hausdok

OK, Well, maybe it doesn't specifically state it for a garage door opener, but how do you get around 400-7 "Flexible cords and cables not to be used in lieu of permanent wiring methods?" 210-52a allows a 6ft. cord on the appliance, but after that you have to plug into permanent wiring. How do you do that with an extension cord without violating 400-7? OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Make sure your photo is 100Kb or smaller. If you don't have an image resizer and you've got XP, go to microsoft's Powertoys For Windows site and download their free resizer. Make sure that the name on your photo hasn't got any spaces or symbols. If you're using netscape or firefox, click the upload icon and then browse to the photo and click the upload button on the upload window. When the window tells you that you've successfully uploaded do not close that window. Instead, copy the url and then close the window and paste the url into your post. That's it. Welcome to the TIJ family. Editor.

Yep

Hi Robert, Please don't call him Brain. He's too full of himself as it is. [:-slaphap OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Rob, That may be true, but TIJ was built around IE and displays best, and full-screen, on IE. My computer handles having IE and Firefox both installed and I can open one of each and not have a problem. The new IE 7 looks and functions much like Firefox. In fact, when it came out, I was on here talking about how cool it was and others who use Firefox were going, "What's he talking about? It looks just like Firefox." After that, I downloaded Firefox to see what it looks like and discovered that they do function almost identically - except TIJ displays best on IE. Why haven't I changed over yet? Because doing so will take the programmers several weeks of dinking around with the site to make everything work properly in Firefox. That costs a whole lot more than what TIJ has in the budget, which is $0. As long as IE can be run concurrently with IE without doinking either up, I'm not going to change it. As for posting a picture, you don't have to exit Firefox or Netscape to do it, although it's easiest that way. Just click on the upload a file icon below the composition box, browse to the photo, and click on the upload button. Once it says that it's successfully been uploaded, do not close that message window. Instead, highlight the URL displayed there and copy it. Then, close that message window and paste that URL into your post and submit it. The photo will display. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yeah, upon first glance, that's what I thought was going on. running it through a length of PVC would be a good way to protect it from getting dinged. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Darren, Are you using Netscape or FIrefox? If so, open and Internet Explorer browser and post it. If you're using I.E., make sure that you keep it under 100Kb by resizing it if you have to and make sure that the name of the file doesn't have any spaces or special symbols like parenthesis in it and then try posting it again. If that doesn't work, shoot it to me by email to hausdok@msn.com and I'll post it to your post. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Around here, they do it a couple of ways. The one I see the most is where the windows have little inlet vents built into the frames and a larger-than-normal ceiling fan (Usually a 2nd story bathroom fan but sometimes a laundry fan or even a separate fan at a hallway ceiling) somewhere in the house is coupled to a 24-hour timer and exausts to the outside. I show my clients how to set the timers and open the vents and emphasize that they must use them. I tell them to keep the window vents open year-round, if only just slightly cracked, because we don't get really cold winters here and the drafts these create is negligible. The next method utilizes the return air ducting on the HVAC system. There will be a separate fresh air duct with an inlet grill on an outside wall that's connected to the return air plenum. A 24-hour timer on the side of the furnace is used to simultaneously turn on a ceiling fan somewhere in the house and actuate a damper on that fresh air duct. The timer kicks on the fan, the damper opens and fresh air dumps out of the return air intake grills into the home. Here I make sure they understand how to use the timer and emphasize that they need to keep the fresh air intake clear of debris. The next utilizes fresh air vents installed in the exterior walls and a 24-hour timer in a laundry or bathroom somewhere. The fresh air vents are adjusted to let in the desired amount of air according to the climate and are manually opened and closed. Here the procedure is the same as the first method. As you can see, only the second method ensures that there is fresh air automatically replacing the air the fan is removing from the house. The first and third methods must rely on the homeowner's good sense to open the window vents or the fresh air vents, to allow fresh air in, or they are essentially depressurizing the entire house. It's not unusual to find one of these homes where the air inlets are never opened and the perimeter of the carpeting and walls around electrical receptacles will be stained dark gray where dust was being sucked into the home under the wall plates and through the wall plane. It's really, really common to find that homeowners haven't a clue and don't bother to set the timers. Many even defeat the timers because they don't like the noise that the fan makes or they are afraid of spending energy dollars. I've had a 3-year olf home about a year ago where the homeowner had defeated the timer, closed off the window vents and kept the home toasty and close all the time. It was an Asian family. They cooked by boiling a lot and this increased the amount of moisture. The underside of the roof was covered with gray fungus with white mold, like peach fuzz, growing all over the place. All of that moisture bottled up in the home was diffusing thorugh the ceiling plane via air passages and was condensing on the underside of the roof and feeding the fungus. Inside the home, the air was so close that my sinuses were killing me. Although I didn't see any, I bet there were a few micro-organisms propagating inside that home. The OSB roof decking was ruined. The listing agent told the buyer's agent that I must have been high on crack. I don't know what ever happened about that. I know my client bought the home. Not my problem. He was very well informed about how the system had been defeated and the roof decking was likely to be toast in less than a year. Our state's model energy code describes about half a dozen makeup air methods and recommends that a house be ventilated 8 hours out of every 24. I think that's excessive. I've been recommending 3 to 4 hours every 24 hours for the past 10 years and have never had it come back and bite me. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, I usually turn on the overhead fan switch in the bath, put the lid up on the john and then step up on the rim and make a crack, "Your Inspector Inc. spares no cost when it comes to using the very latest exhaust fan testing equipment," as I put a piece of toilet paper up under that exhaust fan grill and it gets sucked up against the grill or falls to the floor 'cuz the thing is kinked or blocked. Cracks 'em up every time. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Rick, if it's not in the manual, call them first thing Monday morning and ask them to explain it to you. If they say to send it back, tell them to send you the new one first, accompanied by a self-addressed, pre-paid container for the doinked one. That way, they'll be the ones waiting, not you. Randy, If you've got the Protimeter SM (Prre-GE takeover) you may have the same trouble I had. When I called Protimeter about it way back when, mine was a couple of years old and out of warranty. They told me it was probably a faulty transformer and said to send it back and they'd fix it. Cost $125.00. I said, "What the f***!" no way, and disassembled the littler feller myself and found that there indeed was a tiny little transformer glued to a circuit board with what is the equiv of rubber cement. It had come loose and a little tiny wire at one corner had broken and was barely making contact when I jiggled it around. I took it down to the TV repair guy on Lake City Way near 125th, opened it up, showed him the problem and he walked in the back, soldered it and returned about 5 minutes later. It worked like a charm. $10. I thought that was reasonable. When I'm on the job and walking around outside checking the exterior, roof, etc., I can hear the Korean Konnection inside, thunk, thunk, thunking that thing on the walls, floors and ceilings in radio and pin mode. It doesn't matter how many times I tell her to be gentle with that puppy, I can still hear the thunk, thunk, thunk going on for a good 30 minutes while she works her way through the interior. I've given up arguing with her about it. Been back to Lake City twice more to have it resoldered and the last time he tried bedding it in some goop to try and keep it from coming loose. That was a year or two ago and it's been holding up pretty well, despite the crack that she'd managed to develop in the case. One of these days, though, I know I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get a new one. I hope the new ones made since GE bought them out are as good as the old ones. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk,....... ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Jim, Thanks for that. D.H. had seen the thread and sent me that yesterday. I thought he'd sent it to Bill and that Bill was going to post it. OT - OF!!! M.

Well, I for one certainly appreciate it. Running a free site can't be done without sponsors, and I'd sure like to keep them around - maybe even garner a few more. Thank you for doing that, Steve. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I thought it looked like an old hand-activated bilge pump from a ship. Given the fact that Tacoma is a port, maybe that's where it came from. Did you knock on that floor with a hard object to see whether it sounded hollow and indicated a cistern beneath? OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Randy, I think that just reading surface temp isn't going to tell you that much about a ceiling radiant system because it's not the surface temperature that keeps people warm, it's the radiant heat emanating from the ceiling. It travels equally in all directions, irrespective of other conditions. One room might be drawing more surface temperature off the ceiling for whatever reason, while another will not, but the folks in the room below will be perfectly comfortable. I know this is hard for folks to understand, because they have this misconception that heat rises, when that' s not the case. Heated air rises, not radiant heat. Heated air is displaced by heavier colder air and the heated air is pushed upward near the ceiling, giving people the mistaken impression that heat rises. Well, radiant heat will even pass through a vacuum. That's how this planet is heated. So, ceiling temp is only telling you that the heating element is getting warm. It's impossible, as an inspector, to know how much ceiling temp is being drawn away by types and thicknesses of materials. The determining factor in whether a radiant ceiling system works is whether the folks in the home are comfortable and we don't have the luxury of seeing the home re-furnished and decorated and knowing how folks will live under those systems, so predicting performance is quite literally impossible during a home inspection, regardless of whether they system is perfect. Here's an extreme example of radiant heat. When I was running the MP station at Ft. Carson, Colorado, my MP's used to freeze their petoonkies off outside the gate shack, while standing out on the main gate checking cars and waving people by during the winter months. The heaters in the gate shack didn't help because the doors were opened so often and the shacks were so exposed to the wind. The poor guys would come down with colds and the flue and it got so bad that we had to change them out every two hours. It was a huge hassle and a scheduling nightmare. I finally got fed up with it and talked the command into purchasing some quartz radiant heaters to stand outside the doors of those shacks, directed at the spots where those MPs had to stand. Once we did that, our guys could literally stand out there in the worst type of weather for hours without getting chilled. The air around the heater and between the heater and the MP was still cold, but the MP was being heated by radiation and wasn't dependent upon the air temperature around him or her for warmth. That's what's going on with these ceiling radiant heat systems and why all the surface temp tells you is that the element is on. Hope that's clear as muck. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, We have them here in a lot of the condominium stock built in the 70's. People like 'em and don't seem to think it's any more expensive than gas or oil. OT - OF!!! M.

What Bill said. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, I don't know that I'd consider 95 to 100¡Ãƒâ€ a "hot" spot. Our bodies are about 98, no? Like the others, I don't see a reason to be concerned. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Bill, I didn't miss what you were asking. I just don't recall that being the case so I passed on the only thing I was aware of relative to installations close to the floor. Of course, I've only been at this a little under 11 years. I suppose it might have been that way back when. Then again, it might have been a local thing that you're remembering, rather than a nationwide thing. OT - OF!!! M.

OK Folks, The photos are now posted to the first post in this thread for your viewing pleasure. OT - OF!!! Editor

If it's an ordinary pour, it's going to absorb water, reach equilibrium with the soil around it and just stay damp. If it's 5,000 psi it won't even do that. Unless you've got cracks or control joints that are open clean through the slab to allow water to drain past, it won't allow a lot of water to pass - not enough to matter, anyway. You'll get far, far more soaking into the soil from the rain than through the slab. OT - OF!!! M.

It evaporates! OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Rob, I kind of figured you'd warn me about that. I think to avoid liablility, such a list would have to be inspector specific, wherein the inspector carefully documents every aspect of the keystone event that convinces him that a certain agent belongs on his manipulator list. That way, when the agent calls up yelling and threatening a lawsuit for defamation or slander, he can specifically point to that incident as his basis for his own decision that the agent had crossed the ethical line. If the keystone event stinks so badly that it's sure to fail the smell test with the real estate board, I think the inspector would be safe and the agent might find himself motivated to change his ways. That's me though. I don't have a law degree and I tend to go off in directions that land me in hot water. That's why it's so good to have you here! (Pssst. Don't suppose you'd like to moderate a Legal Issues forum, would you?) ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Around here, they're pretty sophisticated about it. They all recommend inspections, but it's how they do it that's the key. They'll typically hand the client a list of several names and will place their favorite on the head of that list, their next favorite second and the next third, etc.. Most who like the kind of inspector who is half blind and willing to overlook a certain amount of stuff, in order to ensure that he/she continues to garner future referrals, put the names of toadies who's reports will be full of inspector speak on that list. If they are serious about having their clients get a good inspection, the list will contain the names of competent inspectors who write decent reports. Some who want a minimalist inspection are more clever than that. They tell their clients, "All inspectors are alike, so don't waste your money on an expensive inspector." They know full well that competent inspectors aren't charging bottom feeder prices and that if the client goes with someone who's extremely cheap that the odds are weighted strongly that the inspector will be inexperience and very malleable, because he or she will be hungry for future referrals. Some offices keep lists of inspectors and forbid their agents to recommend anyone that is not on that list. I know, because some agents who refer clients to me repeatedly ignore that and have told me about it. Personally, I think it's the inspectors who should keep a set of lists. I think we need one list for realtors who try and manipulate or minimize our findings in some way and the other of those who don't expect favors and don't try and manipulate or minimize our findings. Then, when someone calls to schedule an appointment and we learn that it's someone on the 'zoid list, we should tell the caller that we don't accept referrals from that agent for ethical reasons, and hang up. I bet if every inspector in a city did that for a few months, that agents would soon learn to change their ways. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

http://www.awc.org/pdf/wcd4.pdf Hi Charlie, Yeah, you did miss something. The word all. Go back to 308.4 and read the sentence that precedes those 4 bullet points. To qualify as a hazardous it location, and therefore have mandatory safety glazing, it must meet all four conditions that I bulleted in my post. If it were, say, a small window with the top of the window less than 36 inches above the floor and less than 9 square feet, it would not, technically, need to have safety glazing, because it would technically, not be considered hazardous. Like I said, from a common sense point of view it's silly, but that's the way it's written. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Bill, I don't think that it's prohibited, or even that it must have safety glazing, unless it can be considered a walk-through hazard. To be considered a walk-thru hazard, and thus require safety glazing, all of the following criteria must be met (IRC 308.4): Exposed area of glazing greater than 9 square feet plus Bottom edge of the window is less than 18 inches above the floor or ground plus Top edge is greater than 36 inches above the floor or ground plus Within 36 inches horizontally of walking surfacesThere is an exception to the requirement for safety glass when it meets all of this criteria and that's to install a protective guard 34 - 38 inches above the floor. I think that most double-hung sashes would extend at least 36 inches above the floor and be able to meet all of this criteria. But for the purposes of this application, does "Window" mean just one of the sashes? If so, unless the bottom half met all of that criteria, I don't think the walk-thru requirement would apply. Doesn't pass the common sense test, but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike