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Scott has it, Over the past couple of years, many municipalities have begun requiring inspections of rental properties by muni inspectors in order to ensure that those properties were safe for habitation. Those inspections are typically paid for by the landlord - not a prospective tenant. A small number of cities have begun requiring inspections of properties for sale by muni inspectors before they can be sold and there are some that are considering such legislation. I see those stories occasionally in the feeds I get but I usually don't post them because they aren't exactly the kind of thing that most home inspectors are going to want to get involved in. When I say "many municipalities" I'm referring to a couple of dozen, not hundreds or thousands, so it's not like it's a national trend or anything like that yet but those cities are being watched closely by many others that see the inspections as a win-win situation in that it raises revenue to support the muni home inspection budget while showing that the city fathers care about those folks who are in a situation where they must rent and it's intended to prevent slumlords from screwing people over. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Well, there's your damage - probably filled in with Fixall. They're probably in the framing around the window too. OT - OF!!! M.

Well, Duh They are regulated by the FHA code for manufactured homes and can't be less than 2-inches above the roof. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I think Jim is right; that does look like pupa case debris. It's coming from above or it wouldn't have ended up on the edge of that screen frame. Look at the top of the casing for a slit or a little hole through which they're dropping the debris; carpenter ants are fastidious and dont' like to have trash hanging around inside they're nest and they'll dump it to the outside. Is that the sunny side of the house? Around here, they seem to prefer burrowing into the headers and jack studs around windows on sunny sides of a home and turning them into nurseries. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Most of them I see are about 150K and up. I imagine people buying them in that range will get an inspection. It's possible to get them cheaper - I've think I've seen a few advertised for under $40K - but those are probably not worth the effort. My mother bought one in Florida a couple of years ago for about $44K. It's actually in pretty good shape and probably would have brought about $160K around here. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I responded to this yesterday but I guess I forgot to click the 'submit reply' button. I'm not sure what I'd call it but I wouldn't call that a drum trap. I saw those on hundreds, maybe thousands, of sinks when I was stationed in Europe and never had a problem with any that were on my own sinks. If It was working, I wouldn't call it unless someone could show me where it's prohibited. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Kewl, Learned something new; I should know better than to comment on anything that has to do with a heatpump by now - they're scarce as hens teeth around here. Had the first one in about 3-4 years a couple of weeks ago. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

What section of NFPA 58 specifies drains? OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I guess I don't understand why you're fixated on this when it's not a fossil fuel burning appliance. The stuff you've quoted above is meant to prevent someone asphyxiating themselves by installing a fuel-burning appliance improperly or in the wrong location. I doubt that would apply to an electric heat pump. I should think a roll of self-adhesive foil tape and a razor knife on the shelf next to that unit is all that's needed to open and reseal that filter slot satisfactorily; either that are have a sheetmetal fella make a new cover. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Here's a sketch of what I was referring to - they're used where unstabile/expansive soils are common. Image Insert: 108.97 KB OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Did you happen to notice if those furnaces were equipped with a pressure interlock that will cut power to the unit in the event of a pressure drop caused by a fuel leak? Sometimes all it takes is a call to the HVAC firm listed on the label attached to the unit to clear up things like that. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I think he's referring to a grade beam on pier foundation. The piece of wood isn't a post, it's the remains of some concrete forms that was never stripped away. The paper thing puzzles me too; I think he's trying to say that they use paper there as a bond breaker/slip sheet so that the heaving soil can move up and down without taking the foundation with it. This is all guesswork based only on what I've heard about Colorado building practices. I still have no idea what he's saying with that sentence and I doubt that a customer will. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

You have to rename them. When you resize them the software will turn something like JonesHouse into JonesHouse(small) and the software won't allow anything with special symbols. Just rename it JonesHouseSmall and you'll be fine. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Speaking for myself, I'd consider trying to figure it out a waste of time. I'm not a plumber and ultimately a plumber needs to come and fix it, so why bother? Write it up. Pressure Smesher! I think the only place that you get real value out of a pressure gauge is if you've got a 2-story house with lousy delivery to the second floor and you're trying do determine how much push the system is giving that water. It might tell you that the plumbing to the second floor should have been down-sized but that's about all. Other than Bill's example of head pressure at a well, I don't see the point because pressure is going to be contingent upon whoever is delivering the water; ie. city, private community, etc.. You can have 120+ psi and if you've got an occluded pipe anywhere in the structure, or even a little bit of crud in an aerator screen, a sink can act like there's not even 20 psi. It's all about volume and flow - not pressure. There are parts of Seattle where the static pressure on the system is less than 30 psi. In those neighborhoods, if you've got an old rusted 3/4-inch galvanized main coming into the house you're lucky to be able to take a shower and flush a toilet at the same time. However, replace the main line from the meter into the house with a 1-1/4inch line and clean out the aerators and it's like you're hooked up to a fire engine. I walked into an estate sale house to do an inspection one day and the kitchen sink barely peed. The house had old galvanized pipe. I took all of the aerators out of all of the faucets and then stationed the client at one exterior sillcock, his wife at another, the realtor at the kitchen sink, and then we turned on all of the water at one time. I instructed them to turn their respective faucets off and on at random times and I walked back and forth between the bathrooms turning the faucets off and on. We ran the water for about 5 to 10 minutes and then stopped. By then, most of the rust had been broken loose and had flushed out of the pipes. I went around, rinsed out the aerators and put them back on and the water volume was danged near normal. I told them to contact Ace DuraFlo to find out what it would cost to have that pipe cleaned and rehabilitated. That's why I stopped screwing around testing pressure. I can roll into a neighborhood and see immediately from the nearest hydrant in what range of pressure the static pressure should be. From there, depending on the size and type of main line coming into the house and the age of the plumbing, just about everything that one thinks is related to "pressure" is actually related to the volume of water that's actually making it to the house and through the distribution lines. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Yeah, I had the toro gauge too. One day I accidentally forgot to pack it and when I went back the next day everyone pleaded ignorance - guess someone added it to their lawn irrigation system. It did the job fine. At the time I bought it, Professional Equipment was selling it for about $120 and it was for sale at Home Depot for just a tad over $40. I never replaced it; by the time I'd lost it, I'd already figured out just about everything I needed to in order to understand the pressure vs. volume issue in the average home. Plus, the hydrants in Seattle where I do most of my work are color coded so one knows immediately what pressures there are in the street. The only way that I'd add it to by tool bag again is if it somehow became mandatory for me to go back to checking pressure. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Well, I wasn't arguing either. However, wood and felt allow a home to dry to the inside and outside; plastic, depending on its orientation, can often trap moisture and function like a petrie dish, fostering growth of all sorts of organisms. OT - OF!!! M.

For anyone that's interested, there are some new links and files available in TIJ's library. Bill Kibbel has submitted some links to articles that he's written on Vermiculite and Obsolete Fire Grenades, as well as links to another article on how to safely remove old resilient flooring, and Nolan Kienitz has submitted a link to an installation manual for EPDM roof coverings. There's also an updated link to the furnace age decoder chart. To download the newly revised chart, click here My apologies to everyone who's submitted new links or new files for my not having approved them earlier; obviously, I've got to try and make more time to keep on top of the admin tasks here on TIJ. Thanks Bill and Nolan and anyone else that's been contributing to TIJ's library. It's really great when readers contribute to the knowledge pool here. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Randy, It's all been done before and the Canadians, including Dr. Joe Lstiburek, probably understand it better than anyone else because they've been studying the issue longer. Here are a few documents in chronological order that should be enlightening. http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/brn/brn211/brn211.pdf http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/cbd/cbd175_e.html http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/bpn/30_e.pdf http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/bpn/31_e.pdf http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/fulltext ... ral813.pdf ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That description still troubles me. I don't think it's a modular home because manufacturers of modulars don't cover the underside of the floor joists with any plastic - double-wide manufacturers do all do that though. Also, the modular dealers try to eek out every last inch of space and will typically build 14ft. wide modules. OT - OF!!! M.

David, Jim, Thanks, now I get it (hope I'll be able to retain it). Yeah, I knew maintenance was lacking in the A-coil area. The fan speed thing is interesting; I've never heard that before - makes sense. Geez, you guys make me seem to be smart. Thanks, ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi All, So, here's a question for those of you from places where you cool your homes with mechanical devices instead of just opening the window. A very few times a year I run into split air conditioning or heat pump systems but not enough to gain real familiarity with them. I'd be asking the manufacturer, except it's Saturday and there's nobody there to take my call. Yesterday I had a Lennox heat pump unit on a home where the A-coil is above the downflow coil blower unit instead of below it, so return air passes through the A-coil before it passes through the air handler and auxiliary heating coils. This seems counter intuitive to me. As soon as I saw the configuration I thought, "Geez, won't the coil blower unit get all rusted being beneath the A-coil with all of that air passing through that coil dripping with condensate? When I opened up the coil blower unit my worries seemed to be confirmed because there was a capacitor on the side of the blower drum and the metal casing was all rusted - something I don't usually see inside of HVAC systems. Then I opened up the A-coil cabinet - which had been serviced in May - and found a bunch of nasty looking soggy gray gunk on the lower half of both sides of the coil that the serviceman probably missed. I checked the HVAC referenced that I have but none seems to address this. Then I went to the Lennox site and perused all of the available literature there for heat pumps and coil blower units. Most of the configurations I saw diagrammed there have the coil blower unit above the A-coil but there were a couple where they are shown turned the other way around with the coil blower unit downstream in the airflow from the A-coil. Your thoughts? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Well, that'll work if I cut the bill off it, I suppose. It will only get in my way. Don't know how anyone could use a modified creeper in a crawl around here unless the thing were equipped with big knobby rock climbing tires, a motor to go up and down the hills, and could somehow magically transport you through the ducts that take up most of the space from floor to joists and have to be pushed up out of the way to squeeze by. You must have some heavenly flat crawlspaces down there, Jim. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Without looking it up, I'm going to hazard a guess - absolutely not! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I have a pair of XXL insulated Carharts and a pair of the Craftsman one's that Walter just referenced. The carharts are for the winter, naturally, so obviously I'm using the others now. Get yourself a good nose/mouth respirator with P100 filters, make sure it fits properly, maintain it properly, and never go into a crawlspace or attic unless you're wearing it. Nitrile gloves work really well and a painter's hood is handy for those crawls that are just full of cobwebs and dregs of shredded insulation hanging down everywhere. I'm still trying to find a decent helmet that's not too big and bulky or loose that I can wear in tight places. Ideally, I'd like it to be kind of like a bathing cap - really tight fitting but at the same time able to prevent me from getting a hole in my head when I lift myself up into an attic hatch and bump my head against the ends of the roofing nails that are protruding through the sheathing or from cracking my skull when I smack it against a beam in a crawl. I've come to the conclusion that if I really want one like that, which fits my head closely, I'm going to have to make it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, The rule is that there must be a B vent if the appliance is installed in a concealed or cold location. It's not a new rule - it's been around as long as I've been in this business (12 years). So, if the water heater is located somewhere in the middle of the house, in a closet or small room that gets all its combustion air from the interior of the house, then it's within conditioned space and, as long as it's not in a concealed location, such as in a wall and inaccessible, there can be a single-walled vent from the collar to where the vent transitions to a "B" vent and passes up through the house. However, if the furnace and water heater are in an unheated (cold) location, then that vent should have been a double-walled vent all along. Unless someone seriously screwed up with your home, the vent from terminus above the roof all the way to the room where that furnace and water heater are located is already a B vent and all you need to chance is that portion of venting from the collar to the B vent - that's typically about $150 worth of material; add $150 for the fat-guy-climbing-into-his-truck fee and then add the charge for the hour or so of on-site labor it will take for him to remove the single walled stuff and replace it with double-walled stuff. I'm thinking $450 to $500 is reasonable, but, who knows, you might actually have single-walled stuff all the way up through your house. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike