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A bill to establish a home inspection counseling program at the federal level, HR4776, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representative in December of 2007. The bill was assigned to a committee but, as of this writing, hasn't been acted upon. To read the entire bill, click here. It looks like this is basically a bill that seeks to emphasize primarily to FHA and VA buyers that a home inspection is not automatically included in an FHA or VA transaction. This may be the result of backlash at HUD. The rules for FHA and VA appraisals were modified nearly a decade ago to require that FHA and VA appraisers conduct cursory "inspections" of properties which they've appraised. Despite the use of a one-page information sheet about the process warning consumers that the FHA and VA appraisal is not the same thing as a home inspection, many purchasers in this most vulnerable of home buyer categories have purchased homes without getting inspections. The confusion between an appraisal and an inspection, has resulted, time and again, in some families finding themselves in serious financial straits when issues that might have been discovered in a home inspection turned up. The bill seeks to establish training and provide training materials for full-time counselors, who are intimately familiar with the home buying and inspection processes, who will counsel buyers and ensure that they no longer confuse FHA and VA appraisals with home inspections. What's your take?

I remember that when I first got into this business the franchise people pounded it into my head that people have to see you over and over again for at least 90 days before they begin to automatically think of you when they think of an inspector. Don't ask me where they got the 90-day figure; I just assumed that it was the results of some survey somewhere. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Is it an Owens-Corning product? How can you tell? OT - OF!!! M.

By Sandy Hartman, WHILAG Liaison Last Friday was a culmination of sorts, of a fairly long process – the making of a home inspector licensing law. Some home inspectors will view this as a positive development; others will view it as a catastrophe. For me, it was a learning process, and a lesson in cooperation. WHILAG and interested parties at the bill signingPhoto by Don Hartman In January of 2006, I was invited by Mike O’Handley to attend a meeting in downtown Seattle. O'Handley, as Editor of The Inspector's Journal and an independent, had been asked by a group of home inspectors, who were concerned about rumors that some poor legislation was about to be proposed, to organize a summit between various home inspection entities in Washington State. The main purpose of the summit was to explore whether it would be possible to form a coalition to address the issue of home inspection legislation. Representatives of the following associations/groups were invited and attended that meeting: AII, ASHI, NAHI, NACHI, WSPCA/WSHIA, Franchises, Independent Home Inspectors, and Engineers. Reviewing the roster of that meeting, I found that twenty-three people were present at that first gathering. I say first gathering, because I define that meeting as the actual formation of the coalition – later to be named the Washington Home Inspectors Legislative Advisory Group (WHILAG). However, other meetings had taken place prior to this one, with the intention of gathering associations and others together in a common interest and to identify common goals. This is probably a good time to make this point clear: Neither at the first meeting, nor at any time thereafter, was the coalition driven by any one association or group. There has been a preoccupation by some in our profession to look for subterfuge within the group. It was never an ASHI group in sheep’s clothing, never excluded any national home inspector association, and never promoted the agenda of a particular association. Mike O’Handley, the independent who rallied us all together, is suspicious of all associations equally! He made it clear from the start that there would be no 800-pound gorillas in the room. He is an advocate for the independent inspectors, and was adamant that no one entity or special interest would control the group. Our first year as a coalition was spent, in part, fighting SB 6229. We supported very little of anything in that bill. It was obviously influenced by technical training staff, rather than home inspectors. We were not very successful that year in convincing Senator Spanel that we were a good resource for her. We thought it was fairly obvious; here we were a group with representation from associations, franchises, and independents. The “youngstersâ€

Tell her to call the local narc squad and invite a plain clothes guy to come over to watch TV or an hour or two one evening. Once he smells it, he'll have PC to follow through. They'll get busted and the landlord will find himself worried about his reputation for not checking out his tenants more thoroughly and will evict them. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Jodi, What do you mean the furnace was "missing both covers?" Are you saying that the air handler cover was missing and that the cover over the combustion tubes is missing? If so, that furnace needs to be shut down immediately and not used until the covers are found and reinstalled. Other than that, a furnace can obtain combustion air from the attic as long as it's the local code guy allows it because the attic is sufficiently ventilated, and the manufacturer's specs allow it. You need to get yourself a copy of CodeCheck Complete. There are some good diagrams in there to help you understand this stuff more easily. OT - OF!!! M.

OK Matthew, You're going to have to teach me how to determine that those are 90+ condensing units from that photo, 'cuz I'll be hornswoggled if I can tell. (Hah, bet you guys didn't know I was old enough to have ever heard that one, didja?). OT - OF!!! M.

I usually call it black, blue, white, whatever plastic pipe. If they express an interest in knowing what specific type, and it's a new home and I can't see the roll marks and it's obviously not PVC or CPVC, I tell them to ask the builder. If it's a preexisting home and I don't know, I tell them that I and don't have any way, beyond excavation to try and find printing on the pipe, or taking a sample to a lab for testing - neither of which I'm allowed to do - to tell them what it is. I've had a California couple walk away from a home with a plastic supply line because they'd read something someplace on the internet about how plastic pipe was supposed to be poisonous to people and to the environment. I just shrugged and asked them have they ever considered what most of the packaged foods we eat are packaged in? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That "splitting" looks like the beginning of rot to me. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Most of the time, unless you've got a high water table or a house is placed below a hillside, window wells will drain just fine without a drain in them. They'll have used a bead of caulking behind the nailing fin to keep out water. It will work for a time exposed like that but will eventually leak. It would have been prudent to use some 4" wide self-adhering bituthene around the perimeter of that window and then install some trim over the top of that to prevent it being damaged by UV. Personally, I would have used a latex mastic to seal the polyethylene to the concrete around the perimeter of that window and would have brought it all the way to the top of the wall before sealing the perimeter of the window as above. I probably would have used Hardiboard between the bottom of the siding and grade and down the side of that wall in that window well, before installing the trim around the window, to prevent damage to the polyethylene. Done properly, everything would have been in drainage plane and the foundation, though wood, would have looked to anyone except a pro, like it was concrete. I grew up in basement country. What I know from years of putting them in with my father is that if the foundation is done right, whether concrete or wood, it will stay dry. If it's done wrong, it'll leak - that's a given. Around here in the Seattle area, I'd say only about 40 to 50% of them are done right and the rest are wet without the wetness being controlled or with some other measure being used to reduce that wetness. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, That looks like a dirty layer of polyethylene plastic to me - not paper. If so, the way that it's been done is going to allow wind-driven rain to drain behind the plastic where it will be trapped between the plastic and the wood. I should think that the wall above needs to be in drainage plane onto the plasic. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Chris, I don't know about down there, but up here when it has spread apart like that I usually assume that it has probably moved as the result of some seismic activity. Of course, most of what I see is placed concrete. I rarely see CMU foundations; so, I suppose if I saw them often I might have a different view. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Doug, Yeah, it should have stopped a little shy of the brick and there should have been a piece of sloped flashing there with a little gap between the bottom of the siding and the flashing. Can't tell if that soldier row is sloped or not - it should slope slightly. That's T1-11 plywood. It's a structural sheathing/siding, so it may extend all the way to the sill behind that brickwork. Is it possible that the brick was added to the house after it was built to dress it up appearance-wise? If so, that might explain why there's no flashing there; whoever did the brickwork might not have known how to add flashing where the siding is the sheathing instead of being applied on top of the sheathing. Check these out. If you aren't already registered with APA, you'll have to register to get the first one. It takes about a minute to do so, it's free, and they don't spam you so it's not a big deal. http://www.apawood.org/pdfs/download_pd ... d/A530.pdf http://www.bia.org/pdfs/Builder_Notes_1 ... N=33321096 ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Been there, done that. Celebrated 35 years sober on January 23rd. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Your a tough guy, Jon, you can take it. OT - OF!!! M.

Gray day here in western Washington state; about 50 degrees. I'd rather go to the dentist than play golf. The one and only time I tried that, I spent more time in the bush in about 4 hours than I'd spent in the weeds, bushes, trees, and ditches than anywhere else during the previous year. That was enough for me. I put up with enough of that crap in the Army. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I think if you aren't using tools in this business you are limiting your ability to learn as much as you can about houses. Over the past six years, I've: - Pulled a blower drum out of an air handler in order to be able to look up into a heat exchanger. - Opened up "A" coil cabinets on systems to be able to examine their condition and examine how they're put together. - Disassembled the housings on about six different types of boilers in order to see what makes them tick. - Taken down ceiling panels and crawled through ceiling plenums in order to get to and examine heat pumps in skyscrapers. - Opened lots of screwed-on access covers in order to examine hidden plumbing, electrical, and hydro-massage tub components. - Opened dozens of in-wall electrical and/or hydronic heaters to examine their connections and see how they worked. - Cut into walls, with the permission of homeowners, to investigate moisture in walls. - Removed one or two pieces of siding, with the pemission of homeowners, to investigate pest issues. - Had clients give save me replaced components so that I could study issues seen and understand what caused them. - Other stuff If I can do it within the time I've alloted myself for the inspection, without damaging whatever it is and without significantly adding to my usual time on site or the time it takes me to compile a report, I do it. Home inspectors can't learn everything from books and message boards; you have to get your hands dirty and understand how stuff works. If you don't want to do it on a customer's house during an inspection, do it on your own, and your relatives', and your friends, etc.. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Chadify! I love it. Sfunny, after some of your posts about your workshop experiments on the ASHI board years ago, I started thinking of jury-rigging stuff as Katenizing it long before WJ began referring to your report commentary as being Katenized. You and Chad, legends in your own times! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It isn't normal circumstances that kill people. It's the exceptional circumstances that do it. - Jim Katen, Oregon Your absolutely right; thus, my use of the word normal. Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating it. I just think that technically I bet there's a way that it can be done; not that it's legal to do so. OT - OF!!! M.

Attention Washington Inspectors!!! Jerry McDonald, Assistant Program Administrator for the Real Estate Division at the Washington State Department of Licensing is putting together a FAQ list, in order to respond to those who will have questions about getting their home inspector's license in Washington State next year. If you have any questions that you'd like to see answered, please send them to Mr. McDonald at JMcDonald@DOL.WA.GOV or contact him at 360-664-6524. You can also fax your questions to (360) 664-8885 (Attn: Jerry McDonald) or write to: Master License Service Department of Licensing PO Box 9034 Olympia, WA 98507-9034 ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Do either the Fluke or the Flir allow one to carry a battery pack and plug it into the side of the gizmo? I noticed last week at the bill signing that the Kiro 7 guy carried a battery back on a shoulder strap with a little cord running from that battery pack to his TV camers so that he wouldn't run out of power. Seems to make sense to me. Use the shoulder strap thingy when walking around the house and let it run off its integral battery when doing attics and crawls. OT - OF!!! M.

He's not allowed to show it. We've got a prohibition against posting obscene photos here. [] OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Well, for more 6 decades that house has been an experiment to see whether a duct opening into a garage could result in anyone getting killed. Maybe none of the owners realized it, but now you can tell them that their experiment has concluded that those ducts wouldn't result in anyone having been killed under normal circumstances (As if that will be any real comfort.). OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Bonnie, We call it "inspectorspeak" in the business but it didn't originate with us. Most of the folks in this business came to it from somewhere else where for decades they'd been exposed to regulations, user manuals, training manuals, installation manuals, etc. that all contained passive constructions. The folks that write those texts are usually not professional writers ,and the stuff isn't very well edited, so it comes out of the chute as a passive construction. Plus, if you do a little research on google into "report writing," you'll find that there are plenty of texts out there on how to write technical reports that specifically instruct readers to write passively. I think it's texts like those that perpetuate this stuff, because inspectors think that it's the professional way to write and are trying to emulate those texts . It's hard, after half a lifetime of reading and emulating that kind of writing, to change. Sorry about that last sentence but the German linguist in me tends to use what would, in German, be modal verbs; in this case 'hard to change.' ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Jim, Well, not necessarily that you'd want to see them, but that you'd advise the client to do some more investigating, no? I shook my head at how perfect the barrier install was and then explained to the client that there's not supposed to be water under a house. I then recommended that the buyer contact the municipality and ensure that the city had appropriate engineering documents on file showing that the footing depth and size were specifically designed taking into account the type of bearing capacity of the soil, the fact that the house was on a flood plain, and showing that they (the city) had known about the flooding, and had engineering documentation on file specifying that the barrier be installed that way and that it was OK to build it like that. Lastly, I told him that if the city had all of that, I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy and I would personally have liked to have seen a pump in there, though I knew that said pump would probably run 24/7 during the rainy season. From that point on, it was none of my business. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike