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Interestingly, this editorial from Remodeling Magazine Online could have been written by any home inspector who was talking about our own profession. It just goes to show that ours isn't the only profession that's having a tough time dealing with unqualified and untrained personnel whose lowball prices are luring consumers away from those who are experienced and qualified. To read more click here.

Green building is the wave of the home building industry's future. In just a few years, a huge percentage of the new housing stock in this country will be built using "green" building techniques and customers will be purchasing homes on this basis alone. When that time comes, will you be able to speak intelligently to the issues surrounding green buildings? Maybe it's time to start getting ready, huh? To learn more about green building techniques, visit the HGTVPro.com Green Building Site.

Before you start criticizing that fresh new flagstone walkway, you'd better know and understand how a quality walkway is placed. This article at FineHomebuilding.com can help.

Always a good read, Walt Jowers explains to consumers, again, the realities of accepting referrals to home inspectors from real estate agents. Of the three categories of inspectors cited, which one are you? To decide, click here.

If you're serious about this home inspection thing that you do, here's an offer that you aren't going to want to refuse. For a limited time only, the Journal of Light Construction (JLC) is offering a 50% discount on it's CD Rom and is including with the purchase 6 months of free access to the JLC online archive. The JLC Archive has all the proven techniques and practical tips from more than 21 years of JLC. Every article. Every illustration. Virtually every word as originally published in JLC. All of it instantly accessible and incredibly useful. Search by Topic Browse by Issue Fully Indexed and Cross-Referenced Bonus features include every issue of Coastal Contractor Magazine and Remodeling Magazine's latest Cost vs Value Report. Imagine being on-site, discovering an issue with a home, and then the builder challenges your credibility. If you've got a laptop computer with you and wireless internet access, you can instantly bring up the JLC archive, word search it, and within seconds back up your findings with information from one of the most reputable sources in the builder's own industry. Pretty cool, huh? To order your issue of the JLC CDRom for only $49.99 (That's less than 17 cents a day!) click here.

Taunton Press's FineHomebuilding.com recently put up a new Deck Planning Guide section that is chock full of some of the latest deck building information available, and should be required reading for home inspectors everywhere. Check it out by clicking here. At the same time, peruse FHB's other free online offerings here.

Well, I hope that Mr. Electric is peeking in here today, because I've been using criteria that he taught at a class way back in January of 1997 wherein he told the members of the franchise I used to belong to that fuseboxes and components over 40 years old are absolete and should be replaced. I figured that if it was good enough for him it was good enough for me. Since then, on that 40 year basis alone I've written them all up and have never had anyone argue the point with me. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

So, Bonnie, it seems to me that the sentence above contains a misplaced modifier. (Assuming that Mike intended to say that the furnace was unsafe, not the head.) Yet I don't see the classic "that" or "who" preceding the modifier “because it's unsafe.â€

Why are you reporting it as a 60-amp service when the service entrance conductors are sized for a 100 amp service? Look at the rating on the box. If it's rated as a 100 amp panel, and has a #4 copper cable coming into it, it's a 100 amp service. The 60 amp block is only protecting part of what's in the panel. If the box is rated for 60 amps and you've got a #4 copper, than it's a 60 amp service with an improperly sized SEC coming into it from the meter. Service size is more than just breaker size in the panel. By the way, that's an obsolete panelboard. You can report it that way and recommended an upgrade based on that alone and I don't think any electrician today would argue with you. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

You're right that these are synonyms. Fix seems a bit less formal. I guess I meant it's better to be as specific as possible about what to repair/fix. Just ignore me on that, but don't ignore me on these writing errors: the meaning... is (not are); the meaning is ... not the same as my clients (that's not an apples to apples comparison; you're comparing meaning to clients); and than, not then. There was also a question about whether to repair inherently means repair properly. I think a repair can be done improperly, but it seems obvious that when an HI writes "repair xyz" he means do it right. When I edit something, I try to edit it properly, so I promise my clients copyediting services, not proper copyediting services. Yeah, I probably should have qualified what I wrote about a proper repair by explaining that I only say that when it's obvious that something has already been repaired and was repaired wrong, so I emphasize that it needs to be done again; only this time properly, by someone who knows what he's doing - not the person who'd repaired it previously. In other words, if I see a roof that needs to be cleaned, I'll write, "Clean the roof," but if I see a roof that's obviously been cleaned and the job wasn't done well, or was done incorrectly, I'll say something like, "Have the roof cleaned properly, not by the same person who's been maintaining it. Sometimes I don't even need to say that, because I say things like, "The guy who installed this gas furnace needs to have his head examined because it's unsafe. I found......" In a situation like that, the reader should understand implicitly that he's going to want to have someone else correct it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

D'oh! I'm going to have to change my Avatar to one of Homer Simpson. OT - OF!!! M.

Ah, Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie, Caught you there; you're Brit roots are showing. Think Bugs Bunny, when Bugs is chuckling to himself about some doofus thing that Elmer Fudd has just done and says, "What a maroon!" obviously meaning moron. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Oh yeah! Randy's got that right. There's a whole lot of cellulose around here! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Bonnie, If you've got the time and don't mind doing it, you can correct me anytime you want. I'd rather be a little embarrassed and vexed with myself here, than have a client sitting somewhere reading one of my reports and thinking to himself, "What a maroon!" ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Bonnie, if you've been following this thread, I hope you'll chime in here. This is an area where some of these guys could really use your input. John, I think that when we talk directly to one another, and are discussing something in context, we tend to use longer sentences but can still understand one another. However, when we write, we need to keep our sentences shorter, so it's easier for the reader to follow what we're trying to say. In some languages, run-on sentences and misplaced words (from an English language standpoint) work fine - German is a good example. In German, you can read a sentence that's as long as two English paragraphs, but you won't encounter the active verb until the very last word or two. That leaves the reader mentally holding his or her breath and waiting for the last word to come, in order to know what the speaker/writer is saying. I don't know if you've every noticed it, but Germans are very good at anticipating the end of a sentence, and, when you're talking to them they sometimes tend to finish your sentence for you. That comes from a lifetime of conditioning. It works well for them, but it makes learning German very difficult for a native English speaker. English is more finicky. When you write in English, it's necessary to try and detach yourself from the informal way that you address someone and pay closer attention to the rules. Perhaps that's where inspectorspeak comes from; inspectors trying to convey their thoughts using a pattern different from the one that they're accustomed. Most of the folks getting into the business have been out of school for 2 or 3 decades. Writing isn't something that they've been required to do. Now here they are; in a business that requires them to write. They know instinctively that they are supposed to write according to certain rules, but they end up going overboard because the rules are long forgotten. Take Bonnie's class. If Katen says he's getting something out of it, we all need to take it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Yes, although they generally will crap anywhere, there always seems to be one or two areas where there's a whole lot of crap and nothing to necessarily attract them, such as heat. Entrances to borrows are usually heavily littered. OT - OF!!! M.

I often say something like, "Have the whatsit properly repaired by a competent contractor - not the person who installed (or repaired) this initially (last time)." I use the bolding. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

OK, Now you two are just getting downright........creepy. [:-shake]

Kurt, It performs about the same as stucco. Two layers of 60-minute paper, some wire lath, mortar and then the stones are pushed into the mortar. The whole thing is supported temporarily on a wood cleat attached to the side of the house. Sometimes they'll bolt a steel anchor to the wall to support it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

While it would look for finished and esthetically pleasing with some flashing there, the scratch coat doesn't need to extend up behind the casing. The point I was trying to make is that they don't really need to be flashed because, if they're installed properly, the wall will drain very well. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Jim, Now, try an exercise. How about writing that all in active conversational voice as if you were talking to someone in front of you. OT - OF!!! M.

The actual percentage of gas-filled cells, is - at least from my observations here in the northwest - minute, compared to the number of cells that have nothing but ordinary air between them. If you aren't seeing a fill button in the corners of windows, they aren't gas filled and you should be careful that you don't lead people into thinking that they are. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I do, I think it's pretty hard to look at something and describe it without the reader understanding implicitly that you gained that knowledge through inspection. That's me, though - the guy with the long descriptive narrative reports. OT - OF!!! M.

So, Obviously the housewhisperer feels the need to say something when he inspects an item, while others, such as myself, feel that it's really not expected of us. This pretty much illustrates why we've still got a ways to go before we can claim true "professional" status as a discipline. Until we've got an actual nationwide standard that uniformly applies to everyone in the business, it looks like folks are pretty much free to do whatever each thinks is best. My guess is that this debate will go on for decades. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike