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Hi Bill, Yeah, that's pretty cool. You'd be amazed at the number of old trains just sitting around on sidings here. There's a bunch of them up near Snoqualmie and North Bend. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, It could be done by installing vertical pressure-treated nailers through the face of the stucco wtih stainless steel or double-hot dipped galvanized screws and then installing the siding normally with nails. You wouldn't need a WRB because stucco is at least the equivalent of a WRB and will have a double layer of felt behind it. The felt behind the stucco allows it to drain and the wood siding will drain because it'll be a rain screen. However, if the siding isn't fully sealed on all sides and edges - either by back-priming or using Wohlman's or something similar - the siding is liable to cup like crazy - or not. It'll all depend on whether or not they've vented the rainscreen. Cedar breather at the bottom and a narrow slot at the top should allow air movement and drainage. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

BOSTON, Massachusetts (September 5, 2007) FLIR Systems, Inc. (pronounced “flearâ€

Hi, Yeah, I agree, call the manufacturer. With few exceptions, I seem to have really good luck contacting various manufacturers and organizations directly. Yesterday I spent about 3 minutes on the phone with a guy and found everything I needed to back up what I was reporting on a home. OT - OF!!! M.

ATLANTA – Sept. 4, 2007 The recipient of ASHRAE’s first healthcare facility design professional certification says the designation increases his value as an engineer. Ildefonso Bayron, Jr., is an associate partner for Syska Hennessy Group, Los Angeles, Calif. He and 28 others recently earned certification after passing the exam at ASHRAE’s 2007 Annual Meeting. “The certification shows our present and future clients that we are focused on healthcare, and that we stay current with design standards,â€

Cornice returns OT - OF!!! M.

I say go to the horse's mouth. First thing Monday morning call York directly. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Matthew, Get the computer guru at WIN to go back into the archives of the intra-network discussion forum and dig out my comments from 1996 - 1998 time frame. You'll find extensive discussions of Zinsco right there, including what I learned about this issue from the Sylvania trouble-shooter assigned to investigate the phenomenon when Sylvania bought out Zinsco. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hmm, Yeah, you're right. If they had a phobia they'd be running from gadgets. What about 'gadgetitis'? OT - OF!!! M.

Over 100,000 Floridians have so far signed up for the Florida My Safe Home program. To read more about this program, click here and here.

In this short article in the Burlington County Times that was featured today on phillyburbs.com, a former home inspector was charged with stealing more than $12,000 in fees due his employer over a 13-month period, in order to pay of his debt. Apparently, times are tougher for some than others. I think I would have taken a job skinning rabbits first. To read more click here

One also has to wonder how many laid off construction workers will try to become home inspectors. Hi Bill, Funny you should mention that. Just yesterday afternoon I was contacted by the state L & I about some fellow who they're trying to re-train into the home inspection business. I told the lady that this was probably the absolute worst business for the guy to try to get into at this time, at which point she told me that she'd been hearing that from all of the inspectors she'd called. Then she proceeded to ask me all of her questions regardless, while reading from a script. It was clear from her questions that she doesn't really think that there's any "physical" aspect to what we do, and that he'll be ideally suited for it simply because he's been working in construction for years. I wonder what part of, "One has to low-crawl through tight crawlspaces and attics a lot in this job. I was in the army nearly 21 years, spent a lot of time doing combat training, and I'd never low-crawled as much in all that time as I did in the first six months in this business. It literally kicks one's butt," she didn't understand. It's pretty obvious that some poor sucker. who's recently been injured and is struggling, is probably going to find himself going down to ITA or something like it, and then will be jumping into this business. In six months he'll probably end up on welfare or will be one of the guys down at the intersection with the cardboard placard, because they'll tell him that they've spent all they intend to on his reeducation and he's on his own. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Go here and search their archives: http://www.framebuildingnews.com/Defaul ... tabid=1733 Be patient; it's a slow site. They don't do a lot of residences but they do more metal siding than anyone else in the business. OT - OF!!! M.

According to this article in the Christian Science Monitor, 21,000 people - more than all of 2006 - had been laid off in the housing industry between August 1st and August 23rd. One has to wonder how many home inspectors who're in business today will still be around a year, two years, from now. Comments anyone?

Hi All, I've seen a lot of these over the years. I'll wager many other inspectors have as well. For those of you who have newsletters that you periodically send to your past clients, this would be an ideal entry. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Image Insert: 20.21 KB

Washington, D.C./August 30th - Release #07-298 The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Berko Electric, of Peru, Ind., now known as MarleyEngineered Products, of Bennettsville, S.C., today announced a voluntary recall of approximately 84,000 Toe-Space Electric Heaters. The fan can stop working and the heater continues to run, causing the unit to overheat, posing a fire hazard.. Marley has received 29 reports of fires resulting in property damage. No injuries have been reported. The recall involves electric, toe-space heaters typically installed in kitchens and bathrooms at floor level in the recessed space under cabinets. The recall includes Berko Electric catalog numbers TS, TS-1 and TS-1A and Emerson Electric "Chromalox Comfort Heating" and "Environmental Products" catalog number KSH2000. The heater is controlled by a wall thermostat or a thermostat mounted on the front of the heater. The heater has a removable, black metal grille that measures 23 1/2 -inches wide and 3 1/2 -inches tall with five sets of openings,each with seven horizontal louvers. The heaters were manufactured in the United States and sold by Berko Electric wholesale distributors nationwide from 1972 through February 1985 and Emerson Electric wholesale distributors from1980 through February 1985 for between $70 and $170. Inspectors that see these heaters should notify homeowners or their agents about this recall and advise them to immediately turn off the heater at the thermostat and, if possible, at the home's circuit breaker or fuse. Consumers should contact Marley to confirm that they they have a recalled heater and request further instructions. For additional information, call Marley at (800)642-4328 between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit the firm's Web site at www.berkomep.com/ts.htm To see this recall on CPSC's web site, including pictures of therecalled products, please click here. 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.

Hi Kurt, I could be wrong, but I think that I read on the HistoricPropierties.com site that they're planning to address that very subject in that seminar that they're holding in September. Check out the calendar of events for September. (Don't you dare bail out on us!) OT - OF!!! M.

Aw, Lighten up, Guys. He'll get over it. Every new inspector has gadgetphobia. He'll get over it just like the rest of us did. Six months from now the vest will be in the truck and he'll be carrying just a clipboard and a flashlight and digging into a toolbag for this tools. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yeah, I saw that in the P-I the other day. I'd meant to read the article and then promptly forgot to flip back to it. Unfortunately, the danged recycling folks picked up that bin this morning, so I won't be able to find the article. Guess I'll have to google-oogle it. OT - OF!!! M.

Yep, Things about contruction are regional. You'd be amazed at the number of homes around here built in the 60's with knob-and-tube wiring in the attics only. I'm not sure why. Maybe the electricians were using up their stocks or thought it was easier to run K & T instead of that newfangled NM stuff. They're out there though. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

My eyes! My eyes! Medic! OT - OF!!! M.

Hey Rich, Are you up there on a job or are you chilling today? I haven't succumbed. I'll wait a couple of years for them to shake the bug out of it and to drop the price to something that won't get me chewed out by meine Frau. OT - OF!!! M.

No air barriers used here. The few times where I've inspected homes where it was used, there was nasty stuff growing in the walls. OT - OF!!! M.

Well, They could have done it quite well by using CWM (crystalline waterproofing material); one brand is Xypex, but it requires carefully cleaning the interior of the concrete, patching cracks with hydraulic cement, and then wetting down the walls before applying the CWM. It's a catalyst and reacts with concrete and will form crystals in the first 3-4 inches of concrete from the surface. It won't allow water through but it will allow water vapor to pass. This still sounds like a jackleg system they're using. If they haven't done anything to relieve hydro-static pressure on the outside or haven't done anything to capture infiltration coming through the cold joint between the footer and the foundation wall, how the hell do they expect to keep water out? Like I said, they've been taken for a ride. That's the bottom line. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I definitely agree about the "fluff" in the college courses. Not too long ago, I tried to sit down to figure out how many hours of college course learning one could probably cram this business into, without adding any non-essential crap. Allowing for a two-week vacation, there are essentially fifty 40-hour weeks in a year and that gives you 2000 hours. The average college course around here is around 30 classroom hours to earn 3 semester hours of credit. It takes about 20 courses to earn that 60 hours of credit to earn an AA degree and that essentially amounts to 1800 hrs in the classroom spread out over 6 semesters in 2 years, or only 900 hours in the classroom per year. The way I figure it, if a course taught only the essentials necessary for business, building science. home inspection, report writing and codes, 5 days of the week, one could cram between 1500 and 2000 hours of classroom training into a single year, still let those students have two days off a week and a two-week break, and still come out ahead of the guy who spends 2 years moseying his way through the typical 2-year college course. When I attended the 18C course in the army they crammed more than 800 hours of classroom/lab/field training in only 5 months. It was swim or sink. If you couldn't keep up, you washed out. Hell, I have students at the community college where I teach who act like getting a homework assignment is weird and they just love to get up and walk out of the classroom in the middle of a lecture and then get pissed when I dock them class hours for it. Why couldn't a college course be tailored for the serious student that eliminated all of the fluff and put the student full-immersion into the new profession? The student could attend school for a year and then do a 1 year internship with an established company to get experience and the combination of the classroom work and the internship would earn the student some kind of professional designation like the engineers have. Isn't that essentially how ITT Tech and these other fast-track colleges work? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike