hausdok

Yeah, I had one over the weekend. The comment in my report begins with (I'm not kidding), "The HVAC person that installed the exhaust vent on the furnace undoubtedly has the IQ of a turnip,..." Click to Enlarge 32.69 KB ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's right there on page 19 - Vertical transition. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Here's an idea; why don't you ask the folks that frequent Professional Deck Builder Mag's forums? http://www.deckmagazine.com/forums/index.php ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, You can see the MVMA installation guidelines here for print and here as an online version. I just send them the link and tell them what page they'll find the detail on. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nah, Checked the library downloads section and FM 5-428 - The Army Concrete and Masonry Manual. It doesn't even address stone masonry; only concrete, brick and structural tile. https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum ... asonry.pdf (loads slowly) ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nah, I googled "Weeps and Through-wall flashings in stone masonry" or some such and found it on one of dozens of sites. Jeez, I never thought to check my Army references. I think I'm getting oldtimers disease. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike What web site did you find that on Mike? What do ya wanna bet it's a US Army document? My pleasure, Mike. Happy to be of service.

I've seen it in eastern European countries twenty years ago and in Asia twenty years ago but most don't use it anymore unless you are out in the stix. It looks like they salvaged that from an old camper or bus conversion. Must be fun to use that TP after it gets all wet. How about the towels? Seems like they'd get wet too. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Kewl, thanks. Now all I gotta do is make him understand the issues with the EIFS. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Well, I look at it this way; right now I charge a flat fee for each inspection based strictly on square footage. I don't charge more for attics or crawlspaces or if the home is older - just a straight fee based on a chart I developed. Now, if I were to charge my regular hourly rate for the time it takes to do a home inspection and then write the report, plus the travel time to and from job sites, plus the time I have to spend on the phone answering the clients questions when/if he or she has any, my inspections would be priced at about three times what they are now, so charging more for reinspections balances things out. Besides, a reinspection in this sense of the word isn't part of the home inspection; it's a completely different thing. It's going out to a site and looking at someone else's work and then declaring it either crap or acceptable. When you do that, you place yourself more tightly between a rock and the hard place than you did for the initial inspection. That kind of increased liability is worth more. Keep in mind too that when you go out to do a reinspection you might be on the road for a half hour each way, only on-site for ten minutes, and then they want you to write them a report. Don't forget that while you were out there dinking around like the family doctor being asked to open up someone's head and tell them if the neurosurgeon you'd referred them to had gotten all of that tumor, you might have had to turn down at least one full inspection in order to be there on this particular date and time. I know what my average daily and hourly wage needs to pencil out to, in order for me to be able to pay the bills at the end of the month and I ensure that I charge enough to equal that range even when I'm not doing a full inspection. If I didn't, I'd be letting folks take advantage of me. Clients don't have any misperceptions about how I'm going to charge if they call me back for a reinspection because I tell them upfront before the full inspection exactly how I intend to charge if they every call me back. I literally say to them that my rate to come back is charged by the half hour at my normal rate (essentially twice my regular hourly fee for a full inspection) and that I charge for time coming, time going, time onsite and time arguing on the phone with...whoever. I point out that with our traffic mess here (8th worst in the US) that by the time I get out there, spend time on site, drive home, and prepare the documents, I will have pretty much killed half a day; and, since I'd be turning down work to make their reinspection appointment they can expect me to charge "exactly like a lawyer." Nobody has ever voiced an objection to that,...ever...really. I think everyone understands it and they agree that business is business and that it's a fair approach. Others' mileage may vary. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hmm, That's interesting. I found this on the web a little while ago. Click to Enlarge 47.56 KB What you say makes sense though. The stone used is unpolished granite so it's not likely to be porous and if they used a good stiff mix of PC and sand to solidly pack that wall it isn't likely that water could really collect behind it. Wish I knew more about local stone mason practices. I just don't see it that often and when I had seen it before it was always in older structures. Guess I'll have to make a few phone calls in the A.M.. Thanks for the insight, Gents. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hmmm, I just blew up a section of the last photo and now I'm wondering if there is a weep there and I just didn't see it. See the dark thingy near the top of the photo below? It looks like an oval opening of sorts but I've never seen anything like it before. It's clearly in the center of the section of mortar bed that hangs off the wall. Could it be a piece of clear plastic tubing that's compressed to an oval shape? Maybe it's just a piece of flotsam stuck in the mortar. Dang, I really don't feel like driving the 30 miles out there to look at this again. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Click to Enlarge 44.05 KB

Couple questions for you brethren that have worked lots of masonry. Large house - nearly $1M - 10 years old. They used real stone cladding on the lower part of the front walls. There aren't any steel lintels and it looks like the stonework might be resting on a masonry ledge with an overhang of about an inch and a half. There isn't any evidence of weeps or flashings at the base of the veneer. I examined and scanned the interior walls very closely for any hint of moisture intrusion and saw none. The base of these walls is pretty thick, so I intially thought that the foundation extended the full height of this stonework and that the veneer is fully grouted and mortared directly to the face of the concrete; however, after checking the tax assessor's site I think I was wrong. The only photo in the tax file is a fuzzy black and white of the front of the house. It shows that at the time the photo was taken the EIFS lamina had already been applied and that the front stoop and the stonework were not yet completed. One can clearly see in the photo that the lower part of the walls is covered with what looks like a layer of black building paper. I suppose it could be a coating of waterproofing over concrete but one can see where it looks like they still had a piece of paper to apply at the corner of the garage when the picture was taken. It's hard to tell whether the stonework is being installed on top of a concrete shelf or is being applied lick-n-stick fashion the way that faux stone veneer is installed. I think that because of the average thickness of this stone and the fact that I can't see any wire lath, that it's resting on the ledge with some overhang and they simply did so without any weeps or flashings. It's a tough nut though. Wish the photos were better or I'd had as-builts on-site like I normallys see when I do these high end homes. I thought I'd pass it by the brethren to see whether folks concur. The second photo below gives you an idea of the average thickness of this stonework (Please don't comment on the cracking, I've got that handled.), the third shows a section of the wall and the fourth shows the bottom of the stonework where it overhangs the edge of the foundation. No sign of any weeps or through-wall flashings and it looks like they might have had a 2 by 4 against the face of the ledge as the stones were mortared in place. Mike, you're a former mason; Kurt, you live for masonry and Bill, you've seen this stuff when it's been a couple of hundred years old. In addition to the lack of flashings and weeps and the issues that can cause, are you guys seeing anything else here that I need to be concerned about? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Click to Enlarge 35.26 KB Click to Enlarge 69.82 KB Click to Enlarge 75.53 KB Click to Enlarge 44.05 KB

Yeah, when I saw that I actually thought to myself that it was better than about a third of the attachments I see where the power company has an insulated lagged to a piece of two-by tacked onto the roof. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

So, When are we gonna build the Year 2525 inspection concept? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Well, it was either that or sit here and compose long explanations to each of her three separate posts on three separate topic areas about the same thing. I got the answer in 10 seconds on google and deleted two of her three queries in less time than it would have taken me to type four sentences in explanation. I love search engines. Haven't had to visit a library for research in years. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi David, I wouldn't waste any energy trying to convince folks from other parts of the country that any form of OSB is anything more than landfill material. There's just too much misinformation out there about the product. Until it gets more widespread use and has been around in those other areas as long as we've seen it around here, they aren't likely to change their minds. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Go here. You can download their installation manuals too. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Snow? Nah, not likely. We got about 10 inches in a storm in January of 1997 but nothing significant since. Ironic that. Less than an hour's drive they had 16ft. of snow through the winter and a week ago a car was pushed across Rt. 2 with all its occupants in it by an avalance. One of the weird percs of living in the western corridor on Puget Sound, I guess. Taking it up those walls about 12 to 15 inches above the bottom would probably do fine. If it were custom made, it would have to have a flange that wraps around that vertical corner behind the trim as well as wraps down over the fascia behind the gutter and on that rake. That friggin piece of vertical trim is about 1/4-inch above the surface of the roof and almost completely fills that tiny little notch. The site super on this job must have been more than mildly retarded. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, lots on the lake are a premium here too; except they do it a little differently. In the crawlspace under the "remodeled" behemoth below is a rectangular stemwall foundation from an 800sf cabin that once stood there. One six by six post supporting the mid-span of a girder is the only part of the new house that touches the old foundation. It's weird, you go into the crawlspace and have to circumnavigate that foundation. If you want to inspect inside of it, you have to go through the original exterior wall hatch opening or squeeze between the top of the foundation and the underside of the floor joists above. Click to Enlarge 41.15 KB ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Charley, Get in the habit of prepping them to pay a fair price when you come out. Sooner or later while you are doing your inspection, you're going to inform them about something that needs correction that will be fairly simple, and one would think not-too-expensive, to fix. They will ask you, "How much do you think that's going to cost?" respond with, "Well, I don't exactly know. All trades charge a little differently. One thing I do know is that you can't get any fat guy, including me, to climb into his truck for less than $150. Once he gets in that truck, you're subject to trip charges, time on site labor, cost of parts, costs to prepare reports, etc," so it could be substantial. Best thing to do, call and get an idea up-front before you bring anyone out here." Sometimes it doesn't sink in the first time and they ask again on something else, whereupon I usually respond with, "Fat guy rule - remember? Not less than $150." They laugh, remember what I'd said earlier and it sinks in a little deeper. It preps them not to expect a contractor to be cheap, even when the thing that needs correction can be fixed very cheaply, and it makes them understand in no uncertain terms that if they call me to come back out I don't do work at fire sale prices. Works for me; others' mileage may vary. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Every carefully. [:-bonc01] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah Jim, I agree. It actually did clog up with a one-inch thick chunk of moss and a bunch of roof granules. The owner says they'd had the roof pressure-washed several times over the years. It's all original. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Every time I see one of these I just shake my head and ask myself why it is they don't have mandatory training and education for framing and roofing guys. Yesterday's roof. Click to Enlarge 56.39 KB It was raining like hell when I started, so I did the interior, electro-mechanical, attic and crawlspace first. Here's what I found in the attic of the left garage (left edge of the garage roof at the extreme left in the photo.) Click to Enlarge 58.96 KB Closeup - If the OSB is this black where there is ventilation, it's a safe bet the inside of the garage/living room wall is going to be nasty. Click to Enlarge 61.97 KB The wall is just a tad damp. Click to Enlarge 23.82 KB Leaking through into the crawlspace under the corner of the living room. Click to Enlarge 49.48 KB I'm thinking that the only way to make this work is either completely lining this with IWS or a custom-made metal flashing that conforms to this outline. Click to Enlarge 23.2 KB What say you, Boys? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Dave, Well, if it's held up for decades and absent the ability to test the cement to know whether it's the correct type or not, how likely is it that it wasn't used. Call it or let it go? Me? I'd probably tell 'em it's atypical; but, absent proof that they hadn't used the proper adhesive, I wasn't going to call it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I explain it to the client like this: My fee is based on a one-time visit to the property, the time it takes to prepare the report and deliver it to you. Any trip back here to the property for any reason short of an error by myself is charged by the half hour and at twice my normal hourly rate. When I come back for a reinspection I charge like an attorney; I'm charging you for my time on the road coming and going, time on site, time preparing any follow-up reports and any time spent on the phone arguing with a ticked-off seller or seller's agent or contractor. That can get expensive, especially if I come out, the work wasn't done well, I report that to you and then you want me to come out again when the work is corrected, the work continues to be done sloppily and I continue to write it up each time I return. When you think about it, you really don't need me to resinpsect. I'm just the family doctor and I refer you to specialists. If it's an electrical issue, insist it be corrected by a licensed electrician, a plumbing issue by a licensed plumber and so on. Whatever the issue is, you should ensist that it be corrected by a reputable professional who guarantees his or her work - not the seller or the seller's cousin or best friend, etc.. That way, if it goes wrong later, you can hold that person's feet to the fire. I did reinspections for free for about the first four to five years. I spent many a stressful day trying to squeeze them in among other jobs and it seemed like every single one of them turned into multiple visits to verify that a screwed-up job had been fixed. I finally wised up. Now I don't get calls for many reinspections. Gee, I wonder why? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike