hausdok

Hi, Yeah, I agree with both theories; probably a cracked crown and/or lots of condensation in the stack due to an orphaned water heater or some such. There probably isn't any clay liner and the mortar is breaking down. Bet you could reach into the mouth of that stack from the roof, slide your finger along a mortared joint and the mortar would just fall out of the joint like dry corn starch. If the mortar is degrading due to the lack of a lining and a failed crown, fixing the crown and lining it with a metal liner will slow degradation but won't impart any strength to the stack. Neither will tuckpointing it and it will simply be a big weapon waiting to drop projectiles one-by-one. They should probably start thinking about getting a cast-in-place liner to restore strength to the stack. http://www.goldenflue.com/ http://www.solidflue.com/ http://www.supaflu.com/ http://www.ahrenschimney.com/ http://www.guardianinc.com/ ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I think the house was happy to see you Tom. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I agree with Chad, it does look older than the eighties. Based on the corrosion, I'd say that humidifier has trashed that puppy. Better prepare the family for Grandpa's sudden demise, he isn't simply in the nursing home; he's on life support with 24-hour-a-day monitoring and a crash cart parked next to his bed and is liable to pass at any moment. Make sure you tell them that or don't be surprised when some cold night you get a call from the client bemoaning the fact that an HVAC guy just left the house and told them they need a new furnace now and couldn't figure out how their inspector hadn't told them that. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

The contractor failed to properly compact that backfill in lifts and now he's going to have to pay the piper, either by redoing it or by paying to have it mud-jacked back to proper plane. It'd be quicker to remove the slab, compact the hell out of it and then place a slab. If not, they should probably give that soil more time to reach final compaction before they try to mudjack it or it's liable to keep settling. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

For those interested, we've just uploaded a new radon study to the TIJ file library. The whole title and author line below is a link. Just click it. EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR POSSIBLE RADIATION HORMESIS FROM RADON EXPOSURE: A CASE-CONTROL STUDY CONDUCTED IN WORCESTER, MA. by Richard E. Thompson Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Many thanks to Jimmy Morrison for this contribution. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I had no idea they had subterranean tornadoes. Dang, Phillip, that's a dog and a half! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

What's the big deal? We see half basements, half crawlspaces all the time out here. It's just another technique. You inspect the house the same way; just make sure that there's a decent vapor barrier, no water getting in, no earth in contact with support posts, no rodents or insects and good ventilation and it's all good. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Around here 99.999% of those things are outside below ground, so I've never had a chance to read any of the labeling on one. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, Get the Faststone resizer tool. You can set up exactly how you want that photo to appear and can even add watermarks and stuff to it and do them individually or as a batch. Thanks again to brother Kurt Mitenbuler for that tip. It's saving me a mountain of time on reports now. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, They don't rust from the outside in anyway. They rust from the inside out where the water sits under the oil on the bottom of the tank. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

So educate them. Something like, "You know, that disposal is really old. When you replace it, you'll have to either install a lockout in the panel so that it can't inadvertently be turned on when someone's working on it or you'll have to install a new cable and plug on it and rewire that BX there with a receptacle so that the disposal can be unplugged when necessary." Ten seconds is all it takes. I always tell 'em that home inspectors can't find every single thing wrong with a home and that there are sure to be some latent issues missed or unexpected expenses later. I point out that a house is a huge maintenance item waiting to ambush their pocket books and tell them if they're not ready to recognize that reality they might want to rethink homeownership. Works for me. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

What's the cheapest I could get one of those and where? Does it really pick up bootleg grounds? I bought it off of ebay. Brand new, never used. Turns out the seller is a friend and they'd posted the wrong price so I literally stole it. I offered to toss the deal but he was good natured about it and said it was better that I get it than it continue to sit in the closet. Since then, I occasionally go up on Ebay and have followed several older ones. They've gone pretty cheap. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Been using the same SureTest ST-1D since September of 1999. Bought Yung a new one six months ago but she refuses to use it until the old one is toast. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, that had already been done. I was just wondering if anyone else had any input re. this issue that might alter my opinion. Apparently not. Thanks for the input folks. I've put this one to rest. On to the next. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Curious what the brethren think. Had a 7 year old home in a small subdivision (About 60 homes) today where a lower roof covered part of a garage. The HVAC guy took the B-vent that carries exhaust from the furnace and water heater up through the ceiling and attic of the garage and then out through the garage roof about 5-1/2 ft. from a side wall and 3-1/2 ft. from a un-operable window of the second floor. The vent terminates about 2 ft above the plane of the roof and about four feet below the eaves of the upper roof. (See the photo below). Click to Enlarge 49.62 KB From my point of view, someone screwed up. According to my references, at the time this home was built this violated IRC 2426.6.5 and UMC 806.4 because that B-vent needed to terminate at least two feet above any portion of a building within a horizontal distance of 8 ft. I just looked it up in the newer IRC and it's under 2427.7.3 in the new code and it still says it must be at least 8ft. away from a vertical wall. Before I left the development, I did a quick ride around to look at other houses with similar designs and noted about two dozen houses where the vents pass up through the house and attic and terminate above the upper roof, while there are about a dozen that terminate like this one. Pointed this out to the buyer. On the way home, I got a call from the client. Seems his agent mentioned this to the listing agent who talked to the owner who told him that this had been addressed at time of construction and it had been allowed based on the fact that the window was non-operable. I guess it's the AHJ's prerogative to allow this, as long as it doesn't violate the vent manufacturer's listing and labeling; except now under the right conditions the exhaust gases from this vent will probably be pulled into the attic via the frieze vents underneath these overhanging eaves. That's a lot of steam - acidic steam - to allow into an attic where it has to flow up the underside of an OSB roof deck. It's been 7 years and the underside of the deck is still nice and clean. Still....? I've been poking around in my references. I've looked at various codes that have been published over the life of this home and I just don't see any such exception. Thoughts? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That's a good example of what the IR guys I've been talking to call a "Blob" camera. The Wahl and Ideal cameras are what they specifically mention when describing blob cameras. They say that the resolution is so bad that they don't give on much useful information. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yes, when it's designed to be secured that way. Did you look at the schematic inside the enclosure to confirm? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Click to Enlarge 72.12 KB Click to Enlarge 54.91 KB Click to Enlarge 59.4 KB Many thanks to Jim Simmons (User name Mr. Electric) for this contribution.

I'll bet a box of Krispy Kreme's that the homeowner is south - southeast Asian - Indian/Bangladeshi/Burmese/Cambodian - There're a couple of new homes within half a mile of my house that have that same gaudy look to them. In fact, when I first enlarged the picture I had to look hard at it to convince myself it wasn't one of those two houses. The owners of each of those are southeast Asian and that is, apparently, the look that they like. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I compartmentalize the stressful situations. Most people think I don't, because I'm usually pretty wound up and tend to let loose on folks, but the truth is there are some pretty stressful things ongoing in my life that I haven't/can't share with folks here and haven't shared with most. I cope by dealing with the stuff that I know I can do something about and I section off the other stuff; kind of like putting a book on a shelf - and I basically put it out of my mind most of the time. I don't think it's so much the job as the current way we Americans live. Not so long ago, if someone needed to reach you, they called you on the phone. If you weren't there they (Maybe) left a message on a machine. Then they waited a reasonable amount of time for you to call them back. Now they track you down via text message, cell phone, twitter or whatever and need everything answered/completed NOW. We used to have time to sit back and really consider things carefully before we signed something or committed to something; now we're expected to do it or have answers yesterday. I think that's what's causing everyone stress. Just my opinion; worth the price charged. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

81 gallon - 154,000 Btu? That's a commercial unit. I'd suggest giving A.O. Smith's commercial division a call in the a.m. and ask someone there to email you a copy of whatever document they have that explains how to decode the serial numbers on their commercial units and then we can add it to the chart. IF I remember to do so, I'll call 'em too. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I think you are mixing apples with oranges. There were problems with plastic fittings used with polybutylene piping as you've stated above, but there haven't been issues with plastic fittings used with PEX systems. There were problems with brass Kitec fittings use with PEX, but that's a different issue entirely The client isn't going to understand the difference between polybutylene or cross-linked polyethylene - all they'll hear is "plastic pipe" and then they'll go back to the builder and say something like, "We're concerned about the defective fittings used on our plumbing. Every manufacturer says that they won't endorse the use of their product with another product not sold by them, however very few of them will actually condemn an installation just because it's installed with something that they didn't sell. It's only when they can prove that those other products are defective, and thus won't get their ass sued off by the other company for spreading false information about the quality of the other guy's product, that they'll step up to the plate and actually condemn something - at least that's been my experience. If those plastic fittings are designed for use with PEX and have a UL rating for use with PEX, and are installed the way that the manufacturer says they are to be installed, and you don't have a document or a video, or something, to show that those fittings aren't up to the task, I personally think you erred by even mentioning the polybutylene pipe fittings issue. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Look at the photos; has your siding bowed out from the house because it is installed too tight and can't expand/contract or is it actually melted? If it's simply bowed because it's installed too tightly, it's the installers fault. If it's melted due to reflection, pinning the blame on the manufacturer will have the manufacturer pointing the finger of blame at the manufacturer of whoever made the windows that are reflecting light onto your siding. If it's melted due to reflection, pinning the blame on those window manufacturers will have them pointing the finger of blame squarely at the vinyl siding manufacturer. In other words, if the siding is actually melted and deformed from heat, you are screwed and nobody is going to do anything to help you; in which case you should probably consider replacing the siding that's melted with another type of siding that won't be affected by reflected sunlight. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

No, It's a gas water heater but that doesn't look like the proper hood for that water heater. I'm guessing that they used the one from the previous water heater because the vent was jammed up into that asbestos pipe already. Of course, who knows why some folks do things? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Two weeks ago Brad Gaynor celebrated the completion of a program that prepares graduates for a line of work where getting your hands dirty, scouting for cracks in foundations, investigating invisible plumbing leaks and other unexpected perils that plague home owners is all a part of an average day. “It felt great to graduate,â€