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Lotsa guys doing special order work on antique car engines in their basements that still pour babbit bearings. You just don't hear about them. After seeing the prices that some of that specilized stuff is commanding, I'm thinking of doing something similar after I get Rusty Hawk restored. I've got some of those forgotten skills; I might as well put them to use. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

He's trying to sell you wolf tickets, Brad. I bet if you go back and do a little research you'll find that the building was originally heated with electric heat and was later converted. Electric heat was dirt cheap here in the 70's and I see a lot of conversions that look like they were done by Charlie Manson. He's just trying to avoid getting in a howling match with the current owner. Ask him if he's at peace with this decision. If he says yes, ask him how at peace he'll be later on if someone's kid or infant dies in that room for lack of oxygen or due to a backdrafting flue. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Roofing supply companies make tapered insulation sheets. If the parapet is high enough, I should think you'd be able to go over the existing roof with a layer of foam sheathing that's draining in the right direction and cover it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Looked at a house yesterday where they didn't want to use the whole house air change fans because they'd worried about replacing conditioned air with unconditioned air. The entire underside of the north slope of the roof in the attic looks like a habitat experiment - green, blue, white and black mold colonies growing all over the place. Probably wouldn't happen in your place. As old as it is it probably breathes nicely; this place was a year old. Les, Around here, they've had good luck with Panasonic fans pulling from several baths. Don't know why it didn't work for the other poster. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

No, No. This is a dirty filter! Download Attachment: dirtyfilter.jpg 146.25?KB Mmmm, The air in that house must have been so nice (NOT!!!!) ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nov 30, 2011/Schaumburg, Ill. The American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) is recommending timely and significant government intervention to reduce severe construction industry unemployment. The association recently sent a letter to Chairman Dave Camp and members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Ways and Means asking for effective tax incentives relating to energy-efficient fenestration products for homeowners. "AAMA members represent 143,000 employees whose jobs are based solely on the strength of the home construction and renovation industries. The sharp decline and resulting layoffs in home construction brought about by the collapse of the housing market and subsequent economic recession continue to plague the construction industry at every level. The 2009-2010 Nonbusiness Energy Property 25© tax credit, which offered homeowners a 30% tax credit (up to $1,500), provided a boost in the sales of energy-efficient windows and doors and helped to sustain jobs in production facilities and residential construction," says AAMA President and CEO Rich Walker. Current legislation, however, has reduced the lifetime tax credit to 10% (up to $500) for energy-efficient residential products, purchased and placed in service during 2011. "This severe reduction has led to a debilitating decrease in demand and has decimated the construction industry from production facilities to retailers to product installers," continues Walker. "Even in a severely recessed economy, homeowners will purchase products to reduce their energy bills given the proper incentive," Walker states. According to 2009 IRS Data Line Counts (released in October 2011), 2.3 million homeowners seized the tax credit opportunity to purchase and install energy-efficient windows and skylights throughout 2009. Additionally, 1.8 million homeowners made purchases of energy-saving exterior doors. Residential buildings are responsible for 21% of all energy consumption in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Building Technology Program. Based on ENERGY STAR? program estimates, the investments made by homeowners to purchase and install efficient fenestration products in 2009 will reduce energy costs by an average of $295 annually per household, resulting in a collective savings exceeding $678 million per year for U.S. homeowners who participated in the program. Walker expresses disappointment saying, "While the 30% tax credit generated a needed sales boost to some of our manufacturer members and their suppliers, many of our members were unable to overcome the enormous drop-off in demand, spurred by the implosion of the housing market and then by the persistent recession that shows no end in sight." He adds, "Congress continues to provide billions of dollars in funding incentives to support alternative energy-generating projects through the DOE's Loan Program Office. While this endeavor may prove to be a valuable investment in the future, it should be clear that conserving energy -- whether generated by gas, electricity, solar or wind power -- is the highest imperative. Delivering energy to a home that is not properly insulated or has inefficient window and door products is a preventable waste of resources that can be remedied with American-made products already on the market." A vast array of high-performance residential windows, doors and skylights are available to increase the energy efficiency of the U.S. housing stock. "If reinstated, the 30%/$1,500 Nonbusiness Energy Property tax credit," Walker predicts, "will spur an immediate increase in employment throughout the construction industry supply and installation chain. Our reliance on foreign oil will abate as highly-efficient windows and doors go to work conserving energy. These efforts not only help to conserve national and global resources, they help spark our domestic manufacturing and fiscal health; enhance home values and provide homeowners and their families with more comfortable, better-performing residences." More information about AAMA's communication with policymakers can be found on its website at www.aamanet.org.

Interesting collection. I didn't know that the PLO used berets. I've only seen them wearing Keffiehs. Yeah, the beret is red. . There is a metal flash insignia on the beret made from what might have been a flattened out shell casing- a blue background with a white skull with a couple of crossed arab-type swords beneath it. A safety pin soldered to the back. A Dutch soldier who'd been down there on a peacekeeping mission only agreed to swap it when I agreed to a spanking new American rucksack and frame. Cost me about $28 in 1985 if I'm remembering correctly. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hee, hee, Good commentary in today's P.I. about Occupy Fatique by Michelle Broedour (SP). They've now taken over some poor guy's duplex that's for sale, smeared stupid color paint on it and are trashing the place. They say it's because there are too many homeless in a town with too many vacant houses for sale. Judging by the picture of the house I saw, the owner is probably one of the lower 20% and they've just bent him over a table and screwed him royally by making the place impossible to sell. Still, who would want to miss a chance to royalty screw up the IRS's ding-bat system? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike P.S. If you can't find your beret, let me know; I've got a whole beret collection - German, Dutch, Brit, Swiss, American, Canadian - hell, I've even got a PLO beret that cost me an entire U.S. rucksack and frame.

I think he definitely had his head up his butt when he decided to block out that wall without stripping the cover back and re-doing the flashings at the wall plane. When you think about it, this isn't much different than if they'd opted not to sheath the gable end walls above the living space and only covered the gable end framing with felt as so many do. In a case like that, the felt behind the siding and/or any fanfold would get wet anyway. With vinyl siding, condensation and blow-through collects on the backside and has to drain out. The tiny weep holes on the drip edges of the extrusions allow most of that to drain but some drains down the face of the WRB or fanfold. If there isn't any WRB or fanfold behind the vinyl and there is an unsealed end cut on the OSB that end cut (In this case the rake cut) will absorb water and rot. He still would have needed to provide kickouts where that wall ends so that water didn't continue past the end of the roof at the bottom of that wall and into the wall below; and he'd still need to seal the bottom edge of the OSB and keep that OSB farther away from that roof-to-wall joint. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, It won't make a difference here. Our board has already taken the stand that any engineer or architect that is practicing home inspections is required to get a home inspector's license and we don't give two hoots whether they can't get the required education and take the test by the deadline, because some of the folks on those lists intentionally blew off the whole licensing process when they could have been grandfathered and then only began complaining when they realized they'd screwed themselves. As for the draw inspections, cost estimates and that sort of thing, they can do that but that's the extent of it. If they do functional checks or anything approaching a home inspection they'd be breaking the law. Randy, can you email me a copy of that notice? I can't seem to save it. I'll send a copy to Rhonda and she can put it on the agenda for the next meeting. I'm predicting that our board, through DOL, is going to send HUD a letter that essentially saying, "Nice try, but...." Jim, I like the logic of that. Can you imagine the chaos if just 5% of Americans stood up all at one time and said the same thing and actually followed through on it? It would spread like a virus. It would probably paralyze the IRS. Hell, they have enough trouble trying to get up enough investigators and gather the evidence to deal with the rich tax cheats, they wouldn't know what the hell to do with that. If you think things in the other Washington are crazy now, imagine the mess that would cause. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I was smart enough to burn my brother's name in the wood - especially since it was the wood on the side of our house. Devious. I didn't know you had it in you, Jim. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That's a flaky diagnosis. We see spark arrestor caps like those maybe 5% of the homes we do here. If enough water flowing down chimneys to flood homes was possible, we'd know about it here. I suspect that they're downspouts are emptying into receivers that wrap around the base of that chimney and there is a corner joint separated below grade right next to the chimneystack. Every time it rains, lots of rainwater gets collected by the gutter, gets sent into the receiver and then leaks out through that hole and perks up in the basement. The house is old enough that you can bet that they probably didn't sleeve the footing drains against fines and they're probably not taking water the way that they used to; so water leaking out of the roof drainage system isn't being collected. I don't have a crystal ball, I've just seen it time and again (last week most recently) and it was the first thing that popped into my head when you described what was there. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

There was a supposed issue with Seimens panels maybe ten yeara ago. A forensic investigations outfit in North Carolina had supposedly investigated about half a dozen 200 amp Seimens panels that literally melted through the back of the enclosure. Search this site, we may have posted information and links about here way back when. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hey, That looks like the hose I need for my Packard! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I had this today. Water heater and furnace in a garage with a volume of just about 4000 cubic feet. Did the calc. Together, they need 5300 cf. Tightly gasketed overhead door - bottom, sides and top. On the outside of the garage immediately adjacent to the alcove they are in, through-wall vents on the exterior wall perfectly sized within a foot of the garage ceiling and floor. On the inside of that same wall - solid drywall. Some numbnuts during the build - the drywall was definitely 100% original - covered over both vents with drywall. Some horse's ass with teeth inspector probably completely missed it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jim will correct me if I'm wrong; but I think what he's saying is that when there is a supply register in that confined space the space becomes pressurized with heated air, thus eliminating lack of combustion air due to size as an issue. I've been looking at combustion air availability and calculating volume and opening sizes since I got into this gig. In many of the homes where the area had insufficient volume there'd been supply registers in those confined spaces. I can't remember ever seeing anything that says it's OK to not have sufficiently sized openings into the area as long as there is a supply register there; so I typically write the issue up anyway and simply point out that there is a supply register in the confined space and explain that if they keep that register open the space will be pressurized with lots of air anyway. One place where I see this combustion air issue a lot is when the furnace and water heater are installed in small garages and those garages don't have any openings to the outside other than what leaks in around the overhead door. I'm still seeing it in the occasional new home. Some builders automatically assume that there will be enough leakage around the overhead door to provide sufficient combustion air and some are completely oblivious to the issue. One thing that this formula doesn't take into account is the stuff stored in these spaces. If the basement or garage is also a storage space the actual in-use volume is way below what's required by basic rule-of-thumb calculation. I've always wondered how they account for several thousand cubic feet of airspace occupied by cars and boxes and such. I always include every gas-burning device in that space in my calculations; and, if there's an exhaust fan or a clothes dryer (gas or electric) in that space that's within 10ft. of the open combustion chamber or draft diverter of a furnace or water heater, I've always considered the fan or dryer as the equivalent of a return air opening. Sure, it only depressurizes that area when the washer or dryer runs, but if it depressurizes it enough to cause the flue of a device with a permanently lit pilot light to backdraft it's possible that the device might establish a new exhaust path and not reestablish a draft in the exhaust vent once the dryer shuts down. If that happens things can get dicey. Sometimes there's lots of evidence that an inadequately sized area that doesn't have any combustion air supplied to it has been an issue and sometimes things appear to be great despite the lack of required volume or openings. It's very much a case-by-case basis thing. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jeez, If we ever go down to Warm U at Watts again we need to haul this obsessive maniac along with us. Hmm, Maybe if I fly him out here, lock him in a shop with my Packard, and push food through a sally port for two weeks I can save myself about another two years of toil and sweat. [:-devil] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Robert, I'd tell 'em that it would be a good idea to get it filled; only because sooner or later that ground against the foundation wall is going to slump into that hole and leave an ugly divot next to the foundation. With the amount of weight over that gap that the typical ranch or two-story foundation carries around here, I wouldn't be too concerned with the foundation unless I knew for a fact there wasn't any rebar in the footing and walls. With a 5-year old home that's pretty unlikely. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Bill, I think it's 310.1.1 but it doesn't say before it enters the building, it says "at the point where it enters the building." ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Little quick with the code cites aren't you? This is a branch line that feeds a fireplace only; it is not a CSST system. Essentially, it's a connector and it's already well within the boundary of the building. The primary piping from the meter is the wrought iron and it is already bonded somewhere in that house to the water piping and from there back to the panel. The CCST was bonded as soon as it was connected to the existing system. The cite these guys have been using and you are talking about is when CSST is used as the primary service pipe into the house from the meter and needs to be bonded to the service grounding electrode downstream from the meter but upstream from the first valve and before it enters the house. #6 ga. cable, I believe.

I'm thinking that even if there are through-wall flashings and weeps above and below that window (are there?) that they probably weren't configured with end dams. What do you think, Kurt? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Focus on the brick. Those walls are supposed to be built so that window can be replaced with new windows without compromising the integrity of the wall system. Direct a hose at the face of a solid brick wall and wait and about five to ten minutes later the back of the wall starts to darken and a few minutes later water begins trickling down the backside of the wall - even without window openings. If the flashing details are wrong in that wall assembly, water is going to drain into the house just like you are experiencing. Go to the link I gave you above and spend an hour taking that course so that you'll better understand the issues and then get yourself a decent contractor. If you bought the house new, consider getting yourself a decent lawyer. Don't hire any home inspector unless you can verify his/her experienced/expertise through references and he or she really knows brick. Hell, it's not that far to fly. If you really want good answers hire Kurt to fly up there. He's a friggin brick god. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

David, Besides the course above, if you need help with any stucco or EIFS systems here in the Northwest the Northwest Wall and Ceiling Bureau in Seattle is a great resource. They authored The Stucco Guide which is the bible for the 3-coat stucco industry and they've been helping builders in the Northwest for half a century. Their website is here and you can order a copy of The Stucco Guide here $10 cheaper than you can get it if you order it direct from the Stucco Manufacturers Association. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

For some more information about how rain is kept out of masonry walls you can take a short online course here. Click on "Free Online AIA/HSW Continuing Education" and then register (it's free). The course you want will be in Division 4 - Masonry. David, to answer your question, you can find a course on 3-coat stucco systems at this site in Division 9. Hope this helps. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sure, I'm self employed; I create my own weekends. Besides, there's plenty of folks in this economy that, unlike me, can't afford to take a workday or two off to do an inspection. If I can help 'em out by working on their weekend, why not? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike