hausdok

Inspection from last week, brand new house.. I came out of the crawl and said, "You've got some stuff growing all over 100% of the underside of the house, yadda, yadda, best get it dealt with or when you go to sell the house some guy like me is gonna come out of there and tell the buyer, "You've got some stuff growing all over 100% of the underside of the house......" They asked the builder to have an abatement firm remove it and treat with a fungicide and make everything pretty again. Builder responded back, "We treated with microban (or something like that - not sure) biocide before installing the insulation or putting down the vapor barrier. Home has been resinspected since and we didn't find any additional growth; so we aren't going to do anything about it, yadda, yadda..." Click to Enlarge 513.05 KB Click to Enlarge 482.36 KB Click to Enlarge 497.91 KB Click to Enlarge 404.76 KB I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I'm happy that someone has finally taken a stand and said, "No f****n' more! I'm not spending another $6K to $10K to remove something that can't hurt anyone. I'll spray it - that's what we used to do back in the day - and they can accept it or walk away," but on the other hand I'm like, "What? They knew about this and didn't bother to tell you before you hired me and spent nearly $700 for an inspection? Why didn't they just tell you about it up-front and give you the option of walking away or saying, "Ok, that sounds reasonable. I want to make an offer despite that."?" I'm curious to know how they know there's been no additional growth. There are hundreds of thousands of spots down there. Did they count them? Maybe they were just figuring that home inspectors are stupid and will never see it.....I dunno. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Oh, you wanna see Man Cave? I'll show you man cave! YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE MAN CAVE !!! http://www.kare11.com/video/default.asp ... 8137284001 OF - OF!!! M.

You would only ventilate it if you are leaving the kneewall attics and the upper attic outside of the conditioned envelope of the house. If you do that, you have to have ventilation to remove the moisture that would migrate into those areas. When you insulate as they have here, the've made the upper attic and the kneewall attics (I assume) part of the conditioned envelope of the house. That envelope has to be continuous from peek of the ridge to foundation for it to work properly. Sounds like it's working fine if it's that old and looks as good as it does. If they'd gotten it wrong, all of that kraft paper on the heated side would probably be covered with water spots and be nasty. Dr. Joe will tell you that keeping everything within the same conditioned space ultimately works better than trying to create a house with conditioned space with all of the systems installed outside of that space. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike P.S. If any of what I just wrote is absolutely unintelligible, I beg your pardon. I'd pulled an all nighter to get a big horse property report done and no sooner had I finally gotten to sleep than I got woke up. Seems what I sent to them looked like the dead sea scrolls and made no sense. Still can't figure out how I did that. When I opened up the computer to look at what I thought I'd sent them, it was perfect. Resent and they're happy now. Me? Not so much. Still can't figure out where the report written by Beetlejuice came from. OT - OF!!! M.

I remember that article. It was Dan Friedman. Since he wrote that he developed it into an online course. http://inspectapedia.com/structure/x-ra ... /frame.htm ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I guess I missed that in the intial post. I hadn't clicked on picture number one because I'd assumed there were window wells there. I suppose it would be legit if the yard is graded to drain to those pipes but then you'd need a surface box 'cuz you'd never expect water to get above the top of that pipe. Why would one grade the yard to drain into something that close to the foundation? Is it possible that those are downspout receivers and the gutter guy was so dense that he couldn't figure that out? They're dumping water onto the ground within six feet of the foundation - that's bad. If those aren't downspout receivers I'm confused now. Who would ever gather water on the surface within a foot of the foundation? I don't get it. Was that yard graded away from the foundation? If so, I'm betting that system is supposed to capture the rain water via downspouts and the guy who installed the gutters is mentally handicapped. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Would that not fit properly if the faceplate depth screws were adjusted so that when the cover is on the faceplate is against the breaker?

Nah, Then the surface dirt washes into the pipe. Leave it a little proud. It allows a little water in the well but when there's enough to go into the pipe it removes it without all that mud rushing in there. It'd work better if the wells had a layer of geo textile under a layer of clean stone. Then you wouldn't be worrying about mud washing into that pipe. It really needs a grate of some sort or some curious rodent is going to go down there and start gnawing holes in the walls of that pipe. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, If you use perforated pipe you have placed a large soaker hose around the fouindation that will distribute the water at the foundation instead of taking it away. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, That must be some kind of northwest mania. They have some kind of parade in the Freemont district of Seattle every year where the participants literally "parade" their stuff. Naked guys and ladies on bikes and donkeys and all sorts of weird shite. People line up to see it with their kids fer crissake! Naked elderly ladies in body paint - [:-yuck] [:-shake] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Our town was so small we had a number back then. Ours was 393. Operator would come on and say, "Number Please," and we'd say the other person's number and then she'd say, "One moment please" in that high nasal voice and then after a minute we'd hear the hello on the other end. OT - OF!!! M.

Now that you've damaged that one receptacle the seller is going to blame it all on you and will expect you to pay to have every receptacle in the house brought up to code. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It makes it easier for those lonely suburban housewives to find someone to ...er...talk to. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Thanks Eric. Cooper tamper-resistant receptacle. Helps prevents foreign objects from being inserted into outlet The plug prevents people from inserting foreign objects, like a 3-prong circuit tester. They are just trying to keep us all safe. [] TR receptacles have been required in all new construction here for the last few years. They don't have anything covering the ground slot. Same here. After a while one develops a knack of wiggling the tester just right to get the TR device to allow the tester to go in. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!! Mike

Oh, oh, Wait for it. Waaaiiiiiiiit for it. Pretty soon one of the mold evengelists will be here to declare you morally bereft and to claim you are a fraud who's been bought off by government and special interests. You're a baaaaaaaaad person, Kurt. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sounds like someone has just realized he's been screwing up for a while and now he's trying to rationalize his mistake by working overtime to create implied exceptions to the code. Just sayin' ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

At the left of the composition box. Click on the "show entire smile list" selection. Which one do you want? [:-boggled [:-dopey] [:-dunce] [:-paperba [] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! [:-spin] Mike

Tsk, It's such a shame Andrew that you didn't heed Jim's warning above. I've removed the link you so rudely dropped here and I've deleted all of the other valueless posts that you left on other threads. Your profile is now locked so that you can no longer participate here. Please go somewhere else - you and other link droppers are not welcome here. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

When you turn a gas valve off on a gas fireplace you usually have to wait a minute or so for a clicking sound before you can relight it. Turn it off and then try to turn it on and it won't light. Wait for the click and then proceed as normal and it lights. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Do you mean ammonia-based systems? In my early AC days, a few houses had them but were more common in RV refrigerators that used propane. Marc Had one of those. Bought it for $25 and installed it in a 1957 GMC 54 passenger school bus I'd converted to a hippy RV. '71 or 72' can't remember zackly. Groovy, Man! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

There's abundant evidence that people can have allergic reactions to mold. There's abundant evidence that people who have problems with their immune system can be infected by mold. There's abundant evidence that people can have toxic reactions after ingesting mold. There's no evidence (that I can find) to back up the assertion that breathing mold, spores, or VOCs from mold in a residential setting can cause any toxic reactions in healthy people. If you know of such evidence, please direct me to it. Find the worst moldy house that you can, pay my standard fee, and I'll be happy to live in it for a month and walk out as healthy as I walked in. This would be a yummy home in which to spend a month. Click to Enlarge 60.88?KB Looks kinda like the basement apartment in that triplex I inspected on Sunday. Some guy and his teenage daughter living there. She was in her room doing homework and he was kicked back in front of the telly watching football when I came through. Leaking stop valve under the toilet. Floor wet as hell. All humid and every window closed up tighter than a gnat's ass. Says he's lived there 8 years; there was so much crap in the heaters that it looked like nobody had blown them out in 8 years. Told him one looked like a fire waiting to happen and explained that the front should be taken off of those and they should be blown out twice a year. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "It ain't my job to clean those things out," and went back to watching the game - whatever it was. Looking out a window - that ain't black paint.... Click to Enlarge 41.69 KB The "smoke 'em if you got 'em" heater.... Click to Enlarge 47.7 KB ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Just got an email from a former client. I'd done his home for him about 2007 and about a year or two ago he hired me to look at a couple more for him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hire me for the first of those two - A $1.2M house on Lake Sammamish - 'cuz he thought he'd learned enough from me the first time to go on his own and he didn't want to spend the money. He sent me a couple of emails to ask me a couple of questions about flat roofs and I'd answered. Then he asked a few more that kind of put the hair up on the back of my neck - nothing special, just that I grew uneasy with the picture of the roof I was forming in my mind. At that point I told him to get in touch with Lee Cooley, the best flat roof guy in these parts, and not to waste any money on me. He contacted Lee but then called me back and asked if I could come out and be there when Lee comes. Always happy to get paid for something that doesn't require writing a report, I complied. Went out there on the day in question and met Lee for the first time after having recommended him to countless persons over the years (He'd been recommended to me by both the Firestone and the Goodyear factory folks.). The house was what they call a "northwest contemporary" with a rooftop deck. Slab sided without any overhang eaves in a part of the country where it rains 9 months of the year with vertically applied tongue-and-groove redwood siding. One went up an open stairwell carpeted with indoor-outdoor carpeting to a sort of open mudroom with a narrow roof above it (I was reminded of coming out of a boat onto a deck) and then walked out onto that roof. The whole thing was covered with a modbit cover and the deck area was separated from the rest of the roof by a 42-inch high parapet. The legs of the deck rested on rubber isolation pads. Even before Lee whisled softly and said, "Whooey, the idiot that put this roof on needs to find another line of work," I could see there were problems. The scuppers were so low on the sides and so narrow that any tree debris at all (This house was surrounded by tall firs) was going to clog them solid and they'd overflow the sides into the walls. The roof parapet at the edge was only a few inches higher than that with copings that were way too short. Fifteen minutes later I was in my car, check in hand, on my way home very glad that I'd recommended Lee to the guy. Several weeks later I inspected another house for him in the same neighborhood which he bought. He hasn't had any problems with that one. This morning I had an email in my inbox from the client. He asked if I remembered that house I'd referred him to Cooley for and then mentioned, "I randomly met the people who just finished building a house next door to that one -- I bought a bookcase from them on Craigslist. I mentioned that I had almost purchased the house next door, and they volunteered that just after the people who ended up buying the house moved in, they had a significant leak from the roof that cost them quite a bit of money to deal with. Apparently it was not localized to one spot and caused a big mess." As Hannibal Smith would say, "I love it when a plan comes together!" ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Flew on the constellation at the age of 7 from Halifax to Sydney, Nova Scotia. I was sent alone. All the pretty stewardesses spoiled the hell out of me on that flight. They have an old Canadian constellation here in Seattle at the museum of flight. I've always wondered whether it's the same one. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'm still trying to connect the title of this thread with the PV panel thingy. When I saw it I was sure we'd had a visit from some Chinese spammer and I was about to nuke it when I decided to see what item number whatzis was about. OT - OF!!! M.

We here in Washington live in spore central. It never gets too hot for mold here and it rarely gets cold enough here to send it into stasis - it thrives here and grows 24/7/365. Why isn't everyone in this state wearing an oxygen bottle and breathing through one of those little rubber masks? Why aren't the childrens hospitals here filled up with kids living in bubbles? Why is it that I can go into a poor neighborhood, do an inspection on a beater and find a family living with mold surrounding them and when I ask how everyong is doing and do any of them have any sinus problem, headaches, body aches, allergies, etc., most of the time they say they are fine? Why is it that I can go into a well-to-do neighborhood and find some mildew stains on some caulk and the buyers freak out and want to know if the home is "infested with mold." Today I explained all of this to a lady client and then said something like, "I bet I could go to your home right now, take samples, send them to a lab and that home will have as much mold as this home - perhaps more because there is someone living there. Face it, mold is all around us, it's on your clothes, in your hair, stuck to your eyeballs and in your lungs. Got a baby at home - that baby is covered with mold spore. Don't believe me, ask your doctor. If he knows his butt from his elbow he'll tell you I'm right." She thanked me as she shuddered and brushed off the sleeve of her coat and I feigned being choked by the mold she'd dusted toward me. Get real people - the stuff was around before we arrived on the planet. If it were so bad how the hell did we manage to populate the planet? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Tell me about it, 16 years ago it was, "There's some fungal discoloration on the underside of your roof in the attic. You have to fix your attic ventilation so that it will dry out the attic sufficiently enough to prevent fungal growth. Fix the yadda yadda to restore proper ventilation and treat the fungal growth with Cuprinol or some other kind of fungicide." The client would yawn, walk away and probably never do a thing about it. Now, thanks to the media hype and horse's ass with teeth types like Ms. Ballard, todays it's.... "Oh my gawwwwwd!!! There's some kind of fungi on the underside of the roof. You've got MOLD!!! If you don't hire my buddy's abatement company right now to get rid of the MOLD(!!!) the house will need to be bulldozed into the ground, your kids will develop all sorts of side effects and you'll have to go on welfare for the next twenty years!! By the way it's all the fault of whoever inspected the attic last. Here's my bill. What, how's the attic ventilation? I dunno, why do you ask? What, you want credible references to back up my mold claims? What are those? Are you smoking crack or something?" ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike