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Nice Job Guys, Glad to see that so many of the folks I know from TIJ were involved in making that film and I'm glad to see no paper towel rolls, cardboard boxes, plastic water bottles, or folks standing there pushing up on the door were harmed in the making of that film in order to test the auto reverse feature. My only criticism is that though the film says that the door can be tested in five minutes, the narrater kept saying, "If the door does not meet this requirement, have a trained door systems technician yadda yadda before proceeding with this inspection." I understand the intent there; you find the first thing wrong, stop the inspection and refer to the door to a trained tech to correct and that tech should fix the issue and finish the safety inspection. Well, I can imagine the rare nervous nelly that insists I must finish the inspection and wants me to return to complete it after the door system tech fixes that first item. Great, I get paid a second fee; but what if I then discover that the tech didn't complete a full inspection and the second item is screwed up? If I refer it again, the nervous nelly is going to want me back again. If the tech is an idiot I could end up going back over and over again; Mama Mia! It seems to me that, unless I find something that places me in danger, the trained professional, moi, should continue with the inspection and finish it and then list everything that I see wrong with the door and tell the client to have a trained door systems tech fix it all. Yeah, I know, I'm being too anal again, but..... By the way, how does a manufacturer's organization video make it onto a YouTube site like this? Does the organization do it or does someone just download the file and then upload it to YouTube? If one is putting a video on one's website to attract folks to one's website doesn't placing the video on YouTube kind of defeat that purpose? Then again, if you want it to get seen it's liable to get seen on YouTube whereas it will probably only be seen by door techs on an obscure site like Dasma's. This new teknalagee has me so cornfoozed! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Richard, It was copper. I think if it had been PEX it might have simply expanded and held. Can't say I've ever had one with CPVC that's frozen up but I know it has to happen. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Today was interesting. Last night about 8:00 pm I was at a friend's house having a late holiday dinner when one of the other guests, a realtor, asked if I could do an inspection this morning. It seems that nearly 10 days ago his client's offer was accepted on a home but the client didn't want to do an inspection because they'd talked the owner down over $30,000 and felt that they were pushing the envelope. Well, that was last week; 'cuz yesterday, 24 hours before they're due to go to closing, the client called the realtor and said that she wanted to get the place inspected but wanted him to pay for it. He'd agreed. I didn't have anything scheduled, so I told him I'd be over there this morning at 9:00 am. I showed up right on time and walked into a house with no less than about 8 big blue drying fans running and two massive portable dehumidifiers running to beat the band. The windows were all fogged up and there were puddles of water on every windowsill. The carpets were damp. About 60% of the main floor is hardwood and it was so badly cupped that it looked like the surface of an antique washboard. In the garage I found a pile of black plastic bags. I looked inside and found them full of foam rubber carpet padding. I went back inside and peaked under the carpet - uh, oh, no pad. Hmmm. Obviously, a pipe had burst but where? I walked out the back yard and around the house. Yep, there they were at opposite corners of the house; hose reels still hooked up to frost-free sill cocks. It's been snowing and unusually cold here lately; you can guess the rest. Inside, I got moisture readings in both the interior and exterior walls from 30% to 99.9% as high as 2ft. from the floor in some places. Outside, I found water draining out of the siding. There was so much humidity in the house that vapor had been unable to diffuse through the siding naturally and had been condensing in the exterior walls and freezing. Now that the temperature had gone up over freezing outside, it was melting and draining out of the exterior walls. The bottom of the walls was bowed outward in a few places where the OSB sheathing has swollen and is trying to expand. Up in the attic, the top 1-inch of the 12-inch thick blown-in insulation is saturated with water droplets. Vapor is diffusing up through the ceilings, passing through the insulation, and then, as it nears the other side of the insulation and cools it's condensing and hanging out in the insulation with the attic ventilation barely holding it's own. If the temps drop tonight, it's going to freeze and make things worse. It should be interesting to see what those ceilings look like in another day or two. Underneath the home in the crawlspace, there's water everywhere about 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep and the flexible polyethylene heating ducts are full of water, have broken most of their nylon straps and are straining to pull away from the register boots. A few are dripping. I figure that there's at least two 55 gallon drums worth of water hanging under those floors ready to burst forth at any moment. I didn't try to squeeze over or under any of those to inspect the crawl, lest I cause one to pull loose and turn that place into a lake. Funny thing, try as he might, the buyer's agent couldn't raise the listing agent on the phone all morning. However, after I talked to a neighbor and asked how long the house had been like that, the neighbor revealed that he'd talked to the owner, who's moved out and is living elsewhere, by phone this morning and the neighbor had told him that a pipe had burst in the home a few days ago. Hmmmm. Shortly after the neighbor went inside his home, the listing agent called up and explained that they were going to have the interior dried out within a day or two and everything would be fine. Yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiight. It's my guess Mr. Seller thought that he could get the interior dried out before anyone came by and discovered the mess and he was planning to go to the closing without saying a word. The home is 8 years old. The timer on the whole house air changer wasn't even set up to vent the home so it's gone the last 8 years without being ventilated. The underside of the roof looks like the fur of an ocelot all black spots that have definitely been there since long before this episode; now this. The owner thinks he's getting away with throwing out the carpet padding and drying the place out. It looks to me like roughly 900 sf of oak has to be torn up and thrown away 'cuz after it shrinks the floor will be all cupped and there will be compression set gaps everywhere. Besides, it will take weeks for that saturated OSB deck to dry out in this weather. If they don't take up the carpeting and hardwood they'll have enough fungi under there in two weeks to feed half of the bugs in the state. Given the amount and height of moisture in the inside walls and the water dripping out of the exterior siding at least a foot above floor level, I'm betting the inside of the walls and the insulation are soaking wet and no amount of fans is going to dry them out in this weather. It's just a rot farm waiting to get started. Lemme see; 1. Pump out the ducts and plenum, replace all of the ducts, remove the saturated insulation from the underfloor plenum, re-insulate it, and then install new ducts and hangers. 2. Tear up the floor and remove all of the carpeting and insulation, put heaters in the crawlspace and in the house to dry out the floor; sand the OSB flat then nuke it with a fungicide/sealer. 3. Do invasives on all interior wall surfaces to determine which wall cavities are wet; open all of the wet ones, dry them, nuke em with fungicide and then seal them, re-insulate and restore the drywall. 4. Re-insulate the floors and put down new carpeting and hardwood floors. 5. Nuke and seal the underside of the roof. 6. Remove the exterior siding where it's bowed outward and fix whatever is going on with the exterior sheathing behind that siding (I'm guessing it's soaking wet, has expanded and is trying to pop off the face of the studs.). 7. Restore the siding. 8. Repaint/refinish everything. I think we're looking at a good week to ten days of 10-hour days and still won't be able to paint until the spring. It's going to cost a whole lot. Betcha the homeowner's contractor says it'll only cost $1500 to $2000 to do and the hardwood floors are perfectly alright. Just another day. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

After studying it for a while, it looks like it's an old weighted striking clock movement that's been converted to electricity and had it's pendelum, escapement, cables and weights removed. If I'm right, I was wrong in my first response and the handshaft is what you see on the left side. It's got a lot of stylistic similarities to some tower clock movements that I've seen that were produced by the E. Howard Clock company - especially the heavy bowed cast iron legs. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It looks like a clockworks to me. The handshaft and dial are missing. Did the hotel once have a clock tower? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

By Matt Michel - The Service Roundtable ‘Twas the night before Christmas when just north of town Santa’s sleigh dropped a runner. Santa’s sleigh broke down. St. Nick landed safely and walked all round his sleigh.“Why now,â€

By Matt Michel, the Service Roundtable In the 5th century, B.C., the world’s first professional teachers and trainers emerged. They were called Sophists. The Sophists roamed the country, giving lectures, taking students, and teaching on any subject in demand. The subject in greatest demand was public speaking and debate skills for use in politics. The politicians who sought to learn from the Sophists weren’t concerned with truth so much as persuasion. The Sophists were not paid to teach truth, but to win arguments. They could argue that black was white, white was black, good was bad, and bad was good. They became expert in tripping up opponents, setting rhetorical snares to trap them, and if all else failed, drowning them out with the volume of noise they could generate. The Sophists and their students mastered the ability to twist arguments, to use confusion, to create false arguments. They took pride in being smart and clever, not in integrity and honesty. For these reasons, Merriam-Webster defines sophistry as “subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation.â€

By Mickey Meece Hoss Boyd, owner of an electrical contracting and solar energy installation company in Texas, was on the road at 3:30 a.m. the other day on business — but not the usual kind. He was looking for the $48,000 that a contractor owed him so he could make payroll. The check, it turned out, had been sent overnight. Even though his trip was for naught, he was relieved, he said. “That gave us some breathing room.â€

Heck, Hop on a plane and we'll go on a tour and I'll show you a few hundred. What works in Alabama won't necessarily work here and what works here won't necessarily work in California. However, pooh, poohing the idea because you've never had an issue with it is kind of short sighted. It might come back to bite you one of these days. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

By Carissa Marsh cmarsh@theacorn.com While most of the city's recent $3 million budget adjustment involved cuts, it also called for more money to be spent on a home inspection program that has been fighting for survival since earlier this year. Due to the slowdown in residential development and an ongoing budget deficit, the city planned to lay off three building inspector positions in the building and safety department on Dec. 31. But as part of its most recent budget action, the City Council allocated $78,400 to support the MUSTS program until the end of the fiscal year, To read the rest of the article in the Simi Valley Acorn, click here.

Hone owners throughout Australia are being urged to conduct a safety audit on their homes and holiday homes for the Christmas break. Archicentre, the building advisory service of the Australian Institute of Architects, warns the Christmas holidays are generally a time when there are more visitors to the home and usual routines are interrupted with extra activity. To read more, click here.

Hi, Welcome to TIJ. You might want to re-think that; by leaving that soil uncapped, you never allow that soil to reach equilibrium and its moisture will constantly fluctuate with the seasons. With expansive soils, that's like putting a big wrench on the foundation and tweaking it whenever the weather and temps change. The cap sheet keeps expansive soil underneath it permanently wet, expanded and uniformly stabilized. With a situation like that, you can overwater the lawn all you want and the exterior soil isn't going to be able to torque a stem wall or footer because that soil in the crawl under the cap sheet is already fully wetted and exerting maximum pressure from the inside. Standing water is easy; install the barrier above the footer and on top of the pier pads and seal the overlaps. Leave some slack in it and it can float free when water perks up from beneath; as the water recedes it will settle back down with it and leave things dry. If you're concerned about water staying on top of the barrier, ensure that everything slopes to a drain or a sump well so that it will drain to the exterior. If you were here, I could take you to a house up in Everett that was built about 37 years ago on a flood plain. It's got a barrier that was very carefully installed and designed to float. This time of the year, it's got a 4-inch thick waterbed beneath it but the underside - insulation, framing, etc. looks as clean as the day it was built. In your climate do you really want to encourage moisture to accumulate under your floors 24/7/365? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

The northwest is currently going through the snowiest winter in the past twelve years and the local papers are filled with articles about how to survive the weather. Articles that help people are fine but some of the local "experts" quoted by journalists aren't used to seeing snow that remains on the ground for more than a day or two and the advice they're giving out is a little bit flawed. Can any of the readers spot the fundamental errors in the article linked below? Click here.

Thermal expansion is absorbed by the pressure tank in the case of private supply such as a well. It is absorbed by the municiple supply system provided there is no device like you say such as a pressure regulator or check valve.Hi, Well, it's my understanding that since 9-11 municipalities have been working overtime to get anti-backflow devices installed on their systems and many require expansion tanks now when the water heaters are replaced. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, The correct answer will eventually pop out here but if you're in a hurry and can't wait for the debate to come to consensus you might go over and see what folks have said about it on Mike Holt's NEC codes forum. OT - OF!!! M.

'Cuz I thought you'd want to know: to, too, two

December 21, 2008: Hasting MN When Ty Pennington, ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition host and the deserving DeVries family cried out, “Move that Bus!â€

Hi, That's good advice Michael but Rob doesn't have to worry about Radon; the only hot spots for radon in the state of Washington are Spokane and Vancouver - none of us on Puget Sound test for radon and most, including me, don't have a clue about how to go about doing it. Too bad too, 'cuz the extra revenue from radon testing would be nice. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Even if it isn't a direct vent furnace, it's possible to convert the basement space to living quarters by building an enclosure around the equipment but you'll have to isolate it from the basement and it will need to have a source of fresh air for combustion. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Randy, I'm assuming that you're interested because you've found one or two PEX-plumbed homes with the PEX just sticking out of the drywall and no rigid talons installed. I researched that a while back and it seems to be an option but not mandatory. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Two words; click here.

Cute, You'll notice that I capitalized it; however, the real meaning of peckish - to become angry or irritated - would have worked for that sentence too. Most folks on HI boards understand the term Peckish more easily than they understand the word pedantic. Anyway, enough of this Jerrymeandering, I've got stuff to do. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Not sure about the valve. I've seen it before in areas that were dry. I've got a half-baked theory that it's related to certain chemicals being stored in close proximity to the panel. Is there a laundry in that basement with open boxes of detergent nearby? If so, was there a distinct laundry smell like bleach had been used? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Mike, I seem to recall many instances where you have edited/modified a post by another user, well, because you can. I know it's your rules and all, but nonetheless, I'd say that action places you in the "powers that be" catagory. It's not right or wrong, it just "is". You work hard to bring many resources to the users here on this board, and that's great. But some folks just don't like to bump heads with others, so they read more than they post. Dom. Yep, I've edited non-technical posts that I felt broke the rules. Kevin's post made it sound like, at least to me, that there's some kind of cabal here that's trying to control everyone and I just don't see that as being the case. Break the rules; by 1) trying to advertise here when you're not a sponsor and don't have permission to advertise here and you'll get your post edited. 2.) Continue down a very contentious line of pointless and endless debate about who's inspection org is bigger than another's, despite being warned to knock it off and play nice, and you'll get your post edited. 3.) Be downright rude to someone or start calling names and your post might be edited. 4.)Come on here for the sole purpose of starting trouble and your post might be edited or deleted. Again, I don't get it. Bump heads with others? What bump heads? I work hard to ensure that people who come in here aren't contentious. Heck, there have been instances when someone has come in here for no other reason than to mix it up with someone, or times when someone can't seem to accept that someone else has a right to have a different opinion than they do. Instead of simply stating that, they just become Peckish and pedantically go on and on and on and on until I've had enough, at which point I'm not shy about truncating a post where both sides get said what they want to say without constant repetition that sounds to me more like, "Oh yeah?""Yeah.""Oh yeah?""Yeah.""Oh yeah?""Yeah." and on and on and on. Folks that come in here with that kind of attitude can look forward to having their stuff edited. However, anyone that follows the rules and keeps it professional won't. There is no reason for anyone to lurk and be afraid to ask technical questions here 'cuz the powers that be is only one person and he's not as smart as many other persons who post here. He usually doesn't have any reason to edit any technical posts.

Sent from the Washington State DOL List Server to Home Inspectors on December 16, 2008 STATE OF WASHINGTONDEPARTMENT OF LICENSINGPO Box 9020, Olympia, Washington 98507-9020id="green"> Date: December 16, 2008 To: Prospective Home Inspector Licensees From: The Home Inspector Program Subject: Home Inspector Program Approved Curriculum During their board meeting on December 3, 2008, the Home Inspector Licensing Advisory Board approved the following subject areas as the approved curriculum of study for all home inspectors seeking to be licensed in the state of Washington. These subject areas represent only the approved curriculum. Courses using the approved curriculum have not yet been approved by the board, which means there are no approved courses as of this date. id="size4"> The course approval process will be posted when it becomes available. Washington State Department of Licensing Fundamentals of Home Inspection Course Requirements Effective XXXX, XX, 2009 Washington State Department of Licensing Post Office Box 9015 Olympia, WA 98507-9015 id="size4"> Table of Contentsid="size4"> Table of Contents 2Introduction 3 Recommended Learning Levels 4 Educational Objectives for the Home Inspection Fundamentals Course 5 Required Topic Areas and Educational Objectives 6 Section A – Professional Practices 6 Section B – Technical Subjects 7 Section C – Other Subjects 12 Introductionid="size4"> During the 2008 session, the Washington State Legislature passed ESSB 6006 requiring individuals seeking a home inspector’s license to complete a 120 clock-hour course in home inspection fundamentals and up to 40 hours of field training. In addition, those seeking to renew their renewal must successfully complete 24 clock-hours of continuing education. The Director of the Department of Licensing, with the guidance of the Washington Home Inspection Board, is charged with the responsibility of implementing this legislative changes. On the basis of extensive feedback and discussion with industry groups, the Department Board submit the following proposed fundamental curriculum for home inspectors. The Department and Board recommend that revisions be made annually to the curriculum adopted by the Department and Board in final form. This curriculum provides suggested levels of learning. These are merely provided as guidance. It is assumed that schools and instructors may modify coverage as needed to meet the requirements of students. The sequence of topics is also only provided for guidance.* * This section may change subject to decision by the Washington Home Inspector Advisory Licensing Board. Recommended Learning Levelsid="size4"> Not all subjects are as important as others. Not all subjects require the same level of learning. In developing the recommendations for a new fundamentals curriculum, the Department and Commission also analyzed the recommended topics with respect to desirable learning levels. ARELLO has described learning levels known as “Bloom’s Taxonomyâ€