hausdok

Is it possible that if he pulls that limestone ledge out of there he'll discover that there is already a metal flashing there that extends from the top of the rough framing below that window to the bottom of the opening where the limestone has been inserted? If that were the case, would one want to 'bed' it in mortar or leave the bottom un-mortared and just use a little mortar at the ends and joint to kind of lock things in place? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's just a plain ol' direct vent gas water heater. Nothing strange or unusual about it. It has a concentric vent that allows combustion air in and exhaust gases out. I see them all the time. Of course it's got a yellow flame; you opened it up. Close it up and the flame changes color. It looks like the first three digits in the serial are G98, so it was manufactured in July 1998 which makes it pretty danged old, so finding a lot of rust sloughed off the inside surface of the flue would be about par for the course. A 14 year old water heater is like grandpa in the nursing home under 24 hour hospice watch. You were lucky it didn't fail as you were backing out of the driveway. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

What's that you say Brandon? Ultrafire flashlights are crap! You mean Ultrafire flashlights are not built well and don't last? You mean Ultrafire flashlights are the worst investment anyone could make? Is it possible that using an Ultrafire flashlight would be little better than using a candle? What do you say Mr. Link dropper, gginobi? Shall we continue to heap on our opinion of the Ultrafire flashlights so that the search engines pick up those comments? How about some more opinions from the brethren. Make sure though that you mention Ultrafire flashlights by name when you want to tell folks how poor they are; otherwise a search won't pick up the comments. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Edit your post to fix the pictures. 1. Remove the links you've posted to the OP 2. Rename the photo files without any gaps in the name or special symbols 3. Re-post the photos. 4. Submit changes.

Hi, I've fallen and been seriously injured from 25+ ft. and from 10-12 ft. and I can tell you that the injuries from 10 - 12ft. are just as serious and painful as those from 25+. When I recline one of my gorilla ladders against the side of a wall or buildling and climb up it those ladders flex a great deal and they are rated for 300 lbs. There isn't any way I'm carrying my chubby self up one of those flimsy collapsible thingies. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Eighteen years? I would have thought that about fiften years was the maximum one would expect from one of these units. They are not, after all, cast iron boilers. Old stuff wears out. Sometimes it's better to just bite the bullet and replace the entire thing at once instead of suffering a death of a thousand cuts by trying to keep it running and replacing on thing after the other after the other after........... ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

If it's face nailed the installer probably doesn't know his job that well anyway. The best installes of HardiPlank that I see are completely blind nailed and everything is laying flat and straight without any additional nails at butt joints to keep the ends in line. The installer probably nailed your stuff too close to the edge. The same thing happens with wood siding. Nail wood siding too close to the edge and it will split. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Tsk Tsk, Julia. Julia is probably a 300 pound guy with a hairy back wearing nothing but his shorts sitting in front of a computer with a list of URL's in front of him. He needs to spend all day dropping those links onto sites around the net in order to get paid. Jeez, how can I find a lucrative job like that and get rich too?

Check into Rheem and A.O. Smith. Both have developed new high performance 50 gallon tank type water heaters that are supposed to be energy efficient and allegedly can provide the same service that a 70 gallon tank can for less fuel cost. If their claims are true, the cost to install would be paid back long before they need to be replaced. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Inspect Express by our sponsors, DevWave, does what you want and works off a handheld thingy also. It's ideal for the non-techie. The boilerplate comments are easily edited with s simple right click and then saved. There's a selection button in there when you set it up that allows you to use it in full-narrative mode or in semi-checklist mode. I agree with what you say about the fluff. IE has some of that too. You won't like some of the boilerplate. There's fluff comments in there as well as passive inspector speak that drives me nuts that I'd never use. Still, just about everyone tailors boilerplate to their own taste anyway and the engine is user intuitive, easy to learn, and once you get used to it you can edit boilerplate on the fly and just keep on adding and customizing it to your heart's content. Download their trial software and give it a shot. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

There are plastic pipes manufactured specifically to be used as TPR extensions. I think all of the what-if scenarios that deal with this are silly. I bet it performs just as well as metal pipe when/if a TPR activates. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It would have to get cold enough on the inside face of that foam board to cause moisture migrating out of the house to condense. The floor joist bay might stay conditioned just enough to make condensation a non-issue. Most of your interior moisture will be driven through vapor diffusion upward into the attic space and outward into the exterior walls because those areas will be colder and drier than the floor joist cavities. Most crawlspaces are relatively warm compared to outside, even in your climate. Unless the crawlspace gets cold enough to cause the inside face of that foam to cool moisture migrating into the joist bays to dewpoint, you aren't going to have any moisture issue and the vapor is going to diffuse gradually. Check around with the energy gurus in your area to see what they've been experiencing. Heck, since Dr. Joe L. an email and ask him to toss an opinion at it. The guy never misses a chance to castigate someone for dumb moisture-related issues. He might be happy with it or upset enough to mount a full-scale assault on the folks in the State of Maryland. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

