hausdok

Guys, We know what it is. Randy is just contemplating whether to add it as a s service and we're discussing the pros and cons of doing so. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Joe, I think screens might diffuse the light enough to stop the melting. However, many of the new vinyl windows that open only have screens on half of the window. Is the neighbor even going to be able to put full screens on his windows? OT - OF!!! M.

I thought the bulletin was pretty clear. OT - OF!!! M.

My response would have been something like, "It sounds like folklore. I've never heard of it. Did this inspector cite a source for that tidbit? If not, file it away with the Bigfoot sightings. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Ezra, You should be seeing a YouTube monitor in that post. Anyone out there understand why Ezra's computer thingy won't display that video? OT - OF!!! M.

Washington, D.C./January 10, 2008 - Release #08-161 The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with A.O. Smith Electrical Products Co., of Tipp City, Ohio , today announced a voluntary recall of approximately 6,300 whole-house exhaust fan electric motors that can be miswired and overheat, posing a fire hazard. The recalled electric motor is part of a residential whole-house exhaust fan that is typically mounted on the floor of an attic. The shutters of the fan are visible on the ceiling of the floor beneath the attic and must be opened and closed by the consumer. The motors were included with exhaust fans manufactured and distributed by Air Vent Inc. and Triangle Engineering of Arkansas Inc. "A.O. Smith," the model number, and the service date code are printed on the rating plate of the motor. The recall includes model numbers S56A30A54 andS56A30A97, and service date codes 032076M - 334076M, 03207JY - 33407JY, and YB07 - YL07. Units that have a sticker indicating that the unit has been rewired are not subject to this recall. The fans were manufactured in Mexico and the recalled motors, included with the exhaust fans, were sold at home improvement stores nationwide or by professional installers or builders from February 2007 through November 2007 for about $3,000. Inspectors finding these fans should advise homeowners to stop using the recalled unit immediately and contact A.O. Smith to arrange for a free inspection and repair of the motor. For more information, contact contact A.O. Smith toll-free at (866) 567-3878 between 8:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit the firm's Web site at www.aosmithmotors.com To see this recall on CPSC's web site, including pictures of the recalled product, please go to: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08161.html The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $700 billion annually. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard or can injure children. The CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals - contributed significantly to the 30 percent decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

Washington - January 22 The National Trust for Historic Preservation and HUD are inviting nominations for the 2008 HUD Secretary's Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation. This award recognizes the recipient for success in advancing the goals of historic preservation while providing affordable housing and/or expanded economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income families and individuals. Nominated projects or activities are judged for the successes they have achieved in preserving, rehabilitating, restoring, and interpreting our architectural and cultural heritage. Any project, agency, individual, or organization involved in historic preservation is eligible to receive the award. Nominated projects must have been completed within the past three years. Submissions must be received by the National Preservation Awards Coordinator, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036, and postmarked no later than the March 1, 2008 deadline. Award announcements and presentations will be made during the National Preservation Conference to be held October 21-25, 2008 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The application form and award criteria can be downloaded here. For additiona information contact HUD USER, P.O. Box 23268, Washington, DC 20026-3268, PH: 1-800-245-2691 TDD: 1-800-927-7589, FAX: 202-708-9981

OK folks, try wrapping your mind around this.[utube] [/utube] OT - OF!!! M.

"I love it when a plan comes together" George Peppard, dec.

All day long, it was niggling at the back of my crusty subconscious but I couldn't pull it out. Then, there it was. This thread had me remembering this guy. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/btc/apps/resabhp.html OT - OF!!! M.

OK, I'll bite, who certifies the "certified qualified mold expert" and who qualified the outfit that's handing out the "certification"? EPA? CDC? NAS? OT - OF!!! M.

A bungalow with impudent Tudor aspirations and a big ugly honkin' zit on its nose. OT - OF!!! M.

How big is it and where are you trying to upload it? If you're trying to upload it to a post and it's bigger than about 2Mb it's not going to go and you'll have to upload it to the file library. Go to library and then click on 'contribute files'. Once I see it, I'll approve it and then you can post the url to this thread. OT - OF!!! M.

Can't you tell? It's so obvious; that's the bridge of an alien spaceship that's re-formed itself transformer style to try and look like a house. Go through that door though and you're inside a huge 12th dimensional intersteller-interdimensional craft. If there is any better example of good cause to charge, try, convict, and execute someone for crimes against architecture, I'd like to see it. OT - OF!!! M.

Snippity huh? I'll give you snippity. Good thing I'm not back on the east coast, I'd be getting in my car for a little jaunt to Rochester and to Nazareth and would bringing a pair of scissors to do a some real snippin'. After that, there'd be a new pair of sopranos singing at the met, doncha know - Chadwina and Josephina. [:-bonc01] OT - OF!!! M.

I'm jealous. I think we home inspectors should have someone that we can sue. Fair's fair, dammit! OT - OF!!! M.

Dunno, I marked theirs, and every other mold, email flyers as spam years ago and haven't been keeping up with their activities. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Chad, It doesn't really have to be a parabolic. The windows on my place and the place across the way are visibly concave - maybe even slightly too much. When they project light on the unit across the way, the light is a bright white X, as if they'd gone slightly past the focal point. My siding gets too hot to touch but not hot enough to physically melt it. I'm convinced that the degree of concavity (is that a word) in the window reflected off of, and the distance to the object damaged, are critical factors in whether the siding merely gets too hot touch or actually begins to melt. From what I'm seeing, the cheaper, generic brand vinyl windows seem to allow this to happen more than the expensive brands. Regardless, it does happen. It would be kind of cool though, to be able to have a wall clad with vinyl siding and a bunch of various brands of windows mounted on gimbals and tracks so that the distances and angle of deflection could be experimented with, in order to determine exactly which conditions are optimum for melting to take place. Kimisue, how far is your house from your neighbor's house and are the two houses exactly parallel to each other or are they angled toward or away from one another? Jim, that's a pretty good suggestion. However, if the house was fine until the neighbor replaced his windows and then the siding turned to soup, she replaced the siding, and in short order, in the middle of winter, the same thing happens, there's an obvious cause and effect. Shouldn't one expect that the neighbor should bear at least some of the cost burden to replace the siding with Hardiplank? Kimisue, have you talked to your insurance carrier or asked your neighbor to talk to his about this? It might be worth exploring. If your tree falls down and damages a neighbor's house it's going to be your carrier that pays for the repairs. It's a condition of his property that is damaging your; seems to me that's kind of the same thing, and, since it's provable, maybe his insurance company should be paying to re-side your home with Hardiplank? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yep, I just post it when I run into it, I don't control when other pubs take it off the wire and republish it and I'm not going to go back and dig through all of the stuff here to see if it's already been posted. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, That's pretty much what I tell folks. It's an individual thing. I point out that the percentage of people who are actually allergic to mold spore is very small and that if mold were so "toxic" that most everyone living in the western corridor of Washington State would be walking around with an oxygen bottle strapped to their hip or would be in the hospital because there's so much spore out here you can practically chew it. As outlandish as that sounds, more than once the client has nodded knowingly and told me that he or she was in fact allergic to mold and was taking medication for it while other folks in the same family are unaffected by it. Basically, I tell 'em that I don't do mold; that, if they're concerned about it, they should hire a good indoor air quality testing firm that employs scientists with lots of letters after their names, to address their concerns, and avoid anyone who inspects homes for a living and calls themself a "mold inspector," because all that person will do is take their money for telling them something that they already know - that there's mold in the air of the house. Works for me. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That depends on the weight it's supporting. If it's considered "load bearing" it can't be cantilevered beyond the depth of the joists. That cantilever appears to be about twice the depth of the joists. Most chimney chases wouldn't qualify; however, once you add the weight of all that brick to the outside face?......... OT - OF!!! M.

Yeah, You can direct the neighbor to this site and to Energy Design Update, so he/she will realize that it has nothing to do with cheap siding. Either that, or hire a lawyer and direct the lawyer to this site and EDU so he/she can build a case against the neighbor and the window manufacturer for the damage to your home. Alternatively, has the neighbor got vinyl siding? If so, purchase a an identical brand window set it up in your yard so that the sun is reflected onto his siding for an hour or so every day and let the neighbor see how he/she likes his own siding being damaged. Bwahahahahaha. OT - OF!!! M.

Responding to a reader's query in his column in Mortgage.101.com, well known home inspection pundit Barry Stone explains why he feels that the home inspector involved is liable for missing a well publicized furnace recall notice. To read more click here.

It had to happen. During the housing bubble, people were buying homes at obscene prices, forcing many less-than-well-heeled buyers out of the market. Now that the housing bubble has burst and the value of their homes is falling, some of these same buyers are looking around for someone other than themselves to blame and are focusing on the real estate agents who helped them purchase their homes. Lawyers are seeing this as an opportunity. If this creates the latest litigation gold rush for lawyers, is it inevitable that home inspectors will eventually be sucked into the vortex? To read more click here. Thanks to Kurt Mitenbuler for finding this one.

Hi Tommy, That subject is discussed here a lot, so the very first thing you should do is go into the archives on this site and read all of the old threads related to schools and training and getting into the business and you'll find out everything you need to know about the business as well as read opinions by others about the various training that's available. This sounds like a lot of work, but it will be faster than waiting for folks to return from a day's work or to get done writing their reports in the evening and still having the energy to come on here and go into a long dissertation about what works and what doesn't. It's all right here on TIJ and every question that you could possibly think to ask has been asked before. Just start reading. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike