hausdok

Hi, Go to the menu bar above, pass your cursor over 'forums' and then click on 'active topics'. Once that panel comes up, make sure that the drop-down box is set to "All categories that you have access to" and not the default categories. Then try it again. If that doesn't work, you'll have to get help from Mike or Rose at Devwave, because I'm still not up on the net from home due to the power/phone/everything outages we experienced last week with those storms. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I check them all, call them out when they aren't adhered and recommend having the cover hand-sealed. I've had roofers call me up all hot and bothered about it. I tell 'em, "OK, tell me the brand name and the series of shingle and let me get on the internet, check out the manufacturer's instructions and see if they are supposed to be hand-sealed when installed in temperatures too low for them to self-adhere. So far, out of about 20 of these irate roofer calls only one roofer was right and the manufacturer didn't require them to be hand-sealed. The client was cool about it. I'd already told the client that I didn't know the brand or series of shingles and that it was possible that, once I'd learned the brand and series, that I'd discover that the manufacturer of that particular shingle didn't want them hand sealed. I'd also told the client that it that turned out to be the case, that they should have the roof cover hand-sealed anyway if they don't want to be repairing the cover after a wind storm. Around here, you can pretty much plan that from about mid-October thru mid-April they won't self-adhere and will be hand sealed. After last week's wind storms and the wetting we got (News said that we got more than 1-inch an hour at some points), I'll bet there are a bunch of roofers that are going to end up repairing jobs where they didn't bother to hand-seal them and maybe even a few lawsuits over water-damaged property. Been off the net since last Thursday night at 9:34PM when the power got knocked out for a few days. Got power back on Saturday, Cable TV came back up this morning but for some reason the danged internet is still not up, so I'm typing this from my classroom at North Seattle Community College. Here's a tip for VOIP users: Make darned sure that you've got your VOIP phone set up to ring simultaneously at your office and cell phone or you are royally screwed when the net goes down. Stop chuckling you guys - I'd forwarded my phone, but I'm sure that someone got caught flat-footed by it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

In this review on HGTVPro.com, a professional remodeler puts one of Itronix's new ruggedizedHummer brand laptops through 6 weeks of hell and does everything he can to break it. Apparently, Panasonic's Toughbook computers finally have a worthy opponent at far less cost. To learn more, click here.

Home inspectors in British Columbia are pretty steamed at the attitude toward home inspectors displayed by that province's Solicitor General, Mr. John Les. In this series of articles and videos, inspectors explain how Les disrespected them, and even went so far as to say that he'd tried to intimidate them into silence, after they'd sought clarification when Les had said during an interview that the B.C. government intended to put the question of home inspection regulation under a government entity known as the Consumer Protection Authority. The subsequent flap over Les' comments received wide dissemination in the Canadian press. To read more click here. Click here to read a copy of a letter to the B.C. Premier from John Sutherland, President of the Canadian Association of Home and Property Inspectors (CAHPI.)

Although the mandatory aspect of home condition reports (HCR's) has been removed from the new requirement for home information packs (HIPs) in the U.K., the government is still requiring home inspectors who will be doing voluntary HCR's and energy audits to submit to a nationwide certification process. To learn more, click here.

This guide from the APA - Engineered Wood Association describes how and why to apply APA rated sheathing as a substrate for stucco to assure a superior, long-lasting finish. To download a free pdf. copy of the guide click here. Editor's note: You must be a "member" to download free online publications from the APA site, so you'll need to register at the site and log on before they'll allow you to download. Membership is free, takes on a minute or two and they do not spam you.

Washington, DC - Release #07-047 The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the manufacturer named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. Name of Product: Emerson 60-inch Designer Ceiling Fan Units: About 4,000 Distributor/Retailer: Air Comfort Products Division of Emerson Electric Co., of St.Louis, Mo. Hazard: The brackets holding the fan blades can break, causing the blade to detach. Falling pieces can hit and injure bystanders. Incidents/Injuries: Air Comfort Products has received one report of a fan blade striking a consumer in the head. The company is also aware of six incidents of the brackets failing. Three incidents resulted in minor property damage. Description: The recall involves the "Emerson Designer 60-inch Ceiling Fan." The recalled fans have a 60-inch diameter and come in seven types of finishes including weathered bronze, pewter, antique brass, white, antique white, oil rubbed bronze and brushed steel. Specific model numbers are included in the recall and can be found at the CPSC link below. The model numbers can be found on the base of the fan. Sold through: Menards and other lighting showrooms, electrical distributorsand hardware stores nationwide from May 2005 through September 2006 forbetween $90 and $300. Manufactured in: Taiwan Remedy: Consumers should stop using these fans immediately and contactAir Comfort Products to receive a voucher for a free Emerson replacementfan of comparable value. Air Comfort will reimburse consumers up to $75 for charges incurred in the removal and installation of replacement fans from Air Comfort. Consumer Contact: For more information, consumers should contact AirComfort toll-free at (866) 478-8564 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CT Mondaythrough Friday, or visit the firm's Web site at www.emersonfans.com To see this recall on CPSC's web site, including a picture of the recalled product, please go to: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07047.html

Hi Gary, No worries. Your a TIJ member. If you want, don't join any of them and have the letters ACI printed after your name on your card with an asterisk. Then put *ACI - Anal Compulsive Inspector, a TIJ forums member in ultra-fine print at the bottom on the backside. How much better could it get? [] OT - OF!!! M.

Boston - December 12 FLIR Systems, Inc. has announced the 2007 schedule for the fully certified infrared training courses offered by its dedicated Infrared Training Center (ITC). The ITC will offer courses at its headquarters in North Billerica, MA, just a few miles north of Boston, and in cities throughout the United States and Canada. The ITC’s schedule of courses through October 2007 is available online. Students who sign up for any of the following scheduled courses for 2007 between December 12, 2006 and January 31, 2007 will receive a discount of $100 (USD) per class. This offer does not extend to students who registered for these classes before December 12, 2006 or entitle students enrolled in free courses to a rebate. The discount offer is valid for any one of the following courses: Level I, II, and III - Predictive Maintenance (PdM) Thermography Research and Development GasFindIR Building Science IRBS 351 Students may register for 2007 training courses on the ITC’s Web site or by calling Laurie Kelley at 1-800-866-TRAIN-IR. Students who register online must enter the promotional code ITC13107 to ensure that they receive the $100 (USD) discount. For information about courses in Canada, call Nancy Edwards at 1-800-613-0507 ext. 24. #### All ITC Course Certifications meet or exceed ASNT (American Society for Non-Destructive Testing) SNT-TC-1A guidelines. Level I and Level II courses are recognized by the InterNational Electrical Testing Association (NETA), an accredited standards developer for the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ITC is the only ISO-9001 certified infrared training organization worldwide and the only factory-authorized training organization for FLIR, Agema, and Inframetrics cameras. ITC is the single largest employer of instructors who are ASNT, NDT and PdM TIR Level III certified. All ITC instructors have extensiveInternational IR knowledge and field experience.

Oh, Well then, that explains it. If reading completely through arguments is just too much trouble and is problematic for you, guess you can just ignore me. [}] OT - OF!!! M.

So, Scott, do you refer to legislation by states? If so, so far, their track record shows that they're only willing to pass weak legislation and give most folks who're in the profession a 'by'. That hasn't made anything better. Well, I don't want to open a huge organization bashing debate here, but pardon an independent from jumping in here and saying that I think that's a pretty flimsy rationalization for doing nothing. Why would raising the bar kill an organization? One can name dozens of fields where raising the bar hasn't done that. Let's take higher education providers for example. Yale, Harvard, MIT or Princeton haven't made entry any easier, yet they still garner enough folks who want to be able to say that they are an alumni of one of them to stay in business. Do they provide the absolute best education in the business? Well, if you ask them, they say that they do, although you can probably find guys who become just as educated in plenty of 4-year state run universities. Still, if you ask the average person on the street to name the top ten colleges or universities in the country, these will be named, nes pas? So, why do they survive? The answer is that if you set a bar that everyone acknowledges is the highest, you can charge more for it. Not everyone will want to pay for it - there'll be plenty who're happy to go to the 4-year state-run school - but there will always be those that want to be considered the best of the best and those folks are willing to pay to get there. So, if loss of dues is the issue with raising the bar, raise it anyway and raise the rates. If the org is truly the cream of the crop, those who care that it is will pay the additional rates, those that don't want to,...well, they'd be dead weight anyway, would constantly strive lower the bar and you'd be better off without them. Mr. Chalfen once told me that the original intent of the 'founders' was to set the bar extremely high and, for a few years, it was. Then, folks got elected into office who found motivations for lowing the bar and they gradually began eliminating some of those requirements - one of them being peer review. If they had stuck to their original principles and had kept peer review, it would be the standard today and I bet internet-based organizations, or other organizations with weak entry requirements and also with no peer review testing, would never have been able to gain any traction in their present models. In fact, I think if they'd stuck to their guns that anyone arguing against a high bar and peer review wouldn't even be listened to today. Doing away with peer review, way back then, was a self-inflicted wound. It's only recently began to have it's affect. But that's my opinion and I've only been around about 10-1/2 years, so what do I know? So far, I've spent 4 years in each of the two oldest national organizations and found them to be very similar in their approaches to everything. Since going independent again, I can't say that there's been a lot of difference in my life. By similar in approach, I mean that I think that the only two words to describe their approaches to everything are slow and ponderous. Bigger isn't necessarily better, unless you've designed a system that's designed to think, plan, act and react very quickly, in order to stay up with, or ahead of, the rest of the pack. That's why Nick's privately-owned "association" is beating the membership number pants off of the others. I certainly wouldn't consider his model to be top shelf, but I think a word that can describe it is nimble. ASHI was conceived in a time when there were no other models and no competition. NAHI was an offshoot of ASHI - actually a sort of rogue ASHI committee that decided to go off and do their own thing. Still, both were conceived before the internet and the information age found their way into everyone's living room. Those kinds of models worked back then - they don't work well now. Now, despite the fact that other organizations have been sprouting up like dandelions on a nice lawn, these old style associations still don't seem to have adapted well to the 'modern' world and are stuck on that old saw, "We were the first, so we are the best." To some, it's beginning to sound hollow. ASHI has always claimed to hold the high road and talks about quality of their inspectors. OK, why not walk the walk? Bar entry to anyone that hasn't completed 250 inspections. That's been the standard for "membership" privileges for so long anyway, so why not eliminate that demeaning 'candidate' title and only accept those with experience? If members feel a need to gratify themselves with some sort of ranking within the organization, in order to feel like their status is somehow more exalted than the newer members, why not establish a Certified ASHI Master Inspector level that's got requirements similar to, but more rigid, than those found at http://www.certifiedmasterinspector.org, and then allow all members all benefits, logo uses, etc? Why not re-establish a rigid peer review process and put every member through it, without grandfathering? If ASHI did that, it could reclaim the high ground. You'd cull a lot of dead weight. Plus, with a smaller organization, you'd need less 'civilian' staff and would be able reduce payroll costs, which I'm sure have to be a substantial chunk of the annual budget. After that, revamp the entire decision making process, so that ASHI stops moving like a lethargic sloth, can make decisions more quickly, take action quicker and can keep a 21st century pace with the other players out there, instead of lolling around wringing its hands and wondering why others are gaining ground. Just wondering out loud here. Sorry for the thread drift. [:I] OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Gary, A few years ago, the P.R.O.B.E. site had buttons you could click if you were interested in becoming affiliated. No more. I haven't talked to Mr. Chalfen by phone for at least a year, so I don't know whether they are accepting new folks to their ranks or not. If you'd like to read more about Mr. Chalfen, click here. My dream is to be part of founding the first higher education institution in this country dedicated entirely to teaching Building Science and Home Inspection. I've even got a name for it, in honor of a great man that I've never even met - the Chalfen Institute of Building Science and Home Inspection. A guy can dream can't he? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Gary, I couldn't agree more with your observations about the need for inspectors to have some understanding of the building sciences to be better at this. In fact, Are You A Building Scientist? was the first oped article I wrote nearly 6 years when the original version of TIJ debuted. However, you're wrong if you think it's only the ASHI types that don't want to hear about a higher education requirement for the profession. I've found it to be across the board within this profession. The excuses, explanations, justifications, rationalizations for why it isn't necessary or wanted are many and are on a par with why they say peer review is impossible to implement. They're all equally as hollow. However, that's another discussion entirely. Welcome to the ranks of the drum beaters, but don't be too optimistic that you'll see things change in our lifetime. Melvin Chalfen is 88 and I believe that he first began doing this around 1957. He was ASHI #00079 and one of the founders of the New England ASHI chapter. He retired around 2000 and then helped to start the P.R.O.B.E. Network (http://www.probenetwork.org). Most of Melvin's active inspection career had been keenly focused on educating home inspectors and trying to raise the bar within this profession. I think he might tell you that his experience has shown that in the case of home inspectors you can't even lead a horse to water. Hell, at this point, I'd be happy if they did nothing else but pass a law in all 50 states that says you aren't allowed to do this job until you can prove you can at least write at the level of a 6th grader. That alone, would probably weed out a huge chunk of the field and do a lot to improve our image. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

My opinion, No licensing law will ever be worth the ink used to print it, unless it includes a well delineated and objective on-site peer review. Any licensing law that relies merely on experience, mentoring and passage of a written test is a farce written by those who have ethical issues and don't have the moral courage to develop regulation aimed at true consumer protection. OT - OF!!! M.

Brrrr, somehow, I can't imagine coitus at 45°. That's gotta be one desperate couple! OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yeah, go back and search the mid to late July threads in the HVAC forum and you'll find a thread there about sizing tonnage and then we posted information there about decoding serial numbers. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Scott, If you already have the picture displayed on your site you can right click it, highlight and copy the URL to it and then paste it into the avatar slot in your profile. Alternatively, you could simply attach the photo as you normally do to this post, then copy the URL out of the code and paste that into the avatar slot in your profile. You have to watch size though. If it's too big it will cause the whole page to get squashed or shifted every time you post. It's best if you size it to about 100 by 124 pixels before you post it and then experiment, deleting it and increasing or decreasing the size as necessary so that it fills the column to the left without knocking everything out of kilter. Alternatively, send it to me by email and I'll put it in for you. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Ooooh! Kewl avatar, Gary! Or, should I be calling you Anubis? OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Kevin, That's a great site. Guess I better get to work and establish a log-home section in TIJ's links library and start transferring some of these links into there. Whew! That's going to take a while. Oh well, wasn't doing anything today except grading papers anyway. Still.... ONE TEAM - ONE (Sometimes exhausting) FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I've gotta wonder sometimes about the guys sitting around on these code writing panels. Sometimes I think they dream up stuff just to be able to say, "Look at this portion of the code! That was my idea!" without any thought given to how inane the requirement appears to be. Homeowners routinely ignore their homes and let stuff go until it fails. A pan under a water heater just provides one more little bit of comfort to the know-nothing homeowner and will allow him to ignore that water heater until the thing is so rusted that the bottom is ready to fall out and it starts leaking. It'd be smarter to not require pans, so that damage would occur and some folks could get sued for being apathetic. Word would get around and people would start paying more attention for fear of being sued or losing their homes to rot and mold. I think the pan under the water heater thing is a little bit silly. After all, how often do they actually get flooded? I know that the intent is to prevent damage - if not to the homeowner's property, to the property of someone living below - but I don't think the number of incidents really justifies forcing the use of a pan. Besides, they're pretty danged shallow and most of the ones I see are not plumbed to the exterior and have the outlets capped off. I guess the intent is to capture the leak in the hope that the resident will spot the water in the pan and correct the cause before the pan overflows. Riiiiggggghhhhhhhhhht. Like that's going to happen. If they want to try and protect against stuff that might someday take place, they should go after things that are more likely to fail, such as the supply hoses attached to washing machines. Force people to equip washing machines with stainless steel braided hoses or automatic shutoffs that will stop the water flowing if a hose does burst. Then they should make laws prohibiting people from installing brand new high capacity washing machines in older homes with small standpipe plumbing that can't accept the volume of water being pumped out of new washing machines without backing up and overflowing. Want to buy a new washer? If you own an older home with 1-1/2 inch pipe, it should be a law that you have to re-plumb that line with a 2" fall all the way to the main soil pipe. Hmmm, how about mandatory drain pans beneath entire bathrooms and kitchens? Mandatory drain pan flashings under every single window and door? Mandatory sprinkler systems in every new home would be nice too. How about mandatory ice and water shield underlayment under entire roof surfaces? Oh, the discharge pipe on a second floor unit aimed into the drain pan six inches from the floor? Why not? What the hell. Maybe the sound of dripping water will get the homeowner to pry his butt out of the recliner, open the door and look at the water heater that he's never bothered to flush or change the anode rod in and realize that he needs to take a break from the Cheetos long enough to fix the thing. Uh, sorry, got off on a rant there. Apologize for the thread drift. I'm just in a cranky mood this morning. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Kurt, I see them fairly regularly. Mostly in new construction where the WH is inside the home or in condos as Randy described. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Yeah, I know. The sponsors have a kaniption fit when I step in to send folks to their corners for an 8 count. However, I'd rather see folks disagree than beat a dead horse endlessly for days, and in the process remove others' motivation to read what's being said, because they're turned off by bickering. No problem, have at it, as long as it stays respectful and polite. If there's one thing I know, though, it's that home inspectors, as a breed, can be really stubborn about refusing to alter their own opinions sometimes, and these discussions can go south in a hurry. Put it this way, if at some point, one or the other of you is fighting the urge to call the other something obscene, it'll be time to take it outside. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, As I recall, Mike Casey used to have a company that did forensic work and he once wrote an article for the ASHI Reporter about water testing windows. You might google ITA and shoot him an email. OT - OF!!! M.

Hey Guys, We respect someone's right to have their own opinion here and to agree to disagree when it's clear that two folks can't see eye to eye. If this is going to continue in this vein, how about taking it offline and doing it by email please. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Erby, You did it right. You just forgot the image tags. OT - OF!!! M.