The appraiser is an idiot. No chassis, wood floor joists, standard foundation - it sounds like a classic modular. There's no way they should appraise for less than a stick built; they're better built most of the time. Tell him I said so and invite him to come here. We'll educate the sweat monkey. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I agree that it's wrong; but it might not leak. There appears to be a pretty deep overhanging eave. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Doesn't matter, They are not government employees and they are being paid for their expertise as home inspectors. People should be qualified to do inspections, whether they are FHA or non-FHA. If a private for-hire inspector is out there plying his trade and citizens are relying on him for his expertise and are paying for that, then he should be required to prove that he knows what he's talking about. That's what licensing is supposed to accomplish. It's not about revenue earned from the piddling license fees, it's about assuring consumer protection. Citizens purchasing anything under the FHA are entitled to just as much protection whether it is a full FHA inspection like a 203K or it's a confirmation that the home meets code. By the way, how is it that a private inspector can certify something that is not to code if it's illegal for a private inspector to do code inspections if he's not a city employee? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That's true. Lots of old houses around here have the form boards recycled into the attic and they are covered with not only concrete but many have a layer of white efflorescence at the rim of the water stains. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's impossible to tell from looking at those photos. The stuff looks like it might be blown-in fiberglass. A test costs about $35 - $40. Have it tested and if it turns out to be asbestos go from there. Since you've been exposed to asbestos in one form or another in the environment your entire life, and you've apparently been living around it, and it takes about a quarter of a century to metasticize, if it turns out to be asbestos, what is knowing that going to do for you? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Get a gallon of BoraCare, mix it with a gallon of water and then go up in there and apply a light spray of BoraCare to the rafters and the underside of the roof deck. Make sure you're attic is well ventilated. Go on with life. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

We took the same decision here in Washington. The fee isn't the issue; fees collected from a tiny number of inspectors on an FHA roster don't amount to squat. Inspectors on the FHA roster are still doing home inspections for the citizens of this state and those citizens are still relying on those FHA inspectors to be qualified and competent. That's the issue. Arrogance is when an inspector tells others that he's not going to comply with the state's rules that are designed to protect its citizens and then that inspector tries to go on as usual performing inspections without a license by calling them "FHA inspections." The FHA issued a directive last year that FHA inspectors were required to meet all licensing requirements in their respective states. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Chad, I've been hearing about aggressive water with high alkalinity in the eastern states for years. I remember that some of the most brackish stuff I ever tasted was water in upstate New York when I used to work summers building silos up there. Any chance that's what you're dealing with? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, The frass that carpenter ants produce is very misleading. It actually takes them years to do damage equal to what a colony of termites can do in months; however, the piles of frass make it look like they've done substantial damage. Each of those tiny slivers of wood they discard doesn't look like it would take up much room; but when you put millions of those side-by-side the volume they take up is hundreds of times the size of the actual damage they do. About a decade ago I got called by a friend to come look at his house. "Mike, I think I might have a carpenter ant infestation." I went over there and he pointed to the lower corner of an exterior basement door casing and told me to watch. Within moments a carpenter ant emerged and struck off across the lawn and another arrived and disappeared behind the trim. We watched for about ten minutes and counted hundreds coming and going. His basement family room was lined with wood paneling applied on furring strip nailers over drywall. We started at the door and began removing the paneling. The gap behind the first sheet was packed with frass but when we cut a hole in the drywall to check the framing and sheathing it was fine. We started removing more sheets of paneling. I figured that we'd go until the shavings stopped and that would take us to the source of the shavings. We went about 25 or 30 feet around that room before the shavings petered out below a south-facing window. As we progressed we kept finding ants as we'd pull the paneling off and by the time the frass had petered out it filled his large shop vac to the brim and we'd had to empty it - it almost filled a wheelbarrow. I started tapping on the framing beneath the window and suddenly lots of soldiers appeared and assumed their aggressive stance. The wood sounded hollow. I hit the top of it with the blade of the wrecking bar and the top broke inward and all hell broke loose. The inside of that 2 by 4 was hollowed out and was packed with eggs. As soon as I broke that two-by open, ants swarmed all over the place. Some came after us and some were grabbing eggs and tried to move the cache. As I opened up the wall around that opening looking for more damage, he Worked frantically to gather them and those eggs up with his shop vac. so that they wouldn't be able to relocate the nursery. I removed the window and we stripped the drywall looking for more damage but there wasn't any. That huge pile of frass was the result of them hollowing out a single horizontal two-by about five feet long. We removed it and nailed in a new one and restored the walls. Problem solved. I would never have guessed that much frass could be created by so little damage. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Is that single-walled connector in an unheated area where the air around it can cool the exhaust gases to dew point and cause them to condense? Those gases are acidic and they'll eat through a vent. Find single-walled vents damaged all the time due to that issue. That 90 degree bend will be part of it. The rule is no bend greater than 45 degrees but one of 60 is allowed. That 90 ist ya verboten. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's a passive through-the-wall intake vent for the whole house air change systems. Pull the string once and it pops out from the wall about a quarter of an inch and allows air in from outside, Pull the string again and it pops closed. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's simple. The roof valleys are done wrong and won't drain properly. Have a competent roofer - not the incompetent that did this cover - tear out these valleys and redo them correctly. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, I saw that "study" but I don't believe it. I've been in a lot of homes owned by young folks and there is no one distinct odor that identifies the home as a geezer home. Today's house was built in 1980 and the folks selling have been there since it was new. I didn't know that when I arrived. The home is no longer furnished and there was really nothing in the home that said, "Hey, I'm a geezer house," but as soon as I walked in the door my noze screamed "Geezer odor!" It was overpowering. couldn't get the stench out of my nostrils for hours afterward. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike