hausdok

Long discussion when the answer is right there in front of you. Get a thermometer, close them off with some cardboard and tape and find out for yourself. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nobody has asked, Were the former owners very elderly; or did they have a very elderly relative living in that one room perhaps? I have a friend who is about 86 years old. He keeps a tidy house and is always clean shaven and neat but when I visit him I have to force myself to ignore the odor in the house, which unfortunately follows him around. It's a sort of cross between sweat and urine smell. Don't know what it is or why it is; but I hope to hell I won't smell like that when I'm that age. I've inspected a lot of homes that have that same old person odor and it seems to permeate the structures. Some homes had retained the odor long after the owners had gone to live in a nursing home. One former client who'd bought one of these houses from an estate told me the odor wouldn't dissipate until he'd replaced all of the carpeting and had repainted every wall and surface. Sorry if this post offends anyone's sensibilities but it had to be said. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I love it! I can think of at least a half a dozen ways I could utilize that. Don't suppose the visitors to TIJ would be willing to collectively donate $17.2 million plus another $20M so I can turn that place into a hotel and spa? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I see those very once in a while. When a homeowner is using the deck area and keeps them swept clear they don't seem to be an issue. I'd be more concerned with what's under the tile and whether it extends completely up and over that curb or they did like so many of the roofers do - stopped whatever it is right on top of that curb under the coping where water can drain into the structure as soon as it backs up under the coping. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I see those here a lot in the older Seattle neighborhoods. Cedar shingles used to be king here; hell, Kenmore was founded by a guy that started a shingle mill and got rich. It's not uncommon to find old bungalows here with comp roofs where the roof is sagging at center span; and then to go into an attic and find yourself looking at the underside of a cedar shingle cover over skip. It was once normal for roofers to cut back shingles at the perimeter of roofs, nail on some some 1 by 10 material and then roof over; but most roofers doing roof-overs here omitted the 1 by 10 banding step and just went over those covers with comp again and again. Chad, was that cover slipping? I've had them where there were so many layers that the roofing nails used never penetrated to the cedar deck and were only hitting previous layers of asphalt. When that happens, gravity takes over and the covers start to sag and slip. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, It could very well be the water. Was the water heater turned off and left off for a long time before the inspection? When you turn off a water heater bacteria in the water is able to flourish and that bacteria starts to attack and feed off the anode rod. As it does so, the bacteria generates hydrogen sulfide gas and that gas forms a bubble in the top of the tank. Once you start drawing water off that tank the gas enters the house with the hot water and the smell is overpowering and smells exactly like sewage. I did a cabin out on Hat Island about two weeks ago where the power had been turned off for weeks. There's no gas on the island, so folks out there have all-electric homes unless they have propane appliances. I fully expected that the water in the water heater would stink since the water heater had been turned off; but before I could warn the clients not to turn on the hot water until we'd had a chance to open up all of the windows, the husband did just that, cracked that hot water faucet. Gawd! He only had the tap open for maybe five seconds before he closed it, and I opened all of the windows and doors as fast as I could, but that smell remained for most of the inspection and dissipated very slowly. They'll now be leaving the power on when they aren't on the island and will turn off power to everything except the water heater and will, per my recommendation, be installing a 24-hour timer on that water heater that will turn it on for about an hour every twenty four hours to cook off any bacteria so they never have to go through that again. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nisqually quake - February 2001. OT - OF!!! M.

Hi, Well, comp below 4:12 isn't good anyway; unless the reveal is reduced. I'm guessing that they felt that the modbit would function like IWS but it's not. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I've never surveyed yards for tanks or other underground objects that could collapse; or, as in this case, open up and let a kid fall in. Why would I? I'm there to inspect the house, not the entire property and certainly not the stuff buried below grade. It's always been a tenet of this gig that stuff like sewer pipes and septic tanks below grade outside of the foundation walls aren't our purview because we can't see 'em and inspect 'em. This judge is trying to set precedent and say that it is. That's going too far as far as I'm concerned. I sure hope this guy appeals that ruling and wins; otherwise we'll be saddled with one more useless thing to do. The next thing you know, we'll have some judge blaming an inspector for not telling folks about ubiquitous mold in the air around us and awarding millions of bucks for essentially nothing. $21M is a tall award; wonder if the lawyers will start oozing out of the woodwork with post cards going to to new homeowners now wanting to know if their inspector ever looked at the septic system; and, if he/she didn't soliciting folks to be litigation clients. I'm interested in the waste line up to the point where it passes through/under the foundation wall. I'm interested in the retaining walls that keep the ground stable around the house. I'm interested in good drainage around the house. I'm interested in other stuff like flat work that's installed around the house and which can directly effect the house if it's placed so that it's draining toward the house, but walking around a yard stomping on the ground looking for bugaboos isn't what I do. For me it's always been real simple. Ask if the house is on sewer or septic. If the answer is septic, tell 'em that I don't inspect those systems and inform them that the bank is going to want proof that the system has been pumped out and that when they have that done they should have the septic system pro inspect the system - whatever that entails. I'm strictly hands off those systems. Now, if it's a case of something being in plain view, such as the holding tank and lift pumps I saw a few weeks ago, it's going to go in the report and I'm going to tell 'em to get a specialist out to look at it 'cuz I don't do those, but I just don't see the utility in stomping around trying to find something else to comment on that has nothing to do with a home inspection. There are lots of things we don't know about this case. We don't know if this inspector mentioned in his contract that septic systems are excluded or whether he reported the system as being in good shape in his report. If he made any kind of comment about the septic system, other than to disclaim it, he probably shot himself in the foot; however, if he specifically excluded it and advised them to have a septic guy come out and service the inspection, I think this judge was either drunk, nuts or both. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, It's just mud splashing up on the side of the house 'cuz there aren't any gutters there. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jeez, There goes ASHI's credibility as far as I'm concerned. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

This one will have some of you scratching your head. A home inspector was sued along with half a dozen others in the tragic death of a 3-year old who fell through a septic tank lid. The family was awarded more than $21M. The home inspector was the only one that had refused to settle out of court. His end of the award is what's left after all of the others' out-of-court settlements have been paid. It must be a Massachusetts thing; septic systems are completely excluded from the scope of the inspection in most places. To read more, click here.

Huh, Wazzat? Have I been missing something in that little marvel? I'm kind of tech challenged - not sure what that means. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Who cares? I'd tell 'em to get that bio experiment pulled out of there or wear an oxygen tank and full-face mask while in the home. It'd be an over-the-top comment but I'm sure they'd understand the point I was trying to make. That's just nasty! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It could be copper. That would be a good choice on a period home. It might also be zinc-coated aluminum with a baked on finish. Bring a small refrigerator magnet to see if it will stick. If it does, you'll know it's not copper, in which case you'll have to figure out whether it's copper or aluminum. Get yourself a free subscription to Metal Roofing Magazine. Lots of good information about metal roofs in every issue. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Well, As long as it isn't squirting out of your bum.............. [] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I dunno, Bill; but if examples posted on this site over the past decade are emblematic of what most are like back east, you must not be inspecting in the right neighborhoods. [] Did a pretty decent house yesterday; but when I came out of that crawl and showed the pictures of all of the damage that rodents had done in there he couldn't get out of there fast enough. There's something about dark holes filled with soiled insulation, insulation hanging down in dregs and a carpet of rodent droppings that gives folks more wings than Redbull. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I don't change my price based on whether there is an attic versus non-attic or whether there is a basement versus a slab versus a crawspace or whether the house is new or a hundred years old. I go strictly by square footage and distance travelled and I've found that approach to be less complicated and actually more profitable. Don't know why, it just has been since I went from a flat rate to one based on square footage. you hit the nail on the head. Aw, a crawlspace ain't nothing but a really short basement with a dirt floor covered by a layer of plastic. Like basements, some are clean and easy to do and some are dirty and a pain-in-the-ass. I've noticed through this forum that back east where crawlspaces aren't so common they seem to be roomier and cleaner than the typical squabble hole we have to slide around in out here. The most difficult part about doing crawlspaces is getting through them when they are narrow. The older I get the harder they get. I could do about 13 houses with crawls a week a decade ago; now I do four a week and I feel like the Seahawks have been using me for a tackling dummy. I'd love to be down in Arizona where most homes are on slabs and attics are few and far between. That would be hog heaven. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Heck, We see drywall cracks due to movement all the time out here. Most of the time, when lumber gets to a site back east it's had weeks to dry. By then it's warped a lot and it's easy to cull the hooked stuff and toss it on another pile for the lumber yard to sell out front to the unsuspecting do-it-yourselfer. Out here, despite it supposedly being kiln dried, the wood sits around in a damp environment, absorbs more moisture and swells. Then builders here work year round, rain or dry, and use just about all of it because it's still pretty straight. Then, over the course of that first year after the house is dried in, the lumber shrinks, the house loses height and there are cracks everywhere. I've done new home inspections where we'd marked every drywall flaw for the builder to repair, the builder came in and repaired them, and then when we came back a year later for the first year inspection there were as many, if not more, cracks, doors out of square, doors that bind, etc., due to lumber shrinkage. Sometimes a wall stud will hook so badly that first year that when we come back we find big ugly humps on interior or exterior walls. Oh well, that's the bad news. The good news is that by making a new homeowner aware that it will happen during the first inspection I'm just about guaranteed to get the call ten months later to come back and do the first year because by then the homeowner has started seeing that my prediction is coming true and needs to get all of that documented. Never see roofs damaged due to expansion/contraction though. Maybe that's because they use OSB or plywood and that stuff is more stabile than plain lumber. I have seen lots of roofs damaged by wind though. It seems like 99 out of a 100 roofers here don't know what a drip edge is and 999 out of a 1000 here don't bother to hand seal the shingles when they install roofs between mid October and mid April when it's still too cold for the adhesive strip to activate. I once arrived at a house in mid-November about twenty minutes early. I had a 12-inch sub with me, so I sat there and ate my sandwich while I ate. The homeowner knew that his roof was shot; so, to beat me to the punch he'd hired a roofing company to strip the roof to the deck and re-roof. As I pulled up, that crew of four was just starting at the eaves on one side of that simple cape. By the time I finished my sandwich and the client arrived, they had reached the peak and were working on the other side. By the time I finished going over the contract with the client they were almost done. By the time I'd finished my first turn around the outside, they'd cleaned up and were gone. No drip edging, no hand sealing (it was November), nails all power driven and most of them over-driven and lots driven in at an angle. Flashings gooped to chimney instead of being cut in, etc.. I got to write up a bunch of stuff that day. Two days later the owner of the roofing company, who spoke perfect english and sounded like he'd grown up in America, called me up to express his displeasure with what I'd written (S'funny, not a single person on that crew was speaking english. Not sure what they were speaking but it was clearly not spanish, french, german or korean.). While he was on the phone, I asked if he had access to the internet. He did. I asked him what brand and series of shingle they were. He told me. Then I had him follow me on the net as I found the installation instructions for that brand and read off the little blurb that talks about hand sealing the cover when in a high wind area or when the weather is too cold to activate the adhesive strip. He hung up after calling me a f*****g dick. I never got the chance to thank him for the compliment. It might be expansion/contraction damage; but I think it's wind damage that could have been a whole lot worse if those shingles hadn't been hand sealed. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Marc, I disagree. The purpose of hand sealing is to prevent the wind folding the shingles back. If the wind was enough to cause the shingles to pull at the adhesive enough to start tearing the shingle below, but not enough to completely pull the shingle loose, fold it back and cause the crease you mention, then the hand sealing did it's job. Sure, the roof is damaged now but it didn't come completely off with the wind and so the homeowner didn't have the kinds of water damage to the attic insulation, ceilings and personal property that he would have had if the whole thing had been peeled off like an onion skin. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Post-modern Hobbit. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It looks like whoever did that roof hand-sealed those shingles against wind lift and tearoff and apparently did a good job. OT - OF!!! M.

Ever had the urge to pick up the phone and call the guys whose name is on the installation tag on a unit and ask for the boss so you can ask him what kind of morons he's got working for him? I've come pretty close a couple of times. One of these days I'm going to do it just for the hell of it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

So, Was it in a space with 9,000 sf of volume or did they have some other means of getting combustion air into that room so that it will burn cleanly? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jeez! Nobody answered that poor guy? Now I'm feeling like a shitheel. Hate it when that happens. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike