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Hi, Were those architectural grade shingles the standard asphalt-fiberglass type or were they Malarkey brand modbit shingles specifically designed for a low slope application over a layer of ice and water shield? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, A standard 3-coat Portland cement stucco job with a Dryvit topcoat applied to it would actually probably be pretty decent. Whether it's Dryvit or one of the other EIFS products, the topcoat that's used is a polymer mix that forms a thin shell on top of the EIFS basecoat and imbedded mesh. Unlike a standard 3-coat topcoat, the EIFS topcoat isn't permeable; so, instead of moisture eventually making its way through the saturated stucco, the only place it's going to get in will be around windows and doors and protrusion details. However, EIFS topcoat applied or not, the rest of the details will need to comply with the rules and standard of care for Portland cement 3-coat stucco or it's not going to perform well. That means accessory, expansion, termination beads and weep screeds in the proper places and everything detailed properly. What's the likelihood of that happening? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That's foo pahs faux pas...'cuz I thought you'd want to know. OT - OF!!! M.

Was it a "modular" home as you say it is or is it a "manufactured" home with a metal chassis and long stringers over a steel backbone for a floor system. If it was a manufactured home, they place that barrier on the underside of the insulation to 1. hold it up under the floors. 2. minimize the amount of moisture that gets up under the floors from the usually uncovered earth beneath. It's normal and they are rarely intact; some ijit usually cuts through them someplace and never repairs them or some animule will get up in there. If it is a manufactured home, please make a conscious effort NOT to call them modular homes because the difference is night and day. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Check out this list http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=OR ... rt=20&sa=N

Hi, Well, first you need to understand that hairline cracks in Portland cement stucco are not considered to be a defect and aren't likely to cause water infiltration so your comment there is completely non-factual. Go here, click on "SMA technical papers" and the download and read every one of those 9 documents. Then order the Stucco Resource Guide online. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi David, I don't know that it's a "fixation" I tought that the thread had turned to the discussion of whether or not to get the formal IR training and certification or to try to figure it all out on your own. I merely pointed out that I think there are established training and certification standards for a reason, which I think is grounded in legalities, and that we home inspectors would be wise to accept the rules that are laid out, and the reasons they are laid out, instead of trying to take shortcuts. Although in today's letigious society the possibility of lawsuits are ever present, like you, I don't dwell on it. My philosophy is to do every inspection like I'm inspecting the house for my mother; that way, I know I'll get it right every time the first time. So, you don't use a pre-inspection contract at all? I gotta say, that does sound a little bit loopy. Lawsuits aside, a good PIA sets the tone for your inspection and makes sure there are no misunderstandings about what you will inspect and what you won't inspect and it lays out for the client the steps to take in order to successfully resolve complaints later on. Like you, 12+ years and not a single sit-down at an arbitration table or a trip to court to defend my company. This is going kind of far afield of IR though; if folks think that discussion of the ever-present high liability aspect of the profession is worthy of discussion, I'll split the topic off and we can continue going down that road in another thread. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Walter, Guess you typed your response while I was typing mine. I agree with what you say, it is usually the person that's best prepared who wins at trial but you can't discount the value of proper and thorough training. I'm not saying there aren't a lot of crappy trainers out there, because there are, but individuals have a responsibility, once they get training, to put that training to use and become as expert as they can and that means being prepared when they go to trial. Frankly, there's no excuse for going to a trial unprepared, regardless of which side of a case you're on. OT - OF!!! Mike

Maybe, if it's discovered by other means but it will still be on shaky ground. A good analogy is the fellow who calls the police to report that he smells dope coming from a neigbor's apartment. When the police arrive, it doesnt matter if the neighbor who reported it is a stone cold pothead, unless the police smell it they can't do a thing about it. Kind of dumb but that's the way it is. In court, those cops will be challenged to prove that they know what burning dope smells like and they'll have to testify that they've had to undergo official training where they were taught to recognize the smell of burning dope. Without that "certification" the case will typically get tossed. It's stupid, but that's the way it is. That't not the point though, the point is that the IR profession established the "standards" for thermographers and nobody in this profession has a right to demand they change their standards anymore than they have a right to demand that the home inspection profession change its way of doing things to accommodate them. There seems to be this tendency among home inspectors to take shortcuts and to expect people to waive rules for them because they simply don't care to do what has to be done to get adequate traiing and meet standards that have been set. I'm seeing it more and more and it's kind of disturbing. Frankly, I don't understand it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi All, I can see that there are some strong feelings about whether or not it's necessary to attend training and become "certified" to use IR equipment. I submit that it's too late to gripe about the training and certification requirements because that train left the station years ago. I don't think it's the case at all that the IR industry is trying to foist requirements on us so much as it is us needing to recognize that if we want to use that piece of equipment the IR industry had established standards long before they ever began marketing to home inspectors. IR has been used in the law enforcement for at least the past two decades and even longer in the military. Forward looking infrared radar (FLIR) was being used in aircraft by the military, the border patrol, the DEA, and the police more than 15 years ago - long before FLIR ever thought of marketing to home inspectors. The military requires that certain training parameters be adhered to for every piece of equipment and the original standards might have sprung from there. Then there's law enforcement; as a civilian you're probably not aware of it, but a cop has to be 'certified' on virtually every piece of equipment he uses except maybe a fountain pen. The cop that writes you a ticket for speeding must be certified on how to properly use and calibrate that radar gun or you can successfully challenge him or her in court; it's the same with the Breathalyzer, the polygraph, taser, handgun, shotgun, drug testing equipment, and virtually everything else that a cop touches. So, it makes sense that, since IR has been used by law enforcement for longer than we've been using it, the industry had to come up with a system or educating users and "certifying" that users are qualified to use the equipment. Why? Because defense lawyers make it a point to carefully study the operational aspects of every single piece of equipment used by the police and they will rip a cop apart on the witness stand if the cop doesn't know the equipment and every operational step backward and forward. Imagine a cop using a piece of IR equipment from a helicopter at night to spot a perp breaking into a building and the perp flees and is later captured. If that cop isn't "certified" in how to use that piece of equipment, a defense lawyer can get the case tossed on a technicality for lack of sufficient probable cause only because, despite what he knows, the cop couldn't prove that at the time he spotted the perp prying on that window he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. I think that once that genie was out of the box with law enforcement, the industry was pretty much forced to insist on those standards with anyone they train or certify to be trainers. Now, can you imagine how a cagey lawyer that's representing someone can use a "certified" thermographer's testimony against that of an "uncertified" thermographer's? I can. It is what it is; a tool from another profession that we want to adapt to our own use. If we're to do that, we need to accept the established standards for that piece of equipment or risk one day having our own credibility challenged. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I wouldn't have a problem using a bait station to knock out a subterranean termite nest. Subs aren't getting their "fix" at a station, they're getting killed. It's the workers that have to bring food back to the nest for the queen and her drones. If you knock off the workers the nest dies of starvation - that's how the bait stations work. The stations are initially baited with wood to attract the workers. Once the workers know where the food source is, they let everyone know and pretty soon all workers are going to that one station to forage; that's when you replace the wood with termiticide. Next thing you know, all the workers are toast and the queen, drones, and larvae are dried up and worm food. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Thanks, but I wrote it last night when I was about to go to bed and when I woke up this morning I realized that I was probably way off in comparing it to a steam engine. If memory serves, the steam in a steam engine isn't flashed to expand it; it's constantly expanding and is meteredi in on both sides of a piston by a metered/switcing device. Still, the reason for the explosion is at least on the money; ....I think. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

They don't explode more often because the control valves are set to prevent them from reaching boiling temp and because of the TPR valve. If the thermostat controlling it goes bad and the water gets hotter the TPR holds steady until it reaches 150psi and then it releases. If I'm remembering my mechanics training correctly, every pound of pressure raises the boiling temperature of the water by 4 degrees (Of is it every 4 pounds raises it 1 degree); anyway, if the control valve goes bad and the water continues to get hotter and that TPR valve fails to relieve pressure the water will eventually reach boiling temperature. At that point the water continues to expand until it bursts the tank. That's when the super heated water, no longer constrained, strikes the colder air and flashes instantaneously to steam and expands, turning the tank into a rocket. How do you think fireworks rocket work? - gunpowder is ignited inside a tube and produces gas that expands rapidly in a micro-second and sends the rocket out of its launch tube. It's not that much different. It's also how steam engines use controlled steam expansion to move steam engine pistons. Ever have one of those water powered rockets when you were a kid where you pumped pressure in above water and then suddently released it and watched it shoot up into the air? Imagine that on a massive scale sending a tank up through the roof. About 5-6 years ago down in Burien, a video store owned by a Vietnamese family had a problem with their water heater; the TPR valve was spraying scalding water. They called a plumber who came out, looked at it and said that the tank was shot. He shut it down, unscrewed the TPR and screwed a metal plug in the hole so water wouldn't continue pouring out of the valve, and promised to return the next day to replace it. The next morning, the employees came in to open up and discovered there wasn't any hot water to wash their hands so they turned on the water heater. About 45 minutes later, hot water began being forced out of faucets that were turned off and the plumbing began to vibrate. Just about the time they realized something was wrong and were about to shut the thing down, it exploded, destroying the store and blowing out the concrete block walls of the video store, shot up through the roof, crossed a 4 lane highway, and landed nearly 500 feet away. Nobody was killed but five people went to the hospital. It's called a bleeve - a bi-level explosive event; for it to occur, you have to almost have the perfect storm of screwups and/or malfunctioning equipment. That's why it does't occur more often. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Not braggin' but a crawl like that is just another day around here in crawlspace land. OT - OF!!! M.

When I saw that video above my first thought was; "I wonder how that TPR discharge pipe was configured?" I see so many of them that go uphill that I wondered whether that was the case and water had accumulated around the valve and caused it to corrode and stick. It would be interesting to see whether the guy had a home inspection when he bought and if the report called an improperly configured discharge pipe that he never bothered to get corrected when he moved in. IF that were the case, I wonder whether his insurance would pay or say, "Sorry Charlie, you forgot to exercise due diligence." Ooh, what if it was improperly configured and an inspector didn't call it out and that's what caused this? [:-bigeyes ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, No, 50 gallons of super-heated water suddenly exposed to the air and expanding to steam at a rate of at least 100 to 1 in a split second is enough to easily do what happened there. It's exactly what happens when boilers of all sorts explode because it's exactly the same thing. The noxious odor that gave you a headache was hydrogen sulfide gas that was caused by bacteria-laden water in a turned-off water heater reacting with the anode rod. It too is explosive but it doesn't occur in an occupied home; it occurs after a house is left vacant with the water heater off. Camping cabins and dishwashers have been known to explode due to ignited hydrogen sulfide gas when folks open up vacant homes and accidentally ignite it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Thresholds never require caulk; they require pan flashings. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, It was an honest question. We routinely do check the base of walls with a Protimeter and routinely do find issues like that without an IR camera. If you don't, that's all that you had to say; not sure why you felt I attacked you. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi John, It's a cleaner format than the last attempt but I think that placing your recommendation before the photo of the issue is a little bit awkward. The way it's laid out, if I were a non-inspector looking at it, I'd expect that one of those photos would show me a proper setup. You've essentially broken it into Description, Observation, and Recommendations but I think that it would flow better if the recommendations come after the photos of the issue you're reporting. In other words, describe the house's electrical system and then, as you individually list electrical issues and post photos of the issue, follow that with your recommendation and then move onto the next issue. Description Box with your description Observations The ragafrap is all dicked up - Explanation with photo. Recommendation - Have a licensed hairdresser fix the ragafrap The cheese straightener needs a pasta handle - Explanation with photo Recommendation - Have an Italian cook add a handle. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I felt the moisture plus the moisture meter pegged off when testing the wood strip holding the carpeting in place at that location but no moisture at any other location against the wall. So, if you routinely check the base of all of your walls, you probably would have found it anyway without the IR camera using the moisture meter; no? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Perhaps you should check your references on that. If memory serves - it doesn't always so I could be wrong -the Canadian lobby got its way and the ban was lifted 4 years later and asbestos is still being used in everything from hair dryers to tile. Heck, it was still in brake linings until just a few years ago. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, Last week, Komo TV contacted Dave Pioli here in Bothell about it and he referred them to me. I'd actually built one of those about 7 years ago. Anyhoo, I referred the reporter to Andy Engel at Professional Deck Builder Magazine and Martin Holladay at Energy Design Update. I never did watch the news that night to see if it was on. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Not really related but... A few years ago, Seattle installed fancy self-cleaning toilets downtown on Pioneer Square. These things cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars and had cost them millions to operate since they were installed. The trouble was, they became shooting galleries and places for hookers to hook up, so they decided to yank them. I just saw a blurb in the Seattle paper sometime within the past week that said they'd put them on Craig's list or Ebay to try and sell them and hadn't gotten any offers and have now dropped the reserve to $1000 each. That's efficiency for you! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Rich, By the way, according to the chart, your number isn't WOK58.... it's W0K58.... and is therefore manufactured in September of 2005. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Thanks Rich for bringing that to my attention and thanks Matt. I'd actually called Unitary early this morning and had gotten Matt's chart from Jeanne Walters about 2 hours ago. Then I revised the chart. Unfortunately, when I tried to access the library to add the updated chart I discovered that, apparently when we changedbroad band providers, my passwords hadn't been transferred because I kept getting booted for not havine authorized access. So, here's the new chart and I'll upload it to the library as soon as I can get access. Enjoy. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike To download the newly revised decoder chart, click here