hausdok

I'm thinking it originally was a sleeping porch. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'm thinking Queen Anne ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Was yours when you found that used silicone sex appliance in a crawlspace? Nah, his low point was when he took time out to use that used silicone sex appliance in the crawlspace. [:-yuck][:-eyebrow ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

You guys are referring to two different technologies, Wiggy is now generically used to describe a contact tester with leads the way Romex is used to describe NM cable. A voltage sniffer senses induced current; a wiggy doesn't. I recommended he get a wiggy to back up his other testers. A wiggy is not a sniffer. It uses conventional contact leads. Induced current won't activate it. You have to touch the leads to the circuit. A true wiggy has a solenoid in it that jumps when there is voltage present so that you don't necessarily have to turn it to look at the neon voltage display. There are other testers out there that do the same thing without the solenoid. This is old tech. Ideal and GB instruments make almost identical devices but I've had bad luck with cheap leads on both of those. True Wiggy's are no longer made but you can still buy them off ebay or amazon. The sniffers are different. They sense an induction field. They can be set off even when you are nowhere near current. I've been in an attic trying to determine whether there is power on K&T wiring and have had a sniffer go nuts around dead K&T because the K&T was running parallel and close to some newer wiring. I've even had sniffers alert on old radio antennae in an attic that were completely disconnected from anything else; the cause being a hot circuit running past one side of the radio antenna. I've had folks turn off a breaker to an attic circuit where I was getting a reading from a completely unconnected radio antenna and the sniffer went dead. Flip the breaker back on and the sniffer started complaining again. The sniffer is handy but it can be fooled and if you are inexperienced it can cause you to make some serious mistakes. I can remember finding a wire coiled up at one side of a crawlspace after a torturous crawl to get to that corner. I checked it with a sniffer and it set the sniffer off. I then crawled back along that wire and had to detour around a huge HVAC trunk blocking my way and work my way back to that cable and then continued to follow it until I found that it was disconnected at the other end. It had crossed over some wiring in the crawl and had picked up that induction field and that was what the sniffer had picked up. I had to crawl all the way back to that coil and then continue with the crawl inspection from where I'd left off and I was pretty tuckered out by the time I got there. - all because of an induction sensor. There are new tech testers that do both; for instance, Gardner-Bender (GB) has a VoltCheck (GVC1000) instrument that uses test leads for voltage and continuity and it has a button on it that you push for non-contact testing. Click Here. When it comes right down to it, Jim's recommendation for a multi-meter is the best because it gives you the ability to do so much more than just an induction sensor or wiggy can. MM are cheap. Hell, you can even get them free at Harbor Freight if you bring in the right coupon from your Sunday paper. I've got half a dozen 25' tape measures and three multi-meters sitting in the garage on a shelf that I picked up at HF just by visiting and purchasing a 99-cent item at various 99-cent sales. Yeah, those free MM are cheesy cheap but the technology is way better than it was when you could buy those for $15 at Walmart 30 years ago. Even as cheesy as they are, they're pretty accurate compared to then and they do the job. Heck, HF is now sellilng 5-function digital clamp-on MM ($10); 6-function digital clamp on MM($12); and 7-function digital clamp-on MM ($14). I'm thinking about picking one up to see how it compares to one of the brand name ones. All this aside, this whole discussion started when he wanted to know if we check 240-volt receptacles. When I was a kid my dad had this little 2-lead neon tester that he used to use to check wiring. He carried it around in his pocket with his spare change so he'd have it whenever he wanted to determine whether a wire in a house was hot or not. I just googled it - they are still available for less than $5 and you can certainly test a 240-volt receptacle with one. Click Here. It's about as cheap and simple as you can go. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I was assuming he was commenting about the presence of a furnace in the attic. Unless someone cares to tell me what they're specifically concerned with, I try and avoid picking apart photos here. Seen too many folks here put off when they post something and then folks pile on and sometimes point out stuff they aren't specifically talking about. Don't remember the arrow being there earlier. Must have forgotten that. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Pretty common around here in new construction. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Were both handles tied together in the panel? Perhaps they aren't and Dad has only turned one half of the circuitry on. OT - OF!!! M.

Wiggy was a brand name for a Square D tester. They no longer make them but the term applies to just about any two probe voltage continuity tester with a vibrator. It is a tester that will allow you to test voltages up to about 600V without needing to buy a multimeter. Here are some examples: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=wig ... &FORM=IGRE OT - OF!!! M.

Pick up a wiggy. OT - OF!!! M.

Dog crap doesn't have R values; it has S values. OT - OF!!! M.

Can't say. If I could have, I would have. OT - OF!!! M.

I had an attic a few years ago that was covered, and I mean covered, with turds that were bigger than those of my 50 pound dog. It turns out that a big old opossum was very comfortable in that attic. Yeah, I did a bungalow about ten years ago where an elderly gent had passed on and the house was going to be sold at an estate auction and they wanted to know if there were any major issues. It was a 1-1/2 story bungalow. The old dude lived downstairs and apparently only used the bedrooms on the second level as storage. I was told he lived alone with a couple of Cocker Spaniels. Apparently, he'd not bothered to lock the closet doors on the upper level. The access to the kneewall attics above the living and dining room was through a hatch at the back of that closet. I entered the attic and found the joist bays full of years - probably decades - worth of doggie doo-doo. Once they'd filled one joist bay they moved over to a clean one and kept right on going. Can you imagine having to remove a 6 to 8 inch layer of dog turds in order to sell your house? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

No problem here. Have you checked your security settings? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I recall looking at a pair of these at a converted high school last year when I was taking a commercial inspection course. If memory serves, there were large coil springs and rubber dampers under all four corners of those things to prevent damage during a quake and to accommodate torque movement when they started up. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, We had a sinkhole open up near the University Bridge in downtown seattle around 2007 or 2008. It swallowed up a few cars. Apparently there'd been a broken water main below grade. It was a good 'un. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'm not surprised. The way the New Jersey inspection gurus act sometimes, you'd think that the only licensing law in the nation that counts is their own and that the only ones who know how to inspect homes well are in New Jersey. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jeez, Don't you guys know nothin' - It's a house aura pendulum. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's a real tragedy, that's for sure; however, I bet they'll find that they hadn't had any maintenance done on that boiler forever. Their quote, says it all. I've encountered a mindset among Asian homeowners that if something is working "pefectly" it obviously doesn't need maintenance; and it's amazing the amount of neglect I find with some of these systems. Then when I point the issues out in the report I often hear back from the client how the seller steadfastly refused to correct some of these issues because, "They've never had a problem with the system the entire time they've lived there." I'm not saying all Asians are like this - heck there are a helluva lot of American homeowners who're the same way - but I seem to encounter more with this mindset than I do the opposite where everything is in tip-top maintenance wise and every T has been crossed and every I has been dotted as per manufacturer's specs or even generally acknowledged average maintenance recommendations. I think it has something to do with cultural unfamiliarity with these systems. Wonder if Grandfather lived in that room above the boiler room and if his "heart failure" might have been a redflag for the rest of the family if anyone had thought to check? Years ago, I had a house with a backdrafting gas fireplace. The homeowner was sick and was home during the inspection, laying there on the sofa in front of the TV. "Do you guys use this fireplace a lot?" I asked. "Oh yes, this is my wife's favorite room," said the husband, "She naps in here all the time and spends most of her time in here and runs that fireplace constantly. She likes to keep this room toasty (It was sweltering)." So, how is her health," I asked, "Has she been experiencing any headaches or flue-like symptoms?" I asked. "Yeah, she has. It comes and it goes and she never seems to be able to get over it. She's had migraines and has missed a lot of work due to it. We all have, actually but her most of all," he said. "How's her skin color - kind of pink," I asked. "Yeah, she has complained that she thought she was getting rosacea or something like that," he replied, "Why, what's up, what do you know that I don't know?" "This fireplace is backdrafting badly and the carbon-monoxide level in this room is very high - in fact (walking into the other room and watching my Monoxir), it's high in here too and it's probably high everywhere in the house. You need to shut this thing down and get your blood, your wife's blood, and all of your childrens' blood tested ASAP." He did so. The next day I got a call from the listing agent telling me that the homeowner had taken the entire family to the emergency room to be tested and found that everyone in the house was suffering from various levels of C.O. accumulation in their blood - the wife most of all. The little clamp he had on his damper was barely keeping it open and the stack had deteriorated so badly that at some point some idiot just knocked the deteriorated last few feet off the height and slathered some mortar around the top to form a crown, so the top of the stack was close to and lower than the ridge on the side opposite prevailing winds. Whenever the wind blew across the ridge the air tumbled down that vent and pushed the exhaust back into that house. People see this stuff on the news year after year but I think it just goes right over the head of most folks. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I originally had the thought that the ductwork would have to be metal at the fireblocking to work. But it would need to be metal for the entire run, right? If it caught on fire two feet below the fireblocking it would shoot up through the metal duct and out the next section of flex[:-bigeyes Yeah, I dunno. Fire has to have something to burn. How does it go up through a metal duct if there's nothing inside the duct for it to burn? Come to think of it, I've never seen it climb up the inside of a metal stove unless there was fuel up higher for it to burn - like creosote in a stack, etc.. I can understand the concern to prevent smoke and fumes from entering the next level, but isn't fire going to set at the bottom of that duct and shake its fist in frustration at the other end of that duct? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike I'm no expert on fire by any measure but I've heard that the fumes given of by fire are themselves flammable. Also, if a fire is starving for air, could the duct be the supply and coax the flames up through it? I don't know, maybe physics wont allow this. Just pondering..... Well, That was my point. If flames could climb a metal pipe just with the presence of oxygen above why doesn't every metal stack on the planet look like a Roman candle? Fireblocking outside the duct I understand and I understand backdraft damping to prevent movement of smoke and vapors through ducts but the idea that fireblocking is needed inside metal ducting just seems weird to me and not very efficient - seems like it would cause gross inefficiencies in air movement. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

They are all terms that 99% of your customers won't understand if you put them in a report. I'd avoid them like the plague and use terms that they'll understand. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Why would anyone fill a 6' deep walker with 2' of stone and make it into a crawl? It would have been cheaper to place a slab. This was a hands and knees crawls, not a walker.... Stone is cheap in our area, we have more rock than dirt! I must admit that the stone does not make for a comfortable crawl but it sure does help to make for dry crawl most of the time. Yeah, That's what some of the high-end builders do around here in wet areas. They'll sink a deep foundation, figure out where the high water line will be and then they fill to at least a foot above that line with stone; course stuff topped with a layer of pea gravel. Very comfortable to crawl around on. Nice flat crawl. Dry as a bone...until you dig down deep into that stone and find the water. Works great as long as the barrier is correct. When it's not correct it's like having a big humidifier plugged in under the house. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Need the address. Sending a crew of guys with shovels, a torch and a truck to get it. OT - OF!!! M.

Been gone for a day doing other stuff, If you think what you're finding by sliding a piece of tape under a baseboard is significant, the levels of stachy, Aspirgillus, Cladosporidium, Penicillium (Don't know how to spell them - don't care) you'd find in homes out here in damp central would probably have you walking around with an oxygen bottle screaming at the reservations clerk at SeaTac to get you the frig out of this place yesterday. Still, so what? It's there. We've been breathing it our entire life and it was here before us and it will be here when we're all blasted off this planet from our own foolishness. You might just as well declare the planet unlivable and go sit in a plastic bubble with a bottle of Lysol or something because not you, not anyone is ever going to escape mold. I bet before you even entered that house with the tape swab someone could have tape swabbed your clothing, the surface of your eyes, the inside of your nose or lungs or hair and come up with these same ubiquitous - but declared by mold "professionals" to be toxic - fungi. When the judge took back $30M of Ballard's award he told her that he was allowing her to keep the other $4M as a means of punishing Farmer's for a lazy response - or something to that effect - and that he'd been unable to find one shred of evidence linking mold to any of her alleged symptoms. If, as Jim points out, you aren' telling folks that on your website I have nothing more to say to you because your credibility is now shot with me. I won't be responding to you anymore. Continue to come here to screw with us non-believers if you like but don't look for a response from me. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I originally had the thought that the ductwork would have to be metal at the fireblocking to work. But it would need to be metal for the entire run, right? If it caught on fire two feet below the fireblocking it would shoot up through the metal duct and out the next section of flex[:-bigeyes Yeah, I dunno. Fire has to have something to burn. How does it go up through a metal duct if there's nothing inside the duct for it to burn? Come to think of it, I've never seen it climb up the inside of a metal stove unless there was fuel up higher for it to burn - like creosote in a stack, etc.. I can understand the concern to prevent smoke and fumes from entering the next level, but isn't fire going to set at the bottom of that duct and shake its fist in frustration at the other end of that duct? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Lots or rats and deer mice here. Literally 10% of the "rats" are genetically deer mice and the state claims that there testing found 14% of those carried Hanta Virus. Hanta Virus and deer mice aren't unique the northwest. I looked it up. Door mice are pretty much spread out across North America. Had a house Wednesday where 100% of the insulation in the attic was tamped down from about 8 inches thick to about 3 and was covered with rodent feces - in some places nearly a half inch thick. I routinely tell folks to have that stuff sucked out and replaced when it's covered with that crap (pun intended). There are a bunch of companies here that make a danged good living just cleaning up crawlspaces. When I saw what they get for that work I knew I was in the wrong business. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike