hausdok

Any of you guys that are old enough to remember the 60's and early 70's will appreciate this trip down memory lane. It's called Cenesthetic Hallucination Follow the instructions: 1.- Click on the link below. If you see a "Neave not found 404" message ignore it. 2.- Then click on "Strobe" in the menu at the top of the page. 3.- Now click "click me to get trippy", 4.- Look at the center of the screen for 30 seconds (no cheating), and then 5.- Look at your hand holding the mouse, without moving it away from the mouse. You'll be shocked at what you see. WARNING: Do not do this if you suffer from photosensitive epilepsy! Click here. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Thanx Cuz, OT - OF!!! M.

Jimmy, You being in MA and the obsession they have with lead there, any concern about the lead content in brass piping? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I think agents are a big part of the problem. A large percentage don't want a good inspector, so they hire refer "their" inspector. Plenty of good inspectors get blacklisted, while the crappy inspectors and newbie inspectors get plenty of work from them. Then, agents go around and bitch about inspectors passing the buck. That would be an excellent comment to post to that article. OT - OF!!! M.

Marbleite? OT - OF!!! M.

Hi Mark, I think that the problem with our profession is rooted in the mindset being taught in schools but I don't think it's that the schools teach inspectors to pass the buck, I think it's that the schools are discouraging inspectors from taking ownership of their process and constantly warning their students about lawsuits and teaching them how to avoid liability. I think a lot of students leave these schools with the knowledge they need to do a competent job and be able to make a competent diagnosis; but inspectors are too afraid to make definitive statements re. cause and effect of issues for fear of liability. We need inspectors to learn to accept the fact that liability is always with them when they do this job and that consciously trying to avoid it hurts the profession. The best inspectors I know are those who are so confident in their skills that they don't give much thought to the potential for lawsuits when they render an opinion. Concentrate on doing the job right and on providing the client valuable information and liability fades into the background. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

In this opinion piece from the Pensacola News Journal, Al Ingram, a veteran real estate agent, explains why he believes home inspections are an unnecessary burden upon the transaction and why amenity inspections by trades would be better.

Well, I should imagine that lying there for eternity with those big heavy footers bearing down on top of you, when you don't even have enough room to roll over onto your side has to be pretty uncomfortable for the folks sleeping below. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That wasn't a "ground" it was a bonding cable. Get a copy of Electrical Inspection of Existing Dwellings - 2001 by Douglas Hansen. Read it from cover-to-cover, go out and look at about 10 or 20 panels and systems, read it again from cover to cover, go out and look at about 10 or 20 more panels, repeat. Somewhere around the third read some of it will start to stick and make sense. By the fourth read you'll have it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Nah this bonding cable is rare in Quebec, so i'll skip that one. You see, instead of reading a book 4 times, I rather surf the internet! You can really find anything.... really! It's pretty interesting! When you have a minimal degree of education, let say university degree, you can search whatever you want! here's an example on your bonding cable. Hi Everyone, I got a question. In a 20flat I inspected yesterday, I saw a grounding wire being bonded to a cold water pipe supplying a water heater. The wire was attached about 3.5 feet away. First of all, is it OK? Second, should hot, cold and gas piping at the water heater be bonded together. Is jumper necessary? It's just I've never seen this kind of grounding to a water pipe. What you likely saw was "bonding", and it's both required and a good idea. In the event that something should energize the pipework in each unit, there will be a good ground fault path back to the panel to allow the breaker to trip (mitigating the hazard). As long as one pipe (either hot or cold) is bonded, the other one is likely bonded as well via the water heater and various mixing valves like on the kitchen sink, bath lav, and shower valve. Gas pipe bonding is usually accomplished by factory connections that already exist in gas appliance that utilize both gas and electricity such as warm air furnaces. No extra bonding is normally required for gas piping, but doesn't hurt a thing if a guy adds some. Reference: http://www.nachi.org/forum/f19/groundin ... ter-27765/ (Remaining comments moderated.) So you know how to google. Do you have any idea what any of it means? I'm sure that I could google neurosurgery techniques but I doubt that without an education in how a brain works I'd be able to truly grasp what the neurosurgeon is saying and why. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Tried to enhance that scematic but couldn't quite get there. Click to Enlarge 8.25 KB OT - OF!!! Mike

I agree, I did a first year inspection on a house a week ago for a fellow who'd used another inspector for his initial inspection. The other guy had taken C.O. readings and reported them as high but that's it. The installer had configured the exhaust vent with a total of four 90° bends in it, just above where it left the collar of the furnace, so that the filter could be removed from its holder. The other inspector didn't say a word about the four 90° bends.(???) The kicker is that the back of the return air plenum above the furnace was accessible; and if they'd turned the holder 180° and placed the door on the opposite side the filter would have still been accessible and they could have taken the exhaust vent straight up through the building and roof. I wrote up the four 90° bends and suggested to the client that he point out to the builder that if the HVAC tech flips the the holder a straight vent can be used. The client wanted me to include the other guy's C.O. reading in the report - I told him I wasn't going to record readings taken by someone else in my report, and I sure as hell didn't need to take any readings to see that the vent configuration was wrong and needed to be straightened out. I think that some inspectors rely on their gadgets too much and not enough on their training and common sense. This causes them to end up in situations where they can't see the forest for the trees. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Phillip, I'm glad to hear you are OK. I'd gone to bed last night planning to google you this morning and try to come up with a cell phone number to start trying. Woke up to good news. Hope this is the last time this happens this year, and for the next hundred, thosefolks down there sure don't need any more of this. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

