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There isn't any such prohibition. The requirement is only that the ignition source be elevated. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Folks are warmly welcomes here all the time. Welcome, pull up a chair, pull your shoes off and lay out your socks by the fire so they can dry out. Ask the barkeep to toss you a cool one. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi All, Well A.O. Smith never responded to me so I called them today. I sort of had to because I'd had one of those new AO Smith serial numbers like Gary's above. They explained that they bought State Water Heaters in 2008 and that now that factory is making some of their residential products and is using the State serial number sequence; namely that the first two numbers are the year followed by a two digit week code. That means 0805XXXXXXX is the fifth week of 2008 or February 2008. I've amended the water heater date code chart to reflect this change and have posted it in both word and pdf format. The links are below. If you are unable to download the links, go directly to the library to the first plumbing category and you'll find them there. https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum ... oto&id=134 https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum ... oto&id=131 ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

No, but her married old sister has been promoted from dishwasher to chief cook and bottle washer. Nyuk, nyuk!

Which once again gives me the opening to post the link to Purdue University's online Private Water Supply Course. Folks this is a very worthwhile course. It's a little bit clunky to use, because it was put together when the net was still relatively young but the information there is first rate. Take a Saturday off and work your way through it or tackle it an hour a night for a week to ten days. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Around here they mostly don't have any step. Must be a regional thing. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nope, You mentioned Dr. Rose and it just so happens that JLC Update revived one of his articles this morning so I thought I'd point it out to folks. Only oldtimers that I'm noticing is when I look in the mirror. Very stylish hat, Kurt; it makes you look like that Peter Sellers guy. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Ahem, https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum ... C_ID=12897 ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

This month, JLC Update featured a reprint of a previous article by industry researcher William B. Rose on roof and attic ventilation. It's worth a revisit if you need a refresher on principles of roof and attic ventilation. If you're not a JLC Online member, you might have to pay for access to this article but it will be worth it. If you aren't a member, sign up; the cost-to-benefit ratio of being a JLC Online member is huge - especially for a home inspector. To go to the article, click here.

Which probably means none of the homes in the complex has insulation over the ceilings. Right? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi All, Received this from Jim Simmons (User name Mr. Electric) today. Enjoy OT - OF!!! M. A few new Zinsco pictures for you. Busing is badly damaged. See attached - There are still some electricians that don't think there is a problem with this brand!!!!!!! -- Jim P. Simmons Mr. Electric Click to Enlarge 36.35 KB Click to Enlarge 60.26 KB Click to Enlarge 60.44 KB Click to Enlarge 58.38 KB

Got windows 7? It's built right into the program; get a jump drive to store stuff on and you're all set. I have a 500Gb Western Digital Essential backup that seems to be doing the job fine. It set me back about $65 and was dirt simple to install and set up. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I hate to say it; but perhaps, just perhaps, if you guys in Cali hadn't beat back licensing for so long you would have had a board made up of inspectors by now that had written laws to regulate your profession that provided you some degree of insulation from that kind of crap. Just sayin' ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jim is right. He was selling wolf tickets. No engineer will back him up. Go here: https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum ... ebunk,myth ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Click to enlarge Thanks to Preston Sandlin Home Inspection Carolina.

Have you been thinking about making the leap to IR but been dragging your feet because of cost? Fluke is offering an incentive right now that might just help you overcome your reservations. Anyone that purchases a Fluke Ti32 or TiR32 between August 23 and October 31st 2010 is eligible to receive an accessory training value package free. Purchasers will be given the choice of one of four options - each valued at more than $900. Option #1 - A telephoto infrared lens kit. Option #2 - A wide-angle infrared lens kit. Option #3 - A TI Accessory/Training Kit A that includes the following items: Introduction to Thermography Principles Book TI Car Charger TI Visor Tripod Mounting Base 3 on-line training modules conducted by The Snell Group* Bronze Instrument Care Plan (third year warranty extension) Option #4 - A TI Accessory/Training Kit B that includes the following items: Introduction to Thermography Principles Book TI Car Charger TI Visor Tripod Mounting Base Snell Level 1 Training class credit of $600.00 provided by Fluke's training partner, The Snell Group. In order to take advantage of this offer, purchasers will have to download a mail-in rebate form and submit it to Fluke within 30 days of purchase along with the original sales receipt (Make a copy for your records). Contact TIJ's sponsor, Home Inspector Essentials, to order your imager now. Looks like it's time to go IR, Boys !!!

Hi All, Had a high-end condo the other day heated by hydronic forced-air heaters (Bio-Radiant) plumbed with Kitec pipe. I've read up on the problems with the fittings in Texas, New-Mexico, Nevada and Southern California but I didn't find anything other than a map showing Washington state as being one of the states where class action lawsuits have been filed to indicate that there's ever been an issue in Washington. The system has been working fine for a decade and I didn't see any issues with any of the fittings, such as the black spots described on some of the sites about the issues with Kitec pipe fittings. As we learned with polybutylene and some of the other product lawsuits, what happens in other states doesn't always happen in our own. I plan to contact Northwest Mechanical in the morning. They are rock stars in the hydronic heating design, engineering and installation industry so I think if anyone will know they will. I'm going to ask them what they know about the issue and whether there have been any issues in this region. In the meantime, I'm looking for any brethren with verifiable information that there's ever been an issue with the product here in the northwest. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I don't know much about any of that; however, I should think that, since producing test instruments is what they do, Fluke has probably already anticipated that and accounted for it in the design. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, In case you didn't figure it out; Dave gets those quotes from various places around the net, contacts the person that made the post and then requests permission to quote him or her in his article. He's not a home inspector and he doesn't purport to be one; he's simply cobbling together an article based on opinions of various inspectors. It's the same M.O. used by reporters everywhere and those in the profession the reporters write about are rarely fully on-board with what makes it into print. It's a shame he hadn't quoted some of Jim's language; had he done that, we wouldn't be seeing that stuff now. It's a good topic though, it gets people talking about stuff that really needs to be talked about. What bothers me about the article is that it's primarily about whether or not to cut a seal and deal with a little bit of insulation and doesn't really speak to the issue of actually entering and traversing attics. There are so many inspectors that won't even get off a stepladder because they've got some kind of goofy idea in their head that walking through an attic on the lower chord of trusses is somehow going to damage the building and make them liable for any number of unspecified issues. It's always bothered me that these inspectors don't reconcile their position with the fact that the cable guy, Cat V cable installer, telephone guy, plumber, electrician, satelite installer, alarm system guy, HVAC tech and any number of other tradesman, who are paid far less than they are and are not considered to be "experts," are easily able to move through those areas without causing damage or endangering themselves. It's quite the contradication. When we were putting together the SOP here, a few of us on the board wanted inspectors who make it a policy not to climb any ladders, go into attics, go up onto any roof no matter what the plane or surface, and never to go into a crawlspace if they must actually "crawl" , to let prospective clients know about their policy upon first phone contact. We reasoned that a prospective client will want to know what not to expect before arriving at the inspection site when it will probably be too late for them to cancel and schedule another inspector. You would have thought by the reaction of some at the board members the day we discussed that proposed language that we'd suggested that all inspectors had to wear a pink Dumbo cap with a flower in it, 'cuz the majority of the board didn't want anything to do with full up-front disclosure. We had to remove that language from the SOP before it could gain approval. Oh well, maybe someday one of these non-attic-roof-crawl inspecting guys will have a serious issue as a result of not inspecting these areas that will cause the board to re-think it's position. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Kenmore, WA - October 19, 2010 Ever been frustrated trying to get the jaws of a clamp-on meter to work in tight places? Fluke has just debuted perhaps the ideal clamp meter for home inspection use - the Fluke 376 with iFlex. The Fluke 376 looks like any conventional clamp meter until the user needs to get the jaws around a hard-to-reach cable. That's when the Fluke 376 allows the inspector to get up close and personal, by simply connecting the iFlex accessory - essentially a thin flexible cable that can be threaded completely around the conductor to be read - in order to get the reading. To learn more about this remarkable new device, click here >>. For an interactive product demo, click here >>.

By David Brauner - Editor, Working RE Magazine Fritz Kelly, inspecting for 12 years in Arizona, has a problem common to inspectors: “I declined to go into an attic the other day. The access was in the master bedroom closet, full of clothes, etc. When I attempted to open the scuttle cover, it was obvious there were about 15 inches of blown in insulation covering it. I was able to access another portion of the attic so I knew approximately how much insulation was up there,â€

Why? I think your's is the first question we've had about cooling towers on here in nearly 9 years. We're mostly home inspectors here. Posting about a cooling tower here holds about as much interest for most of us as a copy of War and Peace written in Mongolian. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

No Sweat, I'm busy lobbying the KK to get one but I might have to wait a while. I usually buy the bottom-dollar computers but this time she and a buddy teamed up to buy me something that was a whole lot more dinero, so I have to wait to get another new toy. Sigh. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Powertoys resizer doesn't work with Windows 7? Since when? I just got 7 a couple of weeks ago, went right over to the powertoys site, uploaded the resizer, installed it and it works fine. This is your photo resized. Click to Enlarge 70.23 KB

The thread went south and became contentious I've pruned it to where the basic question is answered and locked it. Keep it friendly folks, nobody wants to read a vitriolic thread. OT - OF!!! M.