hausdok

Mack just sent me this link. http://www.nwmls.com/discover/nwreporte ... ageID=6801 OT - OF!!! M.

Kurt, I split this topic and missed moving this post. Sorry, please cut and paste it to the HVA section under Imbalanced Heat in a Four Story and then delete this post from this thread. Thanks, ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

If the gaps are that large, why didn't you notice them. Most (many?) standards state that cosmetic items and visibly obvious defects are excluded from the scope of an inspection. I wondered the same thing. People don't hire me to tell them about the obvious things they can see that even a kid understands is wrong; they hire me to tell 'em about the not-so-obvious stuff. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, that was my thought, extend the bottom step right across in front of that door and you've killed two birds with one stone.

It's a free resource. If you guys have never looked at it, we've got a whole topic area dedicated to free stuff you can find on the web to help improve yourselves or your business. Check it out! The nice thing about this is that Jimmy took the time to post a free link to a tool that he thought some of you would appreciate. I don't think he expected everyone to want to use it but he probably thought that some folks wouild appreciate it and some could use it. So, check it out and use it if you think it will help you do what you do better and if not, don't. Nobody here is twisting your arm and nobody is judging you; so, if you don't/won't use it, why spend a lot of time arguing here about why?

Required? Code cite please. OT - OF!!! M.

Read the other day somewhere how a school closed its doors, removed all products containing peanut products from its pantry, prohibited students and employees from having peanut-containing snacks on their persons and spent thousands scrubbing down every surface - all because there was one student allergic to peanuts who attends that school. That's insane. Why isn't the student on meds and carrying an eppy pen? Should I expect a grocery store to not sell strawberries or rhubarb or rhubarb pies because the combination of the two could kill me? Should I sue grocery stores where these products are sold if they don't take them off the shelves? I wonder if that kid has ever gone into a grocery store where peanuts are sitting there open in bins with a scoop and folks scoop their own; and, if so, has the kid ever suffered because of that? How is it that folks in undeveloped countries with their ignorance of mold and all of these allergies seem to be able to grow their populations five or six times faster than we can grow ours when we supposedly are the ones with all of the education and great living conditions? Why aren't people in the third world dying off faster than they are being born since they are more exposed to these things than we are? Why aren't the majority of leading doctors, surgeons, environmental hygiene professionals and armies of lawyers on the boob tube every day warning us that we're all about to be consumed by the mold demon? Answer: No such demon exists. As a society we've grown soft and neurotic. I just wish everyone in this country would stop listening to every bogeyman story and looking for some excuse to sue everyone else and just take responsibility for their own lives and their own environment and stop running around blathering like chicken little. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

He, she, it, is just preaching to the choir and parroting stuff that we've all read and absorbed hundreds of times. Because we as home inspectors don't choose to repeat word-for-word the same descriptions of how this stuff works, and choose instead to boil the issue down to its basics - namely that mold is, and has been, everywhere since long before man evolved on this planet, and will be long after we are gone, and we've somehow managed to make it this far despite its presence, we as inspector are either unprofessional, uneducated or ill-informed. It's the same yadda, yadda, yadda we hear every few months from one of these neurotics. It gets to be kind of tiresome and I can't help but be less-than-diplomatic when I respond to one of these folks. Sorry if it offended any of the brethren or the neurotic, but it is what it is. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nope, Didn't attack you. Was just being honest and blunt. Something someone, a doctor, a lawyer, your best friend, mother or father should have been long ago. If they had, you wouldn't be casting around looking for something to attach your neuroses to. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's pretty simple, We in this business used to routinely point out "mildew" to folks, explain to them that they had a moisture problem and recommend they get it fixed. We'd been doing that for decades without any problems and nary a word about "toxic" mold in the newspapers, magazines, on radio or TV - or even on the net for that matter because the net had been around for a while. Then Ms. Ballard won her $34M lawsuit in Texas* and suddenly mold spore that everyone on the planet had been breathing their entire lives became "toxic." The next thing we knew, inspectors were being sued for missing "toxic mold" - the very same stuff that is in every house on the planet 24/7/365. One doesn't have to have an IQ of 180 to figure out that Chicken Little is alive and well and running all over the media. There's at least a few hundred other sites where mold hypochondriacs hang out. Could you please go hang out on one of those and leave us evil inspectors alone to continue contributing to the mass extinction of our own species. Thank you. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike * The trial judge later vacated most of her award because the trial did not prove any causal link between mold and sicknesses in otherwise healthy persons. He let her keep about $4M and said that he was doing it as a way to punish Farmers Insurance Company for their own actions in the case.

Aw fer cryin' out loud, Scott, please qualify that statement. You make it sound like a state licensing agency would expect an inspector to be concerned about mold when I'm certain you mean they'd be concerned about the fact that an inspector missed a crack in a foundation wall and sewage seeping through the wall (assuming it was visible from inside the crawlspace) and you do not mean they'd be concerned about mold in a crawlspace of all places. OP, let me understand this. There was a broken sewage pipe below grade outside of the foundation, sewage was leaking into the crawlspace through a crack and that caused you to get so sick from exposure to mold spore that you had to abandon your house and possessions? How? Were you going into the crawlspace every day, sitting down in a recliner and reading a book while inhaling as hard as you could? Did you bring your possessions into that crawl and leave them there for long periods so that mold spore in the crawlspace air would become imbedded in them. Jeez louise! Where on this planet do you intend to go where you won't be exposed to fungi spore, 'cuz there ain't no such place - unless you want to climb into a plastic bubble, wash yourself down with fungicide, wash the interior of the bubble down with fungicide, have your air pumped to you through a couple of thousand hepa filters and not eat anything or take any water that comes from the outside of that bubble. You'll live, oh, about three to five days and then you'll die of dehydration. That's a very nice martyr complex you've got going there. Get some pshychological help. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Got news for you, Bub, You've been exposed to mold every day of your life, since the day you were held upside down in a delivery room and a nurse slapped you on your ass. I believe you are allergic to it, lots of folks are allergic to lots of things. I'm not allergic to strawberries or to rhubarb but if I eat a strawberry rhubarb pie it will kill me. Go figure. The fact you are hypersensitive to it has nothing to do with "prolonged" exposure. If it did, you would have died long ago; so wouldn't have all the rest of us. Now, hypochondria, that's real. People make themselves sick all the time fretting about stuff. Remove the frett and they suddenly get healthy again. Who'd a thunk it? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jimmie, Fixed the link. Click on edit in your first post to see how to do that correctly. OT - OF!!! M.

OP, Here's the bottom line. There is no such thing as "toxic" mold. There is fungi. Lots of varieties and some people are allergic to various types while others are not; the same way some folks are allergic to certain pollens and others are not, or some are allergic to penicillin (a mold) and others are not; or some folks are allergic to peanuts while others are not, etc. Mold is ubiquitous in the environment we live in and always has been. It's on your clothes and hair this instant, there is a layer you can't feel stuck to each of your eyeballs, it's in your mouth,your nose and your lungs, and it always has been since the day you were held upside down in a delivery room and someone slapped you on your ass. Every time you walk inside from outside you carry some outdoor varieties indoors and every time you go out you carry some indoor varieties outside. It's been that way since before our ancestors crawled out of the primordial slime and it's going to be that way long after humans have run their course and are extinct. You might as well get used to it. Trying to completely eliminate mold from a house is like trying to find a pixie; ain't gonna happen. You've admitted there are high moisture conditions that are probably causing the normal ambient level of mold to blossom. Address those and then go to the EPA website and download their free booklet on how to deal with mold, follow those instructions and go on with your life. You've now learned a life lesson; "inspectors" that take your money for mold samples that they've taken are stealing your money because they haven't bothered to make you understand, before you paid for it, that the whole "toxic" mold thing is a myth created by lawyers and that mold "testing" is junk science. Now that you know what it feels like to be victimized, please spread the word to others who think they're being poisoned by the "toxic mold" and tell them to avoid these firms like they'd avoid sending their kids to a daycare center run by a predatory pedophile. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Page 21 shows J-channel used above a head flashing and the head flashing is notched at the side so that the J-channel can be folded through the head flashing onto the side J-channel.

I see it all the time but I've never accepted the premise that expansion causes it. I think it's just the weight of that veneer at that corner on the corner of a green not-yet-fully-cured foundation wall. Never seen it cause an issue,......ever. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, It might simply be an alignment problem. I was sitting in my vehicle one day in a new development waiting for the client to arrive for a new home inspection. Across the street a crew of roofers was drying in the roof deck of a 2800 sf house. As I watched, it took them about 15 minutes to move from the eaves to halfway to the ridge. They were using power nailers and shooting four nails per shingle faster than I can say the words pow, pow, pow, pow. Every once in a while I'd see a shingle go down slightly misnailed at the far end. It's bottom corner would be forced against the edge of the previous shingle and would create a little fishmouth. The guy shooting the gun would see it but wouldn't do anything about it, he just started his next start corner about a quarter inch higher than the edge of the shingle he'd just nailed and got things back into alignment. Later on that afternoon, after the sun had heated those shingles and they'd expanded a little bit, those fish mouths were wider. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Cary, I doubt if it's an EPDM membrane. When most homeowners say "rubber" and then describe the random crazing all over the cover they're usually describing a modbit membrane that's getting on in years and has never been surface-coated. I agree, petroleum-based roofing products will break it down whether it's an EPDM membrane or a modbit membrane. RamanMaan, The coatings aren't going to do much good if the cover is already shot. They are designed to protect the cover from the effects of UV. Once the cover starts showing all that crazing, it's saying, "Hey look! I'm getting pretty old and weathered. You need to start thinking about what you're going to replace me with and start budgeting appropriately or I'm going to leak." In this case, it's begun to leak and he's slathering goop on the cover to try and stop the leaks. It's a bandaide. There are coatings that you could apply to the cover to seal it - hell, bedliner would form a great skin - but by the time you isolate the old cover from the product and spray that stuff on you'd properly end up with a cover that'd cost you as much if not more than a new cover of materials designed for a roof and it would still be, well.....goop. He needs to replace the cover. If he replaces it with a new modbit cover, a granule-coated modbit cover will last longer and won't need constant re-cleaning, re-priming and re-coating with UV reflective materials. If he replaces it with an EPDM cover, he'll get equal to or better than the cover life he got out of the existing cover and he won't have to constantly clean, prime and coat it. If he replaces it with a PVC or TPO membrane it'll probably last at least as long as two of the current cover's lifespans and will only need occasional cleaning with mild detergent. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Are you even sure it's hooked up to the heaters still? It looks (to me anyway) like some wiring has been removed at the bottom. I think you're looking at an old control system that's just sitting there dead-ended. Were there additional brreakers in the panel for the baseboard heaters, in addition to these feeders, or was there just the one set of feeders? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That settles it; it's dicked up. Is that vinyl on a slab or a wood floor? On a slab, a properly sized tile hearth should do it but if it's over a wood sub-floor you need a hearth there that is not only large enough in area it must be thick enough to meet the requirement as well. you've got enough to punt it to someone to figure that out and fix it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, It looks like a direct vent gas fireplace. Those don't require a hearth or surround of any sort. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

OK, That's fine; guess they are the safey experts. However, I'm going to continue to use my model. It's more conservative and is more likely to keep my butt out of the wringer than the CPSC version will. I bet that's why MedCom gave us the figures that they did. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Where did you get those times? When I was in the Army three years of my career was spent as a Juvenile Investigator in the Norddeutschland Military Community. Anything related to crimes involving someone under the age of 18 on base or off base if they were dependents of US military was mine. Scaldings was one of the things I had to deal with quite often. It's pretty horrible when one has to respond to a hospital to investigate how a 3 year old's feet and ankles had sustained 3rd degree burns. Lots of G.I.'s seem to prefer really hot showers after a long gruelling day, so they'd crank their water heaters way up without giving any thought to the possibility that their small child might inadvertently be placed into a tub where someone had forgotten to turn the cold water on. We needed a baseline for what was a "safe" temperature so we contacted command medical and asked them to determine what the last "safe" temperature was and how long it takes for a child to sustain third degree burns at 125F degrees, 130F degrees and 135F degrees. I don't know where they came up with those figures but they eventually came back with 120 degrees as last safe temperature, said that it takes a child or an adult with "sensitive" skin (Not your hardcore soldier) 3 seconds to sustain a third degree burn at 125 degrees, one second at 130 degrees and on contact at 135 degrees. Once JAG checked out their sources and approved those figures as defensible, Command issued written guidance that soldiers residing in government housing were not permitted to turn their water heater settings beyond 120F degrees unless, if they went past 120F degrees, they tested the water temperature at the nearest fixture to ensure that even with convective heat loss the temperature delivered to the fixture never exceeded 120F degrees. From that point on, whenever I responded to a scalding incident and found the water temperature had been set past 120F the soldier's career was placed in jeopardy, because he was cited for disobeying a lawful order, and he risked losing overseas sponsorship of his family. Since then, that's the figure I've always referred to: 120 = safe, 125 = 3 seconds, 130 = 1 second, 135+ = on conact. Just sayin' ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike P.S. Dunno why, but this site suddenly won't display the degrees symbol when I key in Ctrl, 2, 4, 8. Doing so produces a question mark instead. I've never had that problem before. Anyone know why?

Hi, I agree with Marc. So his spelling isn't the best - so what, he outlined his position well; and, for a guy who doesn't write for a living like we do, he did a pretty good job. Cut him some slack. Let's get back on track and address the core of what he came here to talk about. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Are they plumbed correctly with the inlet line to the inlet nipple or are they reversed? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike