hausdok

Hi, OK, my previous post didn't help much, I know. Sometimes I tell a lame joke or two. $185?? Seriously? Haven't you ever heard the term, "Pay yourself first?" When I began inspecting homes in 1996 our baseline price was $275 - that was nearly 15 years ago. I won't even get in my vehicle to go look at just a single component for a consult without a report for less than $150 and my lowest price today for a full inspection of anything up to 1500 square feet is $395. I don't care if it's 100 square feet and brand spanking new, it's $395. After 1500sf my prices go up based on square footage. Several jobs I did last week were over $600. I've been told many times that I'm way too cheap. Maybe I am; two of the guys who serve on the state board with me get over $100 more than I do for that same 1500sf inspection. I don't have a website and I only spend about $10 a year on advertising. The $10 pays for the card stock I use to print my own business cards. I don't distribute flyers, I don't visit open houses, I don't darken brokers' doors, I don't advertise on TV or radio or in newspapers. Still, in the worst part of this recession, when some other inspectors around here were selling off investment properties at a loss in order to pay their bills, I was plugging steadily along because my business model is built around word-of-mouth from former clients and I don't have to rely on handouts from realtors to get new business. Building a good word-of-mouth business is not easy; especially in this gig - you need to sacrifice a lot and you have to discipline yourself not to allow yourself to be bullied and manipulated by the real estate agents in order to garner their table scraps in the way of referrals. When you have built it though, you will have something that'll keep you steady in the downtimes when those who rely on agents are selling off their wives' jewelry 'cuz their agent " referral clients" have gone out of business. We can't tell you how to price your work and we certainly can't all get together and agree on a price 'cuz that would be price fixing and is illegal, but we can point out to you that unless you are charging enough to pay yourself a decent living wage after business expenses, you are gradually working yourself into bankruptcy. You said above that each inspection takes you 4 to 5 hours. Break that down. You know you work a hell of a lot more hours a week than the conventional 40 hours a week that an employee works; yet if we call it a 40 hour week we can say that at $185 you are taking in $37 dollars an hour for that 5 hour gig. Somewhere around here I have a pie chart of inspection business costs that ASHI once did after surveying their membership. Without it in front of me, I can't tell you how most of the expenses were broken except that I remember that the total of all operating costs was something like 50% of gross. That means at $37 an hour you are taking in about $18.50 an hour or $38,480 a year before taxes [if] you can bring in not less than 8 jobs a week for a total of 416 inspections a year and if you work a full 52 weeks and don't take any time off. From what I've been reading about the economy in Indiana these days, that's a pretty big if. You're a business owner; not an employee anymore - does it make sense to take on the kind of liability that you have to take on as the owner of the business while working for day laborer wages? You decide. Buy the program that Jim recommended. It will help you figure this stuff out better than my 2nd grade math skills can. The folks here are trying to help you. OK, so maybe it's tough love and it stings, but if you listen you can learn. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Aw, I just knew you guys were going to make me look something up in the dictionary. Next thing you know, you'll be trying to get me to do 3rd grade level math. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, I've seen a few dozen of those electric radiant heat floors in bathrooms over the past couple of years. They seem to heat up pretty well and the homeowners seemed to like them well enough. When a bunch of us from TIJ went down to the Watts Radiant Warm-U a few years ago they showed us how they make that electric floor heating mesh - with 100+ year old fabric looms! Simply amazing to see those old things being utilized to make state-of-the-art heating components. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jim, I have no idea what terrazzo is; for all I know, it's exactly the same thing. Whatever it was, it produced some damned fine results with a whole lot of labor. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yep, See them all the time here with the newer hydronic systems. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Wha? I do crank and pot?!!! Liar, I'll cop to being a curmudgeon but I'll have you know I've never done crank in my life and any pot I might have done was at least 35 years ago. Jeez, go out on the job; come home and now I'm a drug fiend. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

So, just curious, how did you report it? OT - OF!!! M.

I used to have that problem. Then one day I decided not to do more than one a day. I've figured out what I need to make per hour on a report in order to make a fair wage while doing one inspection a day and that's what I charge. No more running around watching my watch, trying to calculate which way I need to drive to the next job in order to avoid traffice, etc., etc.. If folks think I'm too high, they can hire one of the 2 to 3 houses a day guys for less. My feelings won't be hurt. It seems to be working. Realtor referrals have dropped off to almost nothing, work referred word-of-mouth by former clients is way up and I've been staying fairly steady through most of the recession - even when others around here were complaining that business was in the toilet. I've done the report on site gig. It worked well with two inspectors on site but not-so-well with only myself there. I found myself torn between writing a proper description and observation and cutting it to the bone so that I wouldn't keep the folks standing there fretting for an unreasonable amount of time. I didn't like the results and felt that what I turned out was not as "professional" as what I prepare after I leave. I don't buy the argument that if I've forgotten something I can go back insdie to look at it again. One simply needs to develop one's inspector vision, learn to take in and remember what one sees and one doesn't need to do anything but look at something one time. Besides Eric, you obviously are good with a camera, utilize the thing. I want to create my Inspections in the year 2525 scenario now. Once I've got that put together, on-site reporting could be done both thoroughly and professionally without causing folks to have to wait around for me to get done and with the added assurance that they've had, not one, but two inspectors look at the house. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's a labor intensive solution, but years ago when I was in Korea the landlord was installing a bathroom to replace the banzo - outside outhouse. They came in and completely lined that sucker with a really hard aggregate bearing colored concrete of some sort; and then, using what looked like mongo-sized rotary sanders with diamond cutting heads, polished those surfaces until they glistened like the fender on a new Benz at the dealership. After that, they sealed the surface with something that I'd guess was a clear acrylic. Looking at that and realizing that the stuff that looked like granite chips in the surface was gravel that had been ground down flat on one side, I was simply amazed with the result. However, I did feel sorry for the phalanx of middle-aged ladies wearing gloves and sleeve covers that spent a day kneeling or standing there wrestling those heavy electric grinders to achieve that beautiful surface. I can imagine that they all suffered from wrist and tendon ailments. I don't know if that was a technique the Koreans had dreamed up on their own or they'd seen it somewhere else. Has anyone here ever seen anything similar done? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I never knew there was improper use for duct tape. Got a wart? Put some duct tape on it for a day or two. It works. I asked a dermatologist and my own Dr. why? Niether knew, but both had a story to tell about someone it worked for. Hmm, so if I completely cover my face with it..... ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Does that mean that in your area they actually sand off, prime and paint the interior of garages? Just curious, as they do not generally as a rule do that around here and when folks from other parts of the country move here they seem to ask about it a lot. I agree with Kurt's solution and Tom's comments. I can't imagine that we're talking about a very large area to cover in a garage attic. Adding a layer of drywall - even with a little bit of taping and mudding - won't take much time at all. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Now, that is a mouldy three pound word! I needed to scroll across the page to just read it!Yeah, my spell check didn't like it. I guess I made it up - although I could swear that I've heard it used in various conversations since I've been on this rock. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Isn't that sort of like a termite inspector that does repairs? Here he'd have to wait at least a year before working on any home(s) he'd inspected. That long a wait kind of disincentivizes folks that want to do repairs. There are ways around it. There's a guy here who went into an 80-year old woman's home, took air samples and found "toxic" mold. She wanted to know how to get rid of it and he handed her a card for a firm he "trusted". Between the cleanup firm and the inspector, she ended up shelling out about $10K. The "toxic" mold in her house that was shown in the mold lab's results was all mold spore that is ubiquitous in the environment and which we all breath 24/7/365 and have all breathed our entire lives. I'm on a mission. Before every inspection I tell folks that I'm not there to look for mold. That if I were, it would be the easiest job in the world because there is mold on every surface nearby, on their clothes, in their hair and in their lungs; and, if they've got a kid with them, in their kid's lungs as well. I point out that it's ubiquitous in the environment and that they've been breathing it 24/7/365 their entire lives. I tell 'em that if they are concerned about environmental contaminants of any sort to hire a good environmental testing firm and avoid hiring me or any other home inspector to assess mold issues - especially any that claim to do mold inspections; because those so-called mold inspectors will just take their money to tell them what they already know - that there is mold spore in the air. Most customers "get" it right away; when they don't, or when it becomes apparent that they refuse to accept or acknowledge the reality of it and want to know how to "test" for it anyway, I point them to a local lab that has a PHD running its mold division and tell them to contact that guy and have him help them figure out what's the best way to go about figuring out what to do to allay their concerns. I'm with the others. I think you were absolutely right to call it what you thought it was. On the other hand, I think we also need to be careful about calling stuff mold simply because we are gun shy due to all of the mold lawsuits and talk in the media. I don't think we should be tacking "mold" or "possible mold" or "apparent mold" or similar appellations onto every surface discoloration we see. When we do that, I think we just keep stoking the engine for all of the mold is golders. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sounds like I oughta order a Rosetta Stone course on Chinese and get my butt in gear learning my new language. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I dunno, It's using a spring-loaded top-of-the-flue damper and that looks like it's probably been professionally applied. I think you are asking the wrong folks. If it were me, I'd be asking someone over at the Chimney Safety Institute of America site (http://www.csia.org) what they think of that. Coming here to ask about an unusual fireplace lining is like going to your family practice doctor with mri images of a rare brain anomaly; a lot of the responses will be guesses or half-informed opinions. If you go over there and find the answers; please come back and edumakate the rest of us about it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi KC, Guess you'll have to figure out what kind of service you get in your area for the various gizmos before you'll be able to decide what to use. My wife has the iPhone. She is apparently very happy with it's performance. She's always on it, wherever we go, and whenever she rides with me to a job and is waiting for me to get my part of the job done after her own part is done, she goes out and sits in the vehicle and will watch her Korean dramas on it. Me, I don't know how to use it, so I can't comment on it's performance (She had it five minutes and switched the user interface over to Korean script, so I have no idea how to make the think work.); even if it was in English I probably couldn't use it anyway, I'm sort of technology challenged. I have a Samsung Rugby II with an accessory hard shell. It's got PTT, GPS, Internet Access, Mobile Email and a bunch of other crap on it that I don't know how to do and, with the exception of the mobile email, have never set up. All I really needed was a phone that could link to the bluetooth device in my car; because it's illegal to drive here with a phone at your ear. I needed to be able to forward my Magic Jack office phone to it (I can), I needed it to take voice mail (it does) and I needed to be able to review my emails from out on the job (I can). Oh yeah, it's got a camera and a video thingy. I've taken a picture or two with it but I don't know how to make the video thingy work 'cuz I haven't really tried. It fits the bill. Best of all, it's built heavy duty and can take a beating, which is what my phones are constantly subjected to. With the little accessory hard shell; which snaps over the original body of the phone, it's like a little armadillo. I don't know much about the service problems aspect of it; for me it's been fine. I've been in areas here where others were standing there cussing the fact they were in dead space and I was able to call out or receive signals. Like I said, you need to know how different service providers work in your area. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

A few years ago, I did a home here in Seattle for an elderly widow of deceased Boeing engineer. The home had originally been heated with hydronic floor heat and had used three different heat sources - a gas boiler; a woodstove equipped with a coil heat exchanger in the back of the firebox, and a rooftop solar water heater. There was a very large (100 gallon) storage tank on the system. Inside the storage tank was a coil heat exchanger that was plumbed to a circulator and to the solar water heater on the roof. On sunny days they could use the solar water heater as the heat source; on cloudy days, and we see a lot of those, they were able to build a fire in the woodstove and use the woodstove to heat the water with the heat exchanger at the back of the firebox; and year-round, regardless of weather, they were able to use the gas boiler to heat the house. Next to the large storage tank was a gas water heater with an immersed coil. A circulator between the two tanks cycled water from the storage tank into the immersed coil so that they were able to heat water with either the gas water heater, the solar system or the woodstove. Apparently, after he died, the system had been too complicated for the widow. During the non-heating season she had to isolate it from the floor heat so that she could still heat water with the solar hot water heater and/or the woodstove at nights or when it wasn't too hot. At some point, she'd thrown in the towel and had installed electric baseboard heaters throughout the house. I found the pipes cut off the back of the woodstove with caps soldered over their ends; the pipes leading to the solar water heater were also disconnected and the floor coils had been disconnected and drained years ago. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Actually, although it is a "proper" device, I don't think that what you are seeing is proper. It's a messenger feed-through clamp and those must have two wires stretching back from the insulator to the clamp. Around here, they use a thin coated cable that extends to the insulator. You put the end of the loop around the insulator, thread the free end through the end and then cinch it down tight on the insulator. The free end has a wedge-shaped block that is then inserted into the feed-through clamp sleeve, the messenger cable is adjusted to the length they want and then the other end of the messenger is anchored. The strain of the weight of the messenger, plus the weight of the other two or three hots wrapped around the messenger, pulls the wedge tightly into the receiver and tightens its grip on the end of the bare messenger. Sometimes I see ridgid ones like that illustrated below; but in every case there is always two strands extended from the feed-through clamp to the insulator - either right next to each other or separated by however thick the insulator is, as in the illustration below. It looks like one side of that anchor snapped and, if I'm seeing it correctly, they bent the broken end around the other side right there against the insulator. Click to Enlarge 20.19 KB Click to Enlarge 8.88 KB By the way, I'm feeling a little bit like a proud daddy right now, 'cuz, just about every way I searched for an illustration of a feed through drop attachment on google, the Army electrical correspondence course in TIJ's reference library popped up - most of the time in only second place. That's where the photo above came from; I'd completely forgotten to look in the reference library first before I started googling. That's kind of a testament to our posting policy here because, by trying to keep technical subjects on-topic and not cluttered with a lot of other stuff that's unrelated to the topic at hand, our resources are more available to all inspectors with just a very simple search. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, I've had that happen to me when I replaced the panel on a very full panel and a wire pushed out to the outside edge of the cabinet where it was pinched between the panel screw and the cabinet housing. As soon as I put the screw in and started tightening it up it cut through the insulation and all hell broke loose. The resulting pop and flash scared the living crap out of everyone. Needless to say, the screw was no more and the screw hole and edge of the cabinet got a little bit melted. Fortunately, I had extra screws in my vehicle and a few pal nuts and wire nuts that I keep around for furnaces or mishaps. I used a wire nut to repair the severed wire and once the pal nut was on and the new screw was in and the cover on, the "hole" in the edge of the cover was, to mine and my wallet's great relief, fully and safely covered. It's a good thing my IBS wasn't flaring up that morning or I would definitely have had to excuse myself to go and rinse out my undershorts. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, I've had that happen to me when I replaced the panel on a very full panel and a wire pushed out to the outside edge of the cabinet where it was pinched between the panel screw and the cabinet housing. As soon as I put the screw in and started tightening it up it cut through the insulation and all hell broke loose. The resulting pop and flash scared the living crap out of everyone. Needless to say, the screw was no more and the screw hole and edge of the cabinet got a little bit melted. Fortunately, I had extra screws in my vehicle and a few pal nuts and wire nuts that I keep around for furnaces or mishaps. I used a wire nut to repair the severed wire and once the pal nut was on and the new screw was in and the cover on, the "hole" in the edge of the cover was, to mine and my wallet's great relief, fully and safely covered. It's a good thing my IBS wasn't flaring up that morning or I would definitely have had to excuse myself to go and rinse out my undershorts. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

ROFLMAO !!! M.

TiR1. Stuart said that there are two ways to go; one can purchase a $10K camera, and still be able to get adequate photos for what we do without knowing much about the technical aspects of how to take best advantage of the camera; or, one can spend less on the camera and spend the difference on becoming more educated about the process and the best way to use the equipment. At my table we had a TiR32, a Ti32 and a Ti25. I think that the TiR32 is the same one that Kurt has. The Ti32 sand Ti25 are more appropriate for electro-mechanical applications but they still provided some pretty good detail. However, the guy directly in front and slightly to the left of me was using a TiR1 and I was amazed at the clarity of the images and the detail he was getting; even from about 25 feet away from the target. When Stuart opined that if he had to choose a less-than-top-of-the-shelf model he'd choose the TiR1, that cinched it for me. Don't you mean the most broke inspector of the quarter? - Sept 11 - ASHIWW Fall seminar (Only went 1 day - $215)- Sept 18 - New Computer (I only paid for part of this; it was a birthday gift . My wife and a good friend split the cost) - November - New Digital Camera - W90 (Yeah, only after I told all of you about it and let several of you beta-test it for me first.) - November - New Protimeter Surveymaster (After a couple dozen repairs and 11 years, she bit the dust - Now my wife is complaining about the new model and wants me to find her an older model.) - November - New SureTest (The other is on it's last legs and looks like a WWI veteran - figured I'd replace it before it went bottoms-up). - December - Four new tires for the truck (That's the trouble with AWD, one flat means 4 new tires - even purchasing mid-quality they were over $700) - December - Carson Dunlap 3-day Commercial Inspection Course ($1695 - Ouch! - Since I'm not an ASHIWW member, they got me for an extra $200.) - About to have a new IR Hopefully, this is an anomaly and I'll never see such a chaotic series of expenses right after the other again; but I won't be holding my breath.Anyway, if I go bankrupt I suppose I can stack this stuff around me in my pup tent under the overpass and use it as insulation. I mentioned this to Stuart. I'm going to send him the information about how to get approved by the state for credit; but I don't know if they're motivated to do that. He points out that Fluke isn't actually in the business of training but have formed a strategic partnership with Snell Group. Hi Ezra, I dunno. I think before I spent a day in the car just to get to a class, I'd contact Fluke and see if they are working with an organization nearer to you that's not shown on their calendar of events and will be presenting in your area in the near future. Still, I suppose you could make it a fun trip and stop in at Barack and Michelle's house for tea while you're there and give that young fellow some words of wisdom. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I stopped buying disposable coveralls years ago. My experience was that they tore too easily - usually at the zippers - and were a royal pain to get in and out of. Long ago, I bought some XXL coveralls at Sears. I carry about 3-4 sets at a time in my vehicle and can put them on over everything and sew up holes when/if necessary. As I'm coming up out of the crawls, I just peel them off and turn them inside out like the skin off a banana, while I'm still standing in the hatchway, roll them up and emerge nearly as clean and dry as when I went in (Unless, of course, I discover the hard way that there's water under the vapor barrier). A few diaper wipes to wipe down my face, neck, ears and hands and I'm back in business and smelling as nice as a baby - literally. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

An article in the January 16th edition of USA today discusses the emergence of prefabricated homes as a greener more cost efficient method of building homes that may see an uptick in popularity during the nation's economic recovery. To read the entire article click here.

Nope, But I plan to have one of those in my bag of tricks within the next month or so. I'd pretty much made up my mind to do it by the end of the Carson Dunlop Commercial Inspection Course but today's seminar was enough to put me past the tipping point. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike