hausdok

Yeah, you can say that again. Last summer Yung and I were doing a pricey home over in Bellevue when I heard a shriek downstairs on the daylight basement level. I heard Yung calling, "Mike, Mike, help me," and I thought she'd fallen and got injured. I went running downstairs and found her backed up on one side of a hallway with one hand above her heart looking like she'd seen a ghost but apparently unharmed. "What's wrong?" I asked her. "I'm scared," she responded. "Scared of what?" I asked. "She pointed at the door across the hall and said, "Big one, scary eyes. I cannot go in there. Chingullo(disgusting)!" She's terrified of snakes, so I figured maybe the homeowner had a terrarium with a snake in it. I opened the door and these folks had converted an entire bedroom into a gymnasium for cats. Ramps running up and down the walls, ladders, ledges, toys, ropes, poles; you name it, it was in there and sitting way up on top of two poles about five feet apart were two huge cats just staring down. I cracked up. I tried to get her to go in there but she refused. I had to take the SureTest and Protimeter, go in there, check stuff out and then come out and give her back her gear. A couple of weeks ago, I was up at the commissary and Yung wanted me to walk her purse dog (Peanut - my avatar) while she was inside grocery shopping. "I'm not walking that micro-dog in front of the commissary. No way!" I said. Wasn't any way I was going to get caught dead walking a 3 pound dog with serviceman all around me. "Take him out back," she said. I figured that would be okay, so I drove the car around to the back of the compound, took him out and let him go sniff around. About 30 seconds later a pair of feral cats at least twice his size came rushing out of some bushes and went after him. I guess they thought he was a rabbit or something and he must have thought they were huge lions, cuz he took off like his ass was on fire, yelping at the top of his lungs. The cats, realizing that they were chasing a dog and not a rat or a rabbit, pulled up short, just looked at the dog disappearing in the distance and kind of looked at each other as if to say, "Am I trippin'? Did you see what I saw? Was that a f*****g dog?!!!* It took me ten minutes to police up that pooch. He got behind some pallets and wasn't coming out for anything. Some folks can't abide cats, I know one dog that definitely can't. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Not likely, it's been about a quarter of a century since NAHI was founded and the ASHI and NAHI upper echelon and headquarters still don't play well together. It might be possible to do it at the chapter level; in some states there are coalitions that are made up of members of various organizations, that can probably help. I think someone would need to initiate an action against Homesafe as a litigant and then establish a war chest managed by someone else, an escrow company perhaps, so folks knew that their money wasn't going into someone's personal bank account. Once that's done and word got out, I think most inspectors who are using IR or considering getting into it, would probably be willing to donate to the cause. If you could get couple of hundred to pony up $25 each, you'd have $5000 in the chest, four hundred contributors would be $10,000, etc. For an action of this magnitude, you'd need an experienced patent and trademark attorney and I'm guessing at least $25K in a war chest, and clear evidence that there will be more where that came from, just to get that attorney interested. I don't think any attorney worth his or her salt will take on an action like that on contingency. In the end the only reward for the attorney is his fee; since there probably wouldn't be anything like punitive damages to hang his hat on. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Seriously, I know you are proud of how you can work with the HG software (They should be paying you by the way), and it's nice that you're obvioiusly a compu-geek, but do you think that the average nail-knocker turned inspector who needs to rely on a computer program to help him write a report because he or she has poor typing or writing or spelling skills is going to be able to make heads or tails of that crap? I can see some poor schmuck dinking around in that code trying to change things, seriously dinking up his program and then not being able to get the report done when promised or even by the deadline and then the client demanding a refund and the inspector is seriously screwed on the next report. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

We seem to have had quite a few folks from NC coming on and complaining about issues with these HydroHeat systems. Does anyone know if there are any issues with alkalinity in the water that trashed copper pipe in NC. I've heard of it eating through copper pipe in only 15 years in the NJ/MD area, so maybe the same issue exists down there. Thoughts? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I spent 17 yeas of my life in a (then) 100-year old home in upstate New York where 100% of the roof framing looked like that. You would not believe some of the winter snow loads that house has endured and still endures to this day. That house would be about 152 years old now. I dunno, charring looks awful but I think it has to be pretty deep to seriously compromise the timbers. I'm no expert though; one of these guys has probably done restoration work and will know the answer to that. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

And I understood the question perfectly. I'm certain that there probably are such devices out there; for all I know, Watts probably makes a version. Had you used the question without context, I wouldn't have said a thing; but one infers from the way that you phrased the question and your comment about the new owner that if you knew of such a device you'd probably recommend it to that person. IMO, if you would do that, it would be a gross error in judgment; like recommending someone use non aviation grade aluminum to build an aircraft. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Plummen, Want to tell us how you came to that figure or are we supposed to try and read your thoughts? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Apparently AsUType hasn't been trained to understand context; unless you meant to say "automatically connect" versus "automatically correct" above. I've been reading this thread and noticing that it seems like folks expect that a report program should be able to completely write a perfect report without the need to proofread or edit the results; and, when a program doesn't do that it is somehow deficient. You're missing the point; those programs aren't meant to be perfect, they aren't meant to eliminate an inspector's need to think about and edit what he or she has written - they are simply a tool that, when used properly, can usually generate a full first draft of a report quicker than the user can type one. That's all they're designed to do. I was involved with developing a program that uses drop downs and pre-formatted boilerplate. I agree with most of the criticisms, that you can make the program say some pretty outlandish things, that sometimes the sentence structure is dinked up, that a good typist can type a comment as fast as it takes one to find a comment in a drop-down, plug it in and then edit it, etc., but every one of those criticisms makes it sound like one expects the software to do it all and allows the inspector to kick back. That's not what they are designed to do. I don't care whose program it is, none of them are designed to completely eliminate an inspector's need to read what he or she has placed on paper and to make corrections as necessary. I write narrative reports and just about every one of them is unique with no boilerplate; but I do grab comments I've written in previous reports, paste them into the document I'm working on and edit them. These programs aren't designed for guys like me; none of them is really designed for the very proficient fast typist. All a fast typist has to do is save one of his or her old reports, use it as a template and overwrite it each time and cut and paste comments that have been saved and a fast typist can beat one of these programs every time. These programs, at least the one I was involved with, are designed for those who are not so proficient at composing/writing and those who don't have decent typing skills. The intent was to create a mechanism that will create a narrative report that can be proofread and tweaked by the user in a fraction of the time it would take the average non-typist with poor spelling and composition skills to write the same report. For those people, when used correctly, these programs work fine; the problem is that people buy these reports thinking that the program will always write a perfect sentence and will catch every spelling error and they don't bother to proof-read their reports - that's when they end up with a report that can be pretty dinked up. I used to literally be able to type faster than I am able to speak; as soon as a word occurred to me in my thoughts, it went down on paper almost as quickly. No more; I've got arthritis in my hands and the older I get the slower I type, the more typos I make and the more homophones end up in what I write. I've also noticed that my thoughts aren't as ordered when I'm writing as they used to be; they are there on paper, they come out of my mouth correctly when I'm presenting to clients, but when I'm writing now some words are not always where they work the best and I find myself cutting and pasting just-written comments and moving them up or down the page to make what I've written flow better - something that I never needed to do many years ago. I guess we all see this happen sooner or later; but it's frustrating and I've slowly been coming to the realization that I'd better start tweaking the boilerplate in the program and customizing it for me, 'cuz it won't be very much longer before it's going to be easier and faster for me to scan and tap on clue words in a drop-down list and then to edit the results than it will be for me to type a report from scratch, proof read it and go back and edit it. I can think of a number of folks who participate here who would benefit greatly from using a report system that uses pre-written boilerplate and a number of you who I know would never want to use it, but I can't think of anyone whose report writing skills are so good that they absolutely will never need to proofread and edit their comments; whether those comments come from a report that uses boilerplate or are from a custom narrative. One thing that a well done report writing program can do is give the new inspector a jump start into the routine of sitting down to write daily reports. Instead of the inspector having to dream up his or her own format and then try to compose a narrative, the report system does it for the inspector - then all he or she needs to do is go over it and tweak it. That's where I see inspectors falling down on the job; some of the report samples I've read look to me like the inspector never even bothered to read what had been written, because, if the report had been proofread even the poorest speller and writer among us would have seen those errors. New inspectors, stop looking for a report that's going to completely eliminate your need to be able to compose and write reports; such programs don't exist. Choose a program, use it as it is designed to work and then proofread what you've written and tweak it so that it is easily understood. Established inspectors with great typing and writing skills; enjoy your abilities while you can, but get started now on banking text for that day that comes when arthritis cuts your typing speed to 10% of what it used to be and when you're not the sharpest tack on the bulletin board anymore when it comes to writing. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jim, Split the thread! You should be able to do that with the access level you have. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, They are cute, that's about it. They're great if you have hands the size of a 3rd grader and your primary interest is in having something to cruise the net or stream videos on; otherwise they are a bitch to type on and the programs they run are kind of limited. They process very slowly compared to most devices today. For the same money, you can purchase a decent notebook on sale over the net with a full-sized keyboard that will allow you to work faster with fewer mistakes. Or, you can wait another year to be able to buy a tablet computer with a touch screen and a very fast processor that you can use an inspection program on for about the same money you'll spend for a netbook today. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

The Germans love those Kubotas. They're so popular there and demand is so strong that Kubota built a tractor plant on the old Canadian air base in Zweibruecken when I was stationed there. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

So what? You've identified the defect - There aren't any temperature and pressure relief (TPR) valves on the water heaters - now all you're required to do is tell 'em why that's a bad thing - If a water heater without a TPR valve overheats it could explode and kill someone - and what to do about it - Have a licensed plumber install TPR valves on these water heaters and ensure they're configured in accordance with current code requirements. Anything beyond that isn't your call and recommending that the owner jerry-rig some kind of half measure, when a properly installed and functioning TPR valve is the standard, is playing with fire. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

The idea that rot spore will only grow "on the surface" won't hold water. Rot fungi is an organism that feeds on organic material and rot spore spreads through the cell structure of wood like a virus through the human body. Do a search of this site for Poria. Somewhere you'll find an explanation I wrote that explains the three stages of rot. Mark is right, it really doesn't matter what it is; the main thing is that it is rot and that it's well beyond first and second stage rot and is into third stage rot, which means the wood is untenable and the roof is structurally compromised.. Any recommendation that I'd make in regard to that roof would say that and make it clear that anything less than tearing off that roof and replacing that framing is completely unacceptable, irresponsible and borders on reckless indifference. 'Course, that's just me. We all have to make our own calls, nobody can make them for us. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Wow, that sounds like they have a R-idiculous value. I've done a bunch of homes up there (haven't we all) but have yet to see that. This home had "wood cathedrals" for attics, so walking the truss crotches was fairly easy. I don't think I want to come across it in a smaller, lower sloped attic. Yeah, they're in West Highland Park. If you do a home in there, be very cautious where and how you place your feet when you step through that blown-in. Finding the foam under the blown-in was a little bit of a shocker and then I had to go very slowly in order to be sure I was on truss chords and not the ceiling before I placed my weight on a foot. The home had a broken whole house air exchange timer so some dildo removed the timer and left the fan on 24/7. The house is foamed everywhere - top, bottom, sides - so the client was relatively comfortable and didn't even realize that most of his air was being replaced with exterior air round the clock in the dead of winter. I hope to hell when they came back and repaired that whole house system that they showed him how to set up the programming properly, and that he uses it enough hours of the day, or he's going to be living in a petrie dish. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Richard, There's a whole slew of Bennet homes up in Issaquah Highlands that have several inches of foam like that with another 15 inches of blown-in fiberglass on top of that. Really tricky attic to cross! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Would you derate it if it were buried under 18 inches of blown-in fiberglass or 12-inches of fiberglass batting or rockwool or 14 inches of cells or silvawool? If not, why derate it for foam? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

There's only one bug that I know of that's so fastidious that it takes the trash outside to dump it and that's a carpenter ant. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

You're thinking that it's a main panel. I don't think it is. It looks like a sub-panel in multi-family housing. Was this a condo or one of several units in a multiplex? All of those 4-pole 30 amp breakers are screaming electric heaters to me, which is also something I see in multiplexes or small condo flats a lot. You have a total of five two-pole breakers in the top half of that panel; four of them are 30-amps and the other is 40-amps. In the bottom, you have two two-pole 30 amp breakers on the left bank plus a single-pole the size of which I can't make out and on the right lower you've got what looks like four single-poles. Since it looks like there are ones on there, I'll venture a guess that they were all 15-amp circuits. Look at all of the conductors leaving those breakers; they all leave that panel and not a single pair feeds power to the lower half. The grounded conductors (the white "neutrals") are all on that bus below the breaker banks but all of the equipment-grounding conductors (the bare "grounds) have all been terminated together under that ground lug on the side of that myers hub and you dn't see any provision for a bonding screw. All of that says that it isn't a split bus panel and those are continuous power buses from top to bottom. That tells me that somewhere else inside or outside of that building/unit is a main disconnect breaker. Did you find the meter? Was there a little metal door next to it that when opened had a single breaker behind it? The six throw rule you are thinking about applies to split-bus panels. Those typically hold five or six two pole breakers in the top half for the oven, water heater, and other items that need 240-volt circuits and all of the branch lighting and small appliance circuits are typically in the bottom half of the panel. When there are six two-pole breakers in the top half of the panel, one of them will feed power to the lugs at the top of the bars at the lower half of the panel. If you look at a split-bus panel and find only five two-pole breakers in the top half, you'll probably see a pair of conductors feeding a large 2-pole breaker in the bottom half. Sometimes you won't see the conductors because the bottom half will be back-fed, but with those the large two pole fed by those cables switches on and provides power to the bottom half. Here's a picture of a pre-1984 split-bus panel: This particular configuration is supposed to have a total of four two-pole breakers in the top half and a sub-main breaker in the bottom half. See the cables? They feed power from the bottom of the top bus to the lugs at that large 2-pole breaker in the bottom half. When you look at this, you can see that it's definitely a main panel and as you look at it you'll be able to see that, if this were configured properly with no more than four two-pole breakers in the top half, one could turn power off with only five throws. However, on this home, to turn off all power to this house one must make a total of 7 throws. Can you see why? With only ten more inches of cable and with a little bit of forethought, they could have had this configured as a five throw panel. Click to Enlarge 83.25 KB. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Is this response from Mike O. worth one hour of CE from Washington state? It should be. You know, if I could get them to give me CEU's for every hour of crap I write here, and then could turn around and sell those CEU's off to other Washington inspectors - kind of like selling carbon credits - I could probably shut things down and go sit on the porch with a laptop and get out of all this danged cirque-du-soliel attic scrambling and 'nam tunnel ratting in crawlspaces. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'm a retired Army MSG; she is a retired Air Force NCO. I'm thinking that she was a retired SP - the airforce counterpart to the army MP - but it's been so long I can't recall now. In any event, I tend to bend over backward for military active duty and retirees. They have to (or have had to) put up with enough shit; the last thing they need is a POS house. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nope, There are two two-pole breakers in the bottom that can be moved up to the top half and those breakers in the top can be moved to the lower half. The electrician will need to extend the cables to that 2-pole breaker at the lower right when it's moved to the top half. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

He's probably well fed 'cuz he'd staked out that trail and that's why he didn't want to budge. I know what you mean about your dog. 22 years ago I had a Timbershepard named Sitka who absolutely would not listen to any command when he saw a snake Not that a timbershepard is much good at following commands anyway.). I don't care what kind of snake it was, he'd snatch it up and snap it like a bullwhip before I'd get a word out of my mouth. It must have been some instinctual thing he was born with 'cuz he knew how to avoid getting struck and would go after those things like a mongoose. I was always worried that he'd come home some afternoon snake bit. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

You're thinking that it's a main panel. I don't think it is. It looks like a sub-panel in multi-family housing. Was this a condo or one of several units in a multiplex? All of those 4-pole 30 amp breakers are screaming electric heaters to me, which is also something I see in multiplexes or small condo flats a lot. You have a total of five two-pole breakers in the top half of that panel; four of them are 30-amps and the other is 40-amps. In the bottom, you have two two-pole 30 amp breakers on the left bank plus a single-pole the size of which I can't make out and on the right lower you've got what looks like four single-poles. Since it looks like there are ones on there, I'll venture a guess that they were all 15-amp circuits. Look at all of the conductors leaving those breakers; they all leave that panel and not a single pair feeds power to the lower half. The grounded conductors (the white "neutrals") are all on that bus below the breaker banks but all of the equipment-grounding conductors (the bare "grounds) have all been terminated together under that ground lug on the side of that myers hub and you dn't see any provision for a bonding screw. All of that says that it isn't a split bus panel and those are continuous power buses from top to bottom. That tells me that somewhere else inside or outside of that building/unit is a main disconnect breaker. Did you find the meter? Was there a little metal door next to it that when opened had a single breaker behind it? The six throw rule you are thinking about applies to split-bus panels. Those typically hold five or six two pole breakers in the top half for the oven, water heater, and other items that need 240-volt circuits and all of the branch lighting and small appliance circuits are typically in the bottom half of the panel. When there are six two-pole breakers in the top half of the panel, one of them will feed power to the lugs at the top of the bars at the lower half of the panel. If you look at a split-bus panel and find only five two-pole breakers in the top half, you'll probably see a pair of conductors feeding a large 2-pole breaker in the bottom half. Sometimes you won't see the conductors because the bottom half will be back-fed, but with those the large two pole fed by those cables switches on and provides power to the bottom half. Here's a picture of a pre-1984 split-bus panel: This particular configuration is supposed to have a total of four two-pole breakers in the top half and a sub-main breaker in the bottom half. See the cables? They feed power from the bottom of the top bus to the lugs at that large 2-pole breaker in the bottom half. When you look at this, you can see that it's definitely a main panel and as you look at it you'll be able to see that, if this were configured properly with no more than four two-pole breakers in the top half, one could turn power off with only five throws. However, on this home, to turn off all power to this house one must make a total of 7 throws. Can you see why? With only ten more inches of cable and with a little bit of forethought, they could have had this configured as a five throw panel. Click to Enlarge 83.25 KB. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi John, Well, I can't without lab testing; but it makes no difference - that wood is toast. No argument here; just my opinion worth only the price charged. I think that the chimney is dark at that top due to acid deterioration. The brick has absorbed about all of that acidic condensate that it can and now it's breaking down and changing color. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Cute little timber rattler. The big ones you saw were probably Eastern Diamondbacks. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nah, I think it's just plain old rot that's so severe it's turned the wood black. By the way, Mark, the OSB is going to be toast too - the rot spore loves the starches and sugars in OSB and will have spread into the deck. If that roofer had the remnants of a chimney there, thought it was abandoned, knocked it down to below the roofline and then boarded it up without discussing it with anyone, he'd better either get over to a lawyer to file Chapter 11 or call his E & O carrier 'cuz he's gonna lose a bundle for putting the lives of everyone living in that building in jeopardy. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike