hausdok

Nah, Haven't snorted asbestos since the 70's. [:-hypnoti OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Brian, This one isn't too bad. It's got a large basement and a ton of storage. Even has a library! Last week, I did a 900 sf builder's bungalow and a crawlspace for a young lady. $400K+ I think. Real basic living room-dining room, two bedrooms and a kitchen. What used to be the back porch and had been added later, was taken up by a bathroom and utility-laundry room. She's from Pittsburgh and her Dad had been out to see it. He called me up two days after I emailed her the report and was like, "What the hell is the matter with folks out there paying so much for little tiny cracker boxes like that?" I told him that I agreed that the price of real estate was pretty obscene here, but asked if he'd ever watched that show, The Property Ladder. Then I pointed out that I've seen 600 sf bungalows in California go for $800 - $900K on that show, so we aren't the worst in the country. By the way, her bungalow could have been purchased here in 1996 for about $110K. Not too bad an investment if someone had bought it back then and held onto it for 10 years. As far as the way it blends in with the landscaping, that's the way they are supposed to look. Bungalows are generally supposed to harmonize with nature. On this one, as with many down in California, the chimney and the columns at the corners of the front porch are done with clinker bricks. They flare out near the in an irregular pattern, kind of like the roots of a big old Oak tree, and look like they just sort of blend/disappear into the ground, as if they'd grown there. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I agree with Les. In order to ingest asbestos fiber from that stuff, you'd probably have to grind it up and then chemically separate the asbestos from the asphalt that's encapsulating it and then snort it directly. How likely is that? OT - OF!!! M.

I was in hog heaven inspecting this old girl the other day. Experienced intense jealousy pangs at my inability to compete for these houses in this market. Five or six years ago, this house probably would have sold for about $450 to $500K here. Now look where it is. Remember the one for sale for $15K in Statesville, VA that needed to be moved and is in one of the previous posts in this category? I think this one could practically be its twin. Some day. Here's the link: http://www.zillow.com/Gallery.htm?zpid=49098567 ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Depends on the manufacturer. If you know the manufacturer and series of shingle, you can go to the ICC ES reports site and look up the installation instructions. Some specifically state that a drip edge must be used. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, August 2006. It can still be a Category IV furnace, even if it draws combustion air from the inside. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, Manufactured in February 2002 but that shouldn't affect the warranty. The clock starts running on those from the date of installation. OT - OF!!! M.

They go down well with a liberal application of some sesame seed oil. OT - OF!!! M.

Randy, I've been using mine since 1999 and I don't experience any confusion. It's a tool. When you learn how to use your tools properly, they work fine. Word search SureTest and my name in the electrical forum and you'll find a post from me explaining about an experience I had with a stubborn client who is a professional electrician and who trusted a 3-light tester more than he did my SureTest. Nuff Said. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Something else you have to remember is that the SureTest will not diagnose multiple problems. So, you could have a GFCI receptacle that was ungrounded and wired incorrectly at the same time and it might only indicate that it was ungrounded. It's a tool, it won't be able to think for you, so you have to become intimately familiar with it's limitations. Once you do, you'll find that it's infinitely better than the $6 three-light tester but that it's not completely infallible and you'll still have to apply a certain amount of your training and reasoning skills into understanding what's going on. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hold the button in and wait. It isn't like a conventional 3-light tester and instantly trips it. You have to wait for it. All of that is explained in the little manual that comes with the device. Press the button and wait. After a few seconds it will introduce a ground fault and start to count off time until it trips. If the GFCI doesn't trip within the alloted time - 6 seconds, I think - it will display bad. OT - OF!!! M.

1. Make sure your photos are no more than 100Kb in size and preferrably jpg format.2. Make sure there are no gaps in the name of the file. 3. Make sure there are no special symbols in the name of the file. As an example, not house(123) but house_123 4. If you have netscape and it won't load, wait until the box tells you that the photo is uploaded. Then, instead of closing the upload box, copy the url and manually paste it into your post before closing the box. That should do it. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I'm kind of surprised that someone didn't just say, "Get rid of the damned thing. It's an obsolete system without sufficient space in the box for decent wire bending or additional circuits and sure as the sun comes up in the morning someone's going to be tempted to over-fuse it or stick a penny in there when a fuse blows late at night when the stores are closed. Not that fuses aren't fine - fuses are actually better than breakers - it's just that these old setups lend themselves very easily to jackleg work. Besides, they're all at least 40 years old and most electricians I know say that any electrical components over 40 years old are obsolete and need to go bye-bye. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, The link is about a siding conditioning product that removes the chalk from the surface of the PVC and brings out the original color. I also read about a new vinyl siding sealant that's used to seal the vinyl and bring back the semi-gloss look once the siding has been cleaned. I used to have an article here about it, but I can't find it. I found that link by googling "reviving vinyl siding." OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Walter, Not bad. Here's one comes on a single truck, complete with plumbing and wiring. Takes about two weeks for one guy to put together with a handful of tools. http://www.dennisdavey.com/hom4me.htm ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, This should help. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_h ... _n18810447 ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's just a fungus. Get some moss kill, apply it to the roof on an overcast day, let it work and then rinse it off with a garden hose. If it's stubborn, use a soft-bristled brush along with the hose to work it loose. It usually grows on organic material around here - even in bright sunlight. I almost never see it on a roof unless there's a lot of bird crap for it to eat. I don't see any bird crap there, so I don't know why it would be growing there. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I don't see where you're going. Well, maybe I do and I just hope that you aren't. I read it all. Frankly, it doesn't just suck, it's double-talk. Trying to hide behind a lot of 25-cent words written to try and impress the client with your command of the language has produced an Unintelligible statement and makes you sound like a weasel. We get paid to be candid and forthright, not flowery and weaselly. Customers don't expect you to sound like a law professor that's lost his thesaurus - they expect you to explain things to them in terms they can understand. The time to make people understand what you'll do for them, what you won't do for them, and what to do if they think you haven't performed is before the inspection - not when you create the report. The fact that a client is nickel-and-diming you on stuff like that shows clearly that you failed to manage the client's expectations. Here's a suggestion. Dump all of the CYA text from your reports and simply hand the client a copy of whatever SOP you use and tell him/her to read it before calling you with any complaints. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Jim, If you're referring to S-type fuses, I've never seen that particular brand of fuse, but I'd thought that those were S-type fuses. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I did on-site reports for a while, but stopped doing them shortly after I stopped working with an on-site partner, because I do full-narrative reports and it simply took too long to get them out on my own. Walter, you might also elaborate on this, because I remember you telling folks how you and Rick used to tag-team inspections and deliver reports on-site. Myself and a friend, Steve Johnson, used to utilize a laptop on-site, while each of us wore a voice-activated FM intercom. One of us (usually me) would set up the laptop in the kitchen with a pad of paper and a pen next to the laptop. Whoever was taking the lead (actually doing the walk and talk) that day would set off on the inspection routine with the clients, while the other sat there at the computer eavesdropping on the conversation and putting stuff into the report. Our inspection process was tailored to match the software we were using, so that as the inspector moved around the home the one working the laptop could key in most of the data from our drop-downs using the boilerplate and then could edit the boilerplate immediately and customize it for the home. It took a little practice. One thing that was key was for Steve and I to make one circuit of the house together before the inspection, so that whichever one of us was working the computer would understand immediately what the other was describing to the clients. Once we got used to the routine and the primary remembered to describe, out loud as he went, the components of the home, we became pretty good at it. If the one working the computer found himself falling behind, he'd simply jot down a brief shorthand note and finish whatever comment he was working on, before moving to the next and using his notes to catch up. Since the primary would occasionally pause during the walk-n-talk to examine something, the computer operator was usually able to catch up within a few minutes. Because I type very quickly, this was a lot easier for me to do than it was for Steve. Also, his hands were huge. So, even though he knew how to type fairly well, the little keyboard on the laptop used to jamb him up and slow him down. At the same time, the intercom gave the guy at the computer the ability to coach/train the guy who was inspecting, because the operator was able to talk into the ear of the other guy during the presentation without the clients knowing. I mentored Steve for months before we began that process. He followed me, watching and listening while making notes to himself. Afterward, we'd talk about the inspections and I'd clear up for him those things he didn't understand. Eventually, I started asking him to explain issues to the client in front of me, the way that a doctor might while having an intern examine a patient. As I became confident that he understood components, I began allowing him, one at a time, to inspect components - furnace, water heater, service panel, plumbing, insulation, etc. - and report on them. First it was one per inspection, than two, etc., until I was pretty confident he had a really good grasp of it all. Then I had him sit there at the computer and listen in on how I presented for a few weeks, before I cut him loose on his own as the primary and I took over at the computer. He gained confidence very quickly that way, because the intercom gave me the ability to remind him to look at specific things without interrupting the flow. It was also great for when the primary was out of sight on a roof, in the attic or in the crawlspace, because he could relay what he was seeing to the clients through the computer operator, giving them a blow-by-blow description of the components and any issues encountered. Once we had it down, I could usually have the report about 95% complete by the time Steve was climbing out of the crawlspace. At that point, it usually took less than 15 minutes to finish inputting the last of the data, index and paginate the report, print it in color, punch it, comb-bind it with a hard cover, and hand it to the client. During that process, the primary would do an oral recap of the inspection with the clients and ask if they had any questions. This way, we were able to ensure that the clients didn't leave the site with questions on their minds. I didn't have any code archived on my laptop - I just had all of the CodeCheck books right there and if I had a question I'd quickly flip through them. It was also possible for Steve to say, "Excuse me a second, while I ask Mike to look something up for me," and then he'd ask me over the intercom to check to see if something was a violation of any code. Usually, anticipating the question, I'd already have found the correct citation in one of the CodeChecks. I have to admit, the ability to word-search the code would have been nice. If I couldn't find the answer within a few seconds, he'd just continue on while I continued to look it up and then I'd interrupt him in a few minutes with the answer - or not, if there wasn't any. I also had about 14 years of JLC archived on my laptop's hard drive. When we had a tricky issue, we could word search it, pull up one or two articles that would help explain the issue for the client, and use them to back up our call. I'd then print those off along with the report and bind them in the report at the end of the inspection. It was pretty slick. I used to get comments from clients like, "Man, you guys are seriously high-tech." We didn't tell them that both of us were barely able to find the on/off switch on a computer. Unfortunately, after working together for nearly a year, Steve figured out that there was more money fixing stuff for the realtors that need stuff fixed after the inspections. He stopped inspecting and started fixing doors, windows, etc. and that was the end of the experiment. One of these days I might try and revive it, but I'm going to wait until the voice-activated stuff is a couple of thousand light years beyond where it is now. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Walter, The info is at the "click here" hot link in the past above, but, just for you, I'll re-post it here. [] Contact: Earl Simmons; 620-868-0251; ee.simmons@yahoo.com Also, check these out: http://www.lustronhomes.com http://members.tripod.com/Strandlund/index-1.html

A company that has contracted to remove the Lustron homes on the Quantico marine base is selling disassembled and crated Lustrons for $46,000. Image Insert: 17.84 KB id="left">The price includes shipment to a place designated by the purchaser.id="right"> Image Insert: 4.92 KBThese are very unique all-steel homes, and, for a certain class of people, very desirable. However, these homes are also very complicated and taking on one of these as a project will require a lot of intestinal fortitude and a substantial investment beyond the actual purchase price of the home. Image Insert: 9.79 KB id="right"> For more information click here ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Well, Start right here on TIJ. Our directory is free for crying out loud. What could be a better deal than that? OT - OF!!! M.

Les! We need intervention; Kurt has obviously been smokin' crack! I'll meet you in Chi-Town, we'll kidnap him and drag him off to a lake cabin someplace and help him kick it cold turkey. OT - OF!!! M.

Here's a good example of what can happen with a single-walled vent used on a gas furnace in an unheated garage. The second I got out of my truck and noticed the rust around the termination above the roof, I knew I was pretty sure I was going to find a single-walled vent and evidence of lost exhaust gas buoyancy and corrosion. I wasn't disappointed. I even got a bonus - a cracked inducer housing. A twofer! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Image Insert: 32.51 KB Image Insert: 38.71 KB Image Insert: 48 KB Image Insert: 57.88 KB