In 1981 the little bastards chewed into the knob-and-tube wiring in the attic of the Provost Marshal's Office on Ft. Devents and started a fire - directly above my office. The fire burnt through the ceiling into my office, one of the other investigators who had the duty smelled smoke down the hall in his office, came out, looked down the hall, saw smoke coming out of my office, walked down the hall and opened the door to release a fireball. Six MP's downstairs had just enough time on the ground floor to get the PM's secure file pushed out the door and dumped into the snow before the entire building went up.....everything except my friggin evidence room. Not a damned thing burned - it all just got covered in a thick black layer of smoke and water stained. If it had burned up, I could have done the paperwork in a couple of hours. Those furry little dickheads cost me months of overtime in the way of extra paperwork to document the damage to the evidence in that room, mail it out to the lab, get it re-processed or discard it because it was no longer usable. Never liked the little red demons after that. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That wasn't a "ground" it was a bonding cable. Get a copy of Electrical Inspection of Existing Dwellings - 2001 by Douglas Hansen. Read it from cover-to-cover, go out and look at about 10 or 20 panels and systems, read it again from cover to cover, go out and look at about 10 or 20 more panels, repeat. Somewhere around the third read some of it will start to stick and make sense. By the fourth read you'll have it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

That reminds me - Bill, did you ever notice that FM 5-428 (US Army Concrete and Masonry Field Manual) in TIJ's library has a section about building with structural tile? Page 9-58. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

2012 is almost here! Cue the jaws music theme. OT - OF!!! M.

Yep OT - OF!!! M.

When you download the best practices guide you are only downloading part of the entire manual. When you go to the James Hardie technical support site you have a choice of guides for Hz5, Hz5(Canada) and Hz10 zones. You are in Hz5. The first section of each guide - Info/Requirements/Tools applies to all products listed on the cover. At the link for the part of the guide for your area, the cover states Best Practices Guide Siding and Trim Products Version 5.0 - February 2010 and under that lists HardiePlank, HardieShingle, HardiePanel, HardieTrim, HardieSoffit and HardieWrap. That first section contains the instructions for penetrations and applies to every one of those products. The sub-sections, which you have to download separately, contain general installation requirements for each of the James Hardie products when installed in your zone. So, when you inspect a HardiePanel installation and want to refer to the Hardie guide, you have to use the first section plus the HardiePanel section for your zone. According to the guides for your area, those details are done incorrectly. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Well, He didn't say he has a pilot in an unvented gas appliance in a fireplace. He says he has a pilot installed in a fireplace and describes a scenario where someone closes a damper (You don't have that with a ventless appliance) and gases end up in the house. We see decorative gas fireplaces and unlisted gas faux log sets installed in masonry chimneys all the time around here. In fact, it's rare when I don't see a fireplace. I've seen one unvented gas stove (fireplace they called it) in ten years. I told the folks buying the house with that unvented applliance not to use it unless they left a window cracked open. I don't much care that the gas from a faux log set pilot that's burning 24/7 in a vented fireplace doesn't produce much CO and hasn't got much likelihood of poisoning someone; I'm going to continue to tell them just what I wrote above. That way, if some cheap SOB shuts that damper tight and continues to allow that pilot to burn and does poison him/herself, I'm not going to end up in anyone's crosshairs, and there won't be homeowners walking around here talking about how so-and-so died last night from CO poisoning and he would have lived if O'Handley had only warned him never to leave that pilot on when the fireplace damper was closed. This is probably the one scenario where I don't object to inspectorlore. In this case, inspectorlore will ensure Dad and Mom are scared just sh*****s enough to make sure the thing is off when everyone goes to bed. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Those usually come with a little C-clamp that's installed on the damper to prevent it from being closed. Sometimes I'll find a hole drilled in the damper with a long self-tapping screw installed that does the same thing. Anytime you have one of those without a means to clamp the flue open, you need to inform the client that something needs to be installed on the damper to prevent it from being closed all the way. If the client complains that will cause him/her to lose heat up the chimney, tell him he has lots of choices. 1. Remove the faux long set and pilot and close the damper. 2. Turn off the pilot and the gas, close the damper and never turn the gas on and use the faux log set until the damper has been opened 3. Install a clamp on the damper so that the damper can't be closed with the pilot left on. 4. Remove the clamp, leave the pilot on, close the damper and die from C.O. poisoning. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's there now; I just approved it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Huh, What's the big deal. Even houses have to take a leak occasionally. [] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Was your dad a smoker? It sounds like the walls are coated with nicotine. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Cod piece?!! Eeewwww, gross. Art? Yeah, right. I guess it's not as gross as some. I read a theater review here in Seattle a number of years back about a stage act where two nude men stood on stage masterbated and defecated on one another and in each others' mouths. I remember thinking at the time that the theather ought to be burned down. Hey, maybe that will work. The protagonist hears odd sounds, goes down into the basement to investigate and finds two nude men........ ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sure, why not? I approach it a little differently. At the top of every section in #8 Ariel bolded font is a little statement that says what I'm required to inspect. At the end of each section is a similar footer that says what I'm not required to do. It's so inoccuous and small that it takes up almost no room on the page and I can imagine that some folks might just scan right over it without reading it. Nonetheless, it's right there for anyone to read; so, if anyone ever calls wondering why I haven't reported on the condition of the faded wallpaper or the central vacuum system, I can just say, "Didn't you read the paragraph at the bottom of the last observation in the interior section of the report where it says, "Inspectors are NOT required to inspect paint, wallpaper or other finish treatments, carpeting, window treatments, central vacuum systems, household appliances and recreational facilities or gymnastic equipment?" ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike