hausdok

This article in The Villages Daily Sun makes it sound like all private home inspectors learned their trade from the back of a Cracker Jack box and that a home inspection is about as useless as a screen door on a submarine. What a shame that this is the perception of the public in a state with some of the most proficient and active home inspectors in the nation. To read the entire article, click here.

Hi Lewis, Yeah, that's what they do with the Abatron process, drill little holes into the healty wood around the soft areas, gouge out most of the soft area and then, once the wood hardner has set up, use a two-part epoxy to fill the cavity and the tiny holes used to inject the hardener. Just about ten minutes before the epoxy reaches final set, you take a surform file, shape it very quickly to almost the finished dimension, and then let it harden. Lastly, after it's hardened, you sand it with gradually finer sandpapers until you've got it to the final surface height and finish you want and then you paint it. They've been using the stuff at Colonial Williamsburg to fight rot for years. It sounds like a lot of work but when you do it a couple of times there's really nothing to it. Back in 2001, I restored the rotted out ends of some rafter tails under the eaves of a bungalow here. I checked out the repairs last year and they were doing fine. If I didn't know that they'd been repaired, I wouldn't have even been able to tell. It was a whole lot faster than trying to get a perfect and strong scarf joint while working from the top of that ladder and I didn't have to tear into anything. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Richard, Look at the tube. All the manufacturer says is: Caulking For best results use an Elastomeric Joint Sealant complying with ASTM C920 Grade NS, Class 25 or higher or a Latex Joint Sealant complying with ASTM C834. Caulking/Sealant must be applied in accordance with the caulking/sealant manufacturer’s written instructions or ASTM C1193. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sashco's Big Stretch is used a lot around here by the Hardi guys. OT - OF!!! M.

I typically recommend replacement too, but every once in a while folks want to try and keep what's there. When they do, I recommend they replace the damaged areas but also provide a link to the Abatron site in the report http://www.abatron.com OT - OF!!! M.

A plan for mandatory disclosure of home condition by sellers was announced 3 years ago in the UK. However, with less than three months to roll-out of the plan last June, the mandatory home inspection component of the home information packs (HIPS) was scrapped because of opposition by those in real estate and the mortgage lending industry. Instead, thousands of newly-trained home inspectors, who've each spent thousands of pounds to complete government mandated training, find themselves performing the mandatory energy assessment portion of the HIPs for a fraction of what they would have been earning as home inspectors. An entire home inspection training industry appeared practically overnight in the UK and now there are more new energy assessors than there is work. To learn more click here.

Following the recommendations made by the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, after they conducted a study of Allentown's housing stock, Mayor Ed Pawlowski's administration is pushing for mandatory pre-sale inspections. Under Pawlowski's plan, city inspectors would inspect all residential properties in Allentown, to ensure that before a home changes hands certain health and safety code issues are corrected. If passed, the measure will require homeowners to pay city inspectors a minimum fee of $200. Homeowners could negotiate fees for additional inspections and time on site. How is this liable to impact local private home inspectors? To read the entire article, click here.

Chris, The latest set of Hardiplank instructions - February 2007, I believe - don't specify any particular gap at the butts. OT - OF!!! M.

Got a JLC Online membership? Best to let Prof. Fisette talk about it here or here. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Was there building paper behind it or did they apply it directly over OSB sheathing without a WRB? OT - OF!!! M.

Whoa! Very Kewl! Thanks Barry! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Mike, Not to be unkind, but this is a home inspectors site, not a do-it-yourselfer's advice site. I think we were more than patient when you visited last time to ask your questions about the house-sized furnace you wanted to put in your garage, but we advised you then to see the services of a professional and explained, in many ways, how dangerous it is to do this work yourself. Please, spend a couple of hundred bucks for a professional to come out and help you install that thing. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Barry, Wow, very sobering. It kind of makes one realize how important it is to have a complete understanding of all of the little details that we look at when we examine the wiring in a home. Thanks for your contribution to the TIJ family. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi All, You can find those documents that Bill just uploaded by going to the menu bar above, passing your cursor over library and then choosing new files. Eventually, it will scroll down out of the new files section and you'll have to go to the file directory to look for it, where it will be found under inspections. Like Bill, every once in a while, I go into the "my documents" archive on my computer and upload a few more documents to the library. If we all do that, eventually it will become one of the most useful resources for inspectors on this site. Bill, thanks for being such a strong supporter of the TIJ family. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Bonnie, We used to use a Bobcat to clear the parking lot of snow at the PMO at Ft. Carson and I had a couple of 5'3" tall lady MP's that had no problem driving the thing. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I've uploaded the photo. It's definitely the base for a tower or piece of equipment of some sort. OT - OF!!! M.

My guess would be that that's the north slope of the roof and it's not getting warmed by the day's sun and is staying damp. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Bonnie, Call Chris Prickett or Scott Warga. They are inspectors in your area and they'll most-probably be familiar with what you've found. I don't have their phone numbers available, but you should be able to find them on the inspector search feature at http://www.ashi.org. Just plug in your city and submit the search and it should pull them up. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sorry, missed one of the HTML tags. It's fixed. Nah, shakes are coming from tree lots now. If you drive around up here and look at the size and age of some of the trees, and look at some of the turn-of-the-20th-century photos of the region, it quickly becomes apparent that trees grow really fast here and that proper forest management works. Did you know that Georgia Pacific owns several hundred linear miles of Mississippi river frontage in sustainable forests where there are more trees there now than there was a 100 years ago and growth outstrips demand? If everyone could get on board at the same time, we'd probably be overrun with forests in 50 years. Nah, I think we're in good shape, it's south America and the rain forests down there that are hurting. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Kurt, You have to split it before it gets back on-topic. What you could do, is start another thread about smokehouses and then those who've posted could come on here, copy what they've posted so far, delete it, and re-post it to your smokehouse thread. The problem with the roof is the cost of getting it properly cleaned and then the rotten shakes removed and replaced. If the roof has 20 to 25% butt rot, the cost is prohibitive. It makes more sense to install a new roof at that point because you'll spend that much or more every successive year until you finally bite the bullet and replace the cover. If a shake roof is properly maintained from day one, it will last indefinitely - well, at least as long as they continue to make shakes. However, it's rare that I find a roof that's been properly maintained. Most folks around here think that 'maintenance' means paying some jackass with a pressure-washer $200 to $250 bucks to go up there, remove a few years service life from the cover by using high pressure, punch a bunch of holes clean through the cover and the felts, and then spray some rust-colored dye onto the roof to make it look great from the ground. When I inspect those, I typically find more damage than if they'd left the cover alone. I frequently have to recommend that freshly "maintained" shake roofs be torn off and replaced. Proper shake maintenance means getting up on the roof every year, finding all broken, missing, rotting shakes, removing them and installing new ones. When you remove one rotten butt, you also have to remove the two that are side-by-side beneath it, because the rot will have spread into those. Proper cleaning means either mechanically cleaning the cover with a soft-bristled broom or brush and a blower, then treating all algae, moss, and lichen with a chemical to kill it and rinsing it off the cover. Proper sealing means using a real shake oil preservative, not dye. Around here, we have roof cleaning companies and real roof maintenance companies. The roof cleaning dudes, with few exceptions, have the collective IQ of a grape. If I had my way, there'd be a hunting season wherein home inspector could bag their limit of these horrible creatures every year before they do too much damage. Most are a pimple on the butt of society. The true roof maintenance companies are different. They'll use high volume low pressure methods to clean the cover. It takes longer but it doesn't damage the shakes. They'll use real shake preservative. They guaranty their work and longevity of the cover, based on the condition of the cover when they're first called to look at it. They'll tell the homeowner when cost of maintenance over the next few years is going to exceed what it will cost to replace the entire cover now. They're expensive - about $1500 to properly bring back the cover over a 1200 sf bungalow; $2500 to $3000 to do the cover on a 3600 sf home. I know of a home in Seattle that had the original shake cover from 1957 when I inspected it in 2001. It was in excellent condition and had been lovingly maintained by its homeowner, who'd built the house originally. He'd been using reputable shake maintenance companies for nearly half a century. He figured that he spent about $900 to a $1000 annually on maintenance in the late 1990's but it had been less years before. Cost probably equalled cost to have completely replaced that roof 3 times. In this climate, if he hadn't done the maintenance, he probably would have had to replace it 3 times anyway over that period, but he'd never had to deal with the inconvenience or mess or roof leaks or mess (and there is one hell of a mess when they tear off and replace a shake roof) of a full tear off and replacement. John's roof has been sorely neglected to have that much fungal growth on it. The cover will be rife with incipient rot spore. Cleaning it and trying to fix it piecemeal at this point will be like peeing into a strong wind. My opinion - worth the price charged, I suppose. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Randy, My eyes probably aren't as good as yours, but under all of that moss I think I'm seeing some butt rot - a lot of it. John, scratching off a little bit of shake surface doesn't mean a whole lot. They're generally pretty soft, even when they're dry. What's important is how much rot you've got. Were the top outside edges of all of those shakes a sharp corner or were the center of the butts rotting in a semi-circular pattern. Randy, I agree, some parts of the country probably can get 50 years, but I doubt they can get that in Kentucky. Could be wrong though. Have been....many times. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Ditto, shot. Call for immediate replacement. OT - OF!!! M.

Bill, I think that penquin has slapped you in the head one too many times. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I don't know a whole lot about radon, nobody sees it here. Here are some links: http://www.google.com/search?q=radon+mi ... rt=30&sa=N http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/mitstds.html http://www.radon-mitigation.org/ http://www.hgtvpro.com/hpro/bp_mechanic ... 13,00.html http://www.infiltec.com/inf-drar.htm http://dhfs.wisconsin.gov/dph_beh/Radon ... igProf.htm http://www.co.fond-du-lac.wi.us/Index.aspx?page=553 http://www.co.fond-du-lac.wi.us/Index.aspx?page=557 http://www.co.fond-du-lac.wi.us/Index.aspx?page=552 The first link is a google search string. The rest are results found in that string. If you really want to get the reel-tour's attention, tell him that you'd rather not get pinged for not doing what's right with radon systems, like a well-known home inspector association leader had. Explain how the fellow had installed them for years but wasn't very diligent about following the installation rules. An investigation by his state using a random sampling of 100 of the systems that he'd installed found substantial non-compliance issues. He eventually lost his radon contractor's license and was fined $14,000+ by his state's ecology department. He went to court to contest it but lost big time. Ask the reel-tour if he's got that kind of money lying around and is willing to lose it. OT - OF!!! M.

Here's how one Canadian city is dealing with the building boom and the need to make their municipal inspection process more efficient. To read the entire story, click here.