Judy rendering a decision in her court without ever allowing the accused to open his mouth? Have you ever wondered whether these snipits of "advice" have resulted in the complainer initiating a lawsuit against a home inspector? Today Judge Barry rules on whirlpool tub crud, undersink mold and heat exchanger cracks. What would your own rulings have been?

Is it a heated bath? Could it be a situation where it's a cold basement bathroom and someone had been plugging in an electric space heater while doing their duty and the heater was directing hot air down onto those asphalt tiles and causing them to discolor? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Nobody has said that they do. The IP's initial question wasn't about grounding; it was specifically, "I've never seen grounded conductors in this condition before. What may have caused this?" He used the correct technical term to describe those conductors, as he should have. We all know (or should know) what folks mean when they use the colloquial term "neutrals" to refer to grounded conductors or "grounds" to refer to equipment-grounding conductors but I don't think we should encourage folks to use colloquialisms when there is a correct technical term. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike (Joshua Chamberlain, where are you when I need you?)

Hi Scott, Respectfully, it doesn't make a difference where they are; they are still referred to as "grounded" conductors (what you call neutrals) as opposed to equipment-grounding conductors (what you call grounds). ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I had a house with a pool the week before last; I think it was the 6th pool I've seen in 13 years. The house was built in 1960 and is heated hydronically. They've been using the house boiler to heat both the pool and the house since 1960. There are three zones in the house and the fourth zone is the pool. The thermostat for the pool is removed and the pool circuit is activated by twisting a couple of wires together when one wants to heat the pool. Large copper pipes connect the house boiler to the pool. None of the metal pool ladders, the diving board frame, metal window frames or the steel posts supporting the roof were bonded. Beneath the diving board, a junction box for a pool light was wide open and the wires were hanging out of the box and had been capped off with a couple of plastic wire nuts. Some horse's ass with teeth had decided to replace a circulator motor between the pool and a big filter cartridge in one corner of the pool house by cobbling a motor into the system with a couple of pieces of plastic pipe. Click to Enlarge 49.25 KB The motor was sitting, unbolted and ungrounded on a flat concrete paver on the pool deck less than 10ft. from the edge of the pool and was wired by a piece of NM cable that the genius had run into the side of a light fixture on the wall, run across the concrete deck and then spliced in the open, outside of the terminal recess on the motor, without any kind of strain relief. Click to Enlarge 48.29 KB You can's see that in the pictures because it's out-of-frame in one corner next to a big woodpile and chopping block. Yep, they store wood in the pool house and even cut it up there with an ax. The pool "house" was even funkier. The back yard had been notched out of a pretty steep hillside. They'd placed a high concrete retaining wall about 15ft. inside of the property line. About 8ft. from the retaining wall they'd placed a line of steel posts supporting a long 4 by 12 beam. Resting on top of the beam and running perpendicular to it are 2 by 12 rafters on 2ft. centers with a span of 25 feet 6 inches. These extend under the overhanging eaves and rest on a ledger nailed to the side of the house and there aren't any hangers. The "roof" is barely pitched at all and is covered by clear, corrugated-fiberglass panels. The space between the beam and the retaining wall is filled by a bunch of 2 by 4 "rafters" that support a plywood deck. There are 4 by 12 end rafters that also function as a header at either end of the pool house and huge sliding barn doors made of wood, that have to weigh at least a ton each, slide open on barn door tracks attached to the header and the ends of the house. The upper yard, between the retaining wall and the property line, is filled with raised earth-filled planters and a series of sloping planters have been placed on top of that sloping roof with the 2 by 4 rafters between the retaining wall and the large beam that supports the pool house roof, end walls and doors. There aren't any fences, door handles between the pool and house are at conventional height, and there aren't any childproof locks on the doors between the pool and the house. Here's the kicker; the house was built by the patriarch of a very large construction company that's well known in these parts, has many divisions and specializes in drainage and foundation issues. He recently passed at over 100 years of age and the house has been on the market for nearly a year. The pool was just a small part of some of the stuff I encountered in that house. I'm not sure which is scarier, the prospect of a wet, electrically charged pool deck or the thought of that 25 foot by 40 foot roof suddenly deciding that it's had enough and collapsing on top of everyone in the pool house. It's beyond me how it didn't collapse during the winter snowstorms when all of that extra weight was on it. Since I only rarely see swimming pools, I punted the whole pool to a pool guy and I recommended they get an engineer in to look at the pool house construction and either condemn it or design a fix for it. I've been told that the pool guy and the electrician that were called in were both surprised that a home inspector had caught the lack of bonding and they basically declared the pool an electrocution waiting to happen. The engineer took one look at the pool house and said something like, "I dunno where to begin. Tear that sucker down." There was so much work needed that they brought in an army of contractors to get estimates after I'd sent them the report. Once they'd gotten the estimates, they tried to renegotiate but the seller wouldn't budge so they walked. I'm kind of glad that they walked; there was just so much stuff there that I'm sure there's probably as much unseen/undiscovered stuff there as I'd reported. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Might it also be polypropylene? At that first link provided by Brandon, there's this (underlining is mine): Older pipe and clamp systems also use black pipe but this is rarely ABS material. The black pipe used with clamp style fittings is a polypropolyne pipe that was industry standard for many years. Poly pipe has a "memory" since it is semi-rigid and comes in a big coil so poly plumbing runs tend to be curved. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I'd go with the permit. They'd used mastic to seal the seams; when was the last time you saw a furnace from 79 - 89 where they'd used mastic and were so careful to insulate the ducts? OT - OF!!! M.

Aargh! Electric furnace! That's a whole different ballgame. I have no idea how to interpret those. What was the date on that orange permit taped to it? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

How about a couple of large vents with dampers to the exterior that are controlled by actuators interlocked to that furnace? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Those have clearly been overheated. The plastic insulator behind the breakers is all melted from the heat. I'd guess that there are (or were) some really loose terminals there. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Dang! Guess when they boarded up Aunt Ethyl in that wall they didn't seal the plastic well enough. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I'd wondered about using ABS for supply as well. For a pool, it's constantly circulating heavily chlorinated water, no? Are there issues with scouring of ABS when it' used under pressure with chlorinated water? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Strange question, ABS rules the roost around here. Rarely see PVC and cast iron is only seen in upper-end homes. OT - OF!!! M.

http://www.djcoregon.com/articleDetail. ... unterparts

From: HUD USER News The U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and of Energy (DOE) are coordinating the use of appropriations from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to provide weatherization assistance in HUD-qualified assisted housing. The funds include $4.5 billion in HUD capital funds for public and Indian housing and $250 million to retrofit privately owned, federally assisted housing. In addition, DOE has issued a notice of the proposed rules for eliminating duplicative income verification requirements that would make it easier for affordable housing providers to access $5 billion in DOE Weatherization Assistance program funding. The notice was published in the Federal Register on May 21, 2009 (www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-05-21/html/E9-11890.htm) and is available for comment at www.regulations.gov until June 22, 2009. Comments should reference the regulatory information number (RIN) 1904-AB-97. Comments with this RIN in the subject area may also be submitted to WXHUDOPR@ee.doe.gov.

On Tuesday, June 16th from 10:00 - 11:30 am, the US Department of Energy Building Energy Code Program will sponsor a no-cost building energy code webcast. The 60-minute webcast willl include an overview of the residential requirements of the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code and will be followed by a live 30-minute question and answer session. Note: If you plan to view this webcast with others at a shared location, only one registration is needed; a phone and a computer with an Internet connection are required. To register for the event, click here.

PNNL, Vitex developing process to help protect flexible solar power shingles A transparent thin film barrier used to protect flat panel TVs from moisture could become the basis for flexible solar panels that would be installed on roofs like shingles. The flexible rooftop solar panels - called building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPVs - could replace today's boxy solar panels that are made with rigid glass or silicon and mounted on thick metal frames. The flexible solar shingles would be less expensive to install than current panels and made to last 25 years. "There's a lot of wasted space on rooftops that could actually be used to generate power," said Mark Gross, a senior scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Flexible solar panels could easily become integrated into the architecture of commercial buildings and homes. Solar panels have had limited success because they've been difficult and expensive to install." Researchers at PNNL will create these flexible panels by adapting a film encapsulation process currently used to coat flat panel displays that use organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. The work is made possible by a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement recently penned between Vitex Systems and Battelle, which operates PNNL for the federal government. PNNL researchers developed the thin film technology in the 1990s. At the time, the lab's team investigated 15 possible applications, including solar power. Vitex licensed the technology from Battelle in 2000 and focused its initial efforts on developing the ultra-barrier films for flat-panel displays. Now PNNL and Vitex are taking a hard second look at solar power. The encapsulation process and the ultra-barrier film - called Barixâ„¢ Encapsulation and Barixâ„¢ Barrier Film, respectively - are already proven and effective moisture barriers. But researchers need to find a way to apply the technology to solar panels that are made with copper indium gallium selenide, called CIGS, or cadmium telluride, called CdTe. Under the agreement, researchers will create low-cost flexible barrier films and evaluate substrate materials for solar panels, which are also called photovoltaics, or PVs. Both the film and substrate must be able to survive harsh ultraviolet rays and natural elements like rain and hail for 25 years. The agreement also calls for researchers to develop a manufacturing process for the flexible panels that can be readily adapted to large-scale production. If successful, this process will reduce solar panel manufacturing costs to less than $1 per watt of power, which would be competitive with the 10 cents per kilowatt-hour that a utility would charge. "Vitex is proud to continue its long, successful relationship with PNNL," said Martin Rosenblum, Vitex's vice president of operations and engineering. "Vitex is excited to further its Barixâ„¢ technology's proven barrier performance for photovoltaics toward mass manufacturing. Together, we look forward to creating a product that will help alleviate America's dependence on foreign oil and increase America's access to an abundant renewable energy source - the sun." Battelle, which is the majority shareholder of Vitex, is optimistic that this research agreement will contribute to a new way of generating solar power. Battelle recently increased its investment in Vitex for new state-of-the-art thin film encapsulation equipment and expanded its intellectual property portfolio. "We're confident that Vitex will be uniquely positioned to help meet the demand for flexible solar panels, OLED displays and lighting that should rise along with the economy," said Martin Inglis, Battelle's chief financial officer. PNNL's research efforts will be paid for with up to $350,000 from the DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Technology Commercialization Fund. Last year, DOE announced that up to $1.5 million from the fund would be available to PNNL for projects that help commercialize technologies that reduce energy use or tap renewable energy sources. Because the fund requires commercial partners to match funding, Vitex will provide up to $350,900 of in-kind labor, equipment and materials for this project. # # # Vitex Systems Inc., headquartered in San Jose, Calif., licenses a proprietary encapsulation solution, Barixâ„¢, as well as deposition systems and next-generation flexible barrier substrates, that enable the cost-effective production of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays that are lighter and thinner than any other commercially available displays. Vitex's technology can also be used to address a wide array of photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications. The company was incubated at Battelle, the world's largest independent private non-profit research foundation, and was spun off as an independent company. Battelle is the world's largest non-profit independent research and development organization, providing innovative solutions to the world's most pressing needs through its four global businesses: Laboratory Management, National Security, Energy Technology, and Health and Life Sciences. It advances scientific discovery and application by conducting $5.2 billion in global R&D annually through contract research, laboratory management and technology commercialization. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Battelle oversees 20,400 employees in more than 130 locations worldwide, including seven national laboratories which Battelle manages or co-manages for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and two international laboratories—a nuclear energy lab in the United Kingdom and a renewable energy lab in Malaysia. For more information, contact Franny White, PNNL, (509) 375-6904