hausdok

Hmmm, You know, Kevin. I know that I've got something around here. I just have to remember what and where it is. In the meantime, maybe these links will get your started: http://www.ctinspectors.com/Data/newsle ... _1_feb.pdf http://www.logassociation.org/resources ... ndards.pdf http://www.uaf.edu/ces/publications/fre ... -00752.pdf http://www.uaf.edu/ces/publications/fre ... -01154.pdf ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yep, My math skills are so poor it took me half an hour to do that multiplication. Do you have any idea how long it takes to lay out fifty rows of 34 paper clips each and then count them manually? Whew! Phone kept ringing and I'd lose count, I sneezed once and ruined my calculations, I got mixed up and went "nineteen, twentyteen, twenty-one teen"......

Your math is wrong. It should be 34 X 50 = 1700 cubic feet and if it's less than that in volume you have to add additional venting. The fact that it's been in there since 1993 and hasn't hurt anything only means that it's been installed wrong since 1993 and hasn't hurt anything, but still needs to be corrected. OT - OF!!! M.

70,000? Wow. I can remember when just 5 years ago there was disagreement whether the number was 20,000 or 25,000, with some of those in a position to know, because they were involved with national training organizations, saying that 25,000 was too high a number. Almost a three-fold increase. Back then we had a lot fewer states with licensing too - about 15 to 20 I think. No wonder fees have been stagnant for so long. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Maybe, have no idea what a weimeraner is. Sounds like part of a proctologist's examination equipment. Scott is right, the correct spelling fur das Hund ist Weimaraner, which means, essentially, from Weimar, where the breed developed. Jeez, talk about thread drift. Guess I need to be blamed for this one. OT - OF!!! M.

That's easy to answer........No. There are guys who've been in the business for years who can't string twelve words together into a coherent sentence. Still others, just as experienced, who fill their reports with inspection folklore. Still others who have less than a rudimentary understanding of building science issues. Your odds of getting a better inspection, if you pick from a pool of inspectors who have more experience, are increased, but without true verification of education, experience, peer review and written testimony from happy past clients, you're simply playing the odds and it's still possible to find a great inspector among the less experienced. It's not just about tests and number of inspections. It's about the whole person, type of background, total secondary and primary education, college if any, training, experience, attitude, ability to interact with others, ability to impart what one knows to others, ability to recall what you see and describe it succinctly in writing, what past customers say, etc.. Many have well-honed answers designed to deflect all of these loaded questions. At this point, probably the best discriminator is past customers. Consumers should demand a list of references who've granted the inspector permission to use them as references, and they should randomly choose some of these to talk to before deciding on who to hire. Call around sometime and pose as a prospective customer. You'd be amazed at the number of excuses that inspectors will give you for not providing a detailed list of past customers. Still, though it's good practice few potential customers do it. Providing references isn't that hard, you just have to keep in mind that people often change addresses and phone numbers shortly after we meet them. I've found that it's best if I get the caller's first name and number and promise to call him/her back. Then I'll get on the phone and dial up the last 10 to 20 people that I've done work for and ask their permission to use them as references. I'll usually be able to reach about half that number within minutes. I've never had anyone deny me permission. Then I'll call the party back, give him/her the list and hang up without further comment. They call back shortly thereafter. OT - OF!!! M.

Uh, Uh, Nobody gets to rent me. Nobody. Even though I do speak fluent German, I don't think his customers would like me anyway. I've been told that I make peoples' eyes hurt when they look at me. OT - OF!!! M.

In this ABC News piece, an investigative news team in Phoenix uses hidden cameras and a previously inspected home to compare the thoroughness of 5 different home inspection companies. To watch the video click here.

Hi, Just what sort of "inside perimeter drain" is the drainage guy proposing? There should not be 10" of water in that crawlspace....ever, and that soil should all be tightly capped. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Originally mistakenly posted by samsarkis to another forum and then re-posted here i need questions and answers to pass the texas exam i've made 117 from 150 so close to passing i need help please i don't want to fail again my week point is structure and foundation

I just cite the NAHB guidelines, if they apply, and leave it at that. It ultimately comes down to what the client has agreed to in the purchase and sale agreement. Many builders spell out what is and isn't acceptable and I'm usually not privy to that. As for why I'd bother, if you bought a Mercedes you'd be ticked if there were a scratch on the fender, so I can certainly understand why cosmetic flaws in a new home will irk a customer. We know that no home is "perfect," but people have a right to expect their new home to be perfect and to complain when it isn't, thus forcing the builder to try and come as close to that ideal as possible. It's pretty rare anymore, at least around here, to find a home where the final fit and finish is really good. There are those times though when I find almost flawless interiors, so I know that it's not an impossibly unrealistic goal. Your mileage may vary. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Well, I think you can, if you have a laptop or palm computer that is wireless internet capable. Several inspectors have talked on here about using their computers to look stuff up on the net while on-site, so why not? OT - OF!!! M.

Welcome Gary! It's about time a building scientest chimed in here. I've been saying since the second minute I got into this business that most of what we do is interpret building science. That's seems to be one difficult subject to find in colleges in this country. Not so much overseas though. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I've never seen anything like that before. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Erby, Yeah, I get 'em like that all the time. They want to know what will happen if they do nothing. I say, "Well, maybe nothing. However, you're going to want to sell this home some day and some anal inspector like me is going to be standing here writing up this same issue when you do. When that happens, your explanation to the potential buyer - that you'd known about it but let it go because you didn't want to get into it with the guy you paid half a million dollars to build this home - isn't going to fly and they're going to want you to correct it. Do what you want, but it's screwed up now and now is the easiest time to fix it - not later." They always seem to understand when you couch it in those terms. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Kurt, Jim, et. al, Wasn't there some kind of style book that WJ was always talking about being perfect for home inspectors? OT - OF!!! M.

Jeez Scott, Lots of sun on that side. Hope they plan to cut some windows in there and let some light in! That tape doesn't look very well adhered. What's up with that? Are they trying to apply that stuff at 30° temps? OT - OF!!! M.

Kewl! Waiting with bated breath. OT - OF!!! M.

Nah, You ain't obsessive. You couldn't be, unless you could look at that balustrade and insist that they screwed up the baluster order and it needed to be a consistent pattern. [:-dev3] OT - OF!!! M.

Jeez Randy, If I saw a fellow being a sugar daddy to his own daughter, I'd turn him in for incest. Must be a regional vernacular thing. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Okay, I understand where you're going, and I agree, we are thinking similarly. Except, that is, about the cohesion/adhesion thing. I'm going to have to, as the Myth Busters guys says, reject your reality and substitute my own. I meant to say adhesion. Initially, I was going to say capillary action, but since these tiny openings are not continuous and are the product of a weave between different materials, I used adhesion instead. I don't see how water and wrap can cohere because they don't molecularly cohere to one another. In my mind, mortar is held together by cohesion but it adheres bricks together. Water clinging by surface tension to a surface isn't, in my mind, cohering as in part of the mass. It's simply adhering to the surface. Maybe I've got it backward, but in my mind it's not. Anyway, you understood where I was going, so let's not get off on a long tangent about that and let's stick to the product. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nah, I'm not skeptical about that. I've stood on the south side of 100 year old homes here in the driving rain, where the only thing behind the clapboards is a thin layer of rosin paper, and I've watched water drain out from behind the claps and down the sides of foundations. I know that water gets into walls and I know that it drains out and that the concept works. I just have to wonder about this concept. I happened to look at some of that drainable wrap one day when it was raining hard and the siding hadn't been installed. Sure, it drains, but at the same time the little openings in it were acting like a kajillion little open straw ends and a certain amount of water was being held in the material by adhesion and surface tension. When that stuff is sandwiched behind siding, won't the tendency for that material to allow water to cling to it remain, and, if so, how is that going to affect the Advantech where the nails split the face and pass through it? We have a lot of water here (15.33 inches during November) during certain parts of the year. I've seen Advantech hold up well during the building process without swelling and deformation, but that is usually months versus the years the product will be behind the siding. This green stuff has only been out for about 3-4 years, so it makes sense, at least to me, that they can't possibly have any actual long, long term test results of what's going to happen when you glue this stuff to the face of the OSB and leave it in a wall system for 20 years. That's what's niggling at my mind. Then again, I guess they'll never know what the long-term results will be, unless they're willing to put a wall together and leave it out for 20 years, before putting it on the market. That sure isn't going to make any investors happy, so they make the public the test bed. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Okay, Yeah, I saw all of that. It answers your question about stucco, but that wasn't the point of my original post, which was to find folks like Scott who've actually seen it and to ask them to proffer their opinions about what they saw. I've seen a lot of flashing details instructions in a lot of systems. What's prescribed and what they do in the field can be two different things and I'm wondering about what folks are seeing out there. I haven't seen it, so I don't have the luxury of looking at it up-close and comparing what's been done to how the manufacturer says it has to be done, so that's why I asked the original question. I never asked about stucco or E.I.F.S. because I'd seen that in the instructions my first read through. Sorry I didn't respond directly to your question earlier. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Okay, I did. What, specifically, are you referring to. There's a lot of stuff there. What do you want me to infer? OT - OF!!! M.

Nah, My sticking the tongue out icon was in response to Brandon over his trying to twist my knickers over that boilerplate - which, by the way, big chunks of have nothing to do with me. I was trying not to contribute to thread drift. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike