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Uh, want to explain that for the benefit of those of us who aren't so erudite? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Agreed, it's a thin veneer - you can see the thickness of one of the stones in profile in the photo. Yes, the MVMA document will clearly show them how it is supposed to be; just remember that the MVMA says that document is not a steadfast rule - it is a best practices guidelines. I've talked directly to folks at MVMA about that document. They still defer to manufacturer's own rules; so, if it were me I'd cite the issues I see relative to it being contrary to the best practices recommended by the MVMA in their guidelines, but point out that where a manufacturer states that it's fine - Contractor stated that the stone manufacturer said specific weeps are not necessary when gaps are intentionally left in the mortar between stones as gaps serve as weeps - he cant expect much help from the manufacturer. It sure does look like a manufactured stone product though. Interesting that the contractor referred to the producer as "manufacturer" too. I'd remind him that I'm only the family doctor and that the contractor and the manufacturer are supposed to be the specialty surgeon and the medical device manufacturer; if they aren't budging in their position, despite my insistence that it's incorrect, this will ultimately end up being a roll of the dice and he'll need to make up his own mind as to whose opinion he goes with at this point. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Against my better judgment, I looked up some products for you. The first link is a product that allegedly works on a wood shingle roof. The second is a whole search string of products. http://www.elastomericroofcoating.com/ http://www.google.com/search?q=clear+ro ... ss&ie=&oe= I can understand the spot you're in with an owner who has unrealistic expectations; but if you attempt to use this spray on acrylic stuff you'd better have a lawyer draw up a full disclaimer/release of liability advising the client that it's your recommendation that he re-shingle the roof properly; and that you're applying the stuff only because he refuses to accept reality. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Please re-save the photo as a jpeg and then rename the file without any spaces or special figures and reattach it and it will display. I agree with Jim, there is no solution other than to do it right. You can download a free copy of the Cedar Bureau's shake and shingle installation manual at the link below. http://www.cedarbureau.org/installation ... manual.pdf There is a low slope technique but in order to fix that roof now and use shingles on a low pitched roof you'd need to remove the cover and then install a latticework of nailers over a bituminous membrane and the do the cover over. I'm just curious; how in the world could a roofer take three months to install a cover and then in all of that time never once realize that the roof was below the minimum allowable pitch - especially down under where jobs that large are usually monitored by professional surveyors? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Maybe the judge can sentence him to inspect crawlspaces for home inspectors for the next ten years. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'd like to be the judge that sentences him. I'm thinking a pair of vise grips and..... ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Seattle Times/September 29, 2010/The Associated Press Former Michigan State basketball star Jay Vincent pleaded guilty Tuesday to two crimes linked to a $2 million Internet scam, a stunning fall for a homegrown sports hero who also played in the NBA. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Former Michigan State basketball star Jay Vincent pleaded guilty Tuesday to two crimes linked to a $2 million Internet scam, a stunning fall for a homegrown sports hero who also played in the NBA. To read more, click here.

Or, he missed it and, despite his alleged creds, isn't as competent as he'd like people to believe. I've seen some inspectors with pretty impressive cred miss stuff that I would have thought a first day home inspection student would have known about. One thing can't be discounted; if the OP is giving us the true story, he's not stepping up to the plate. In this business it's critical that one responds quickly to any alleged screw up. If one doesn't respond quickly, the issue just keeps compounding itself, as is happening here. He needs to take care of business. If he doesn't intend to make it right, he needs to grow a pair and tell the OP. If he intends to fix it, he needs to get off his ass do it. This kind of thing - avoiding responsibility - reflects on every home inspector. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sadly, Our resident pool expert and moderator, Norm Sage, passed on years ago. We still maintain his profile as a moderator though. I'd be willing to let someone take over as primary moderator for that forum but they'll have to share it with Norm. Norm's position remains. He might not be physically here but he's still here in spirit. Click to Enlarge 6.41 KB ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike P.S. FWIW, I have a CD around here someplace with a ton of pool defect photos on it that Norm compiled plus a lesson plan. They're here. Finding them? Well, that's another story altogether; but push come to shove I can probably find the CD without too much difficulty but that stack of milk crates full of documents will take a long time to sift through.

Hi, So far, I haven't experienced any issues. When I click on one of those Word 2003 reports the report displays properly, edits properly and everything works fine. The only difference is a comment in parenthesis at the file name that says it's running in Word 2003 compatibility mode and it does that all automatically. I've noticed that there are settings in the word program that appear to allow you to change the default word program to an earlier version. I haven't dinked around with that. Thanks everyone for your suggestions. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike P.S. Just downloaded Inspect Express V4 - Wow, the elves at DevWave have sure been busy since the last time I downloaded any updates 5 - 6 years ago. Very impressive. There is so much new stuff in the program that learning it all at once, versus having learned it gradually over the past 5 - 6 years - is going to take me some time. I'll probably cheat and overwrite old reports until I've figured out what all the new buttons and icons are for.

Robert, Check your email. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Sure, The previous owner should have repaired it and the inspector should have listed it in the report as a deficiency that needs repair. Notify him in writing that you have complied with the terms of the pre-inspection contract by giving him an opportunity to come out, examine his oversight and make it right. Tell him that, since he hasn't made good on his end, and since winter is approaching and you have kids and need heat, you'll be contacting an HVAC firm to fix that flue and will be sending him the invoice. Tell him that if he doesn't intend to pay for the repairs to let you know now so you can save time by filing a complaint against him in small claims court now instead of later. Sign up for Angie's List, write a review of his services and send him a copy of the draft that you intend to post on Angie's List about his company when/if he doesn't live up to his end of your contract. While you are at it, send him a draft of the complaint that you intend to send to New Jersey's home inspection licensing authorities. That should do it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Dunno, What difference are we talking about. I'm pretty sure I've seen 3/4-inch ipe installed with those systems around here. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

I'd put it down with one of the new concealed fastener systems used by deck guys that allows it to freely expand and crack without splitting it or allowing it to cup. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Have you been sniffin' Drano, my brother? What about kids getting burned or asphyxiated by those flues? I've never seen a B-vent terminate a couple of feet above grade (with the exception of the occasional DIY job). And what about burying the flues? I Googled and couldn't find anything definitive, but those things aren't allowed to be installed below ground, are they? I've never seen installation instructions that describe how to install subterranean B-vents. Oh, I suppose a kid could touch one one time and singe his finger and from that point on wouldn't hang around them. We have direct vent fireplace flues all over the place around here and I can't remember every hearing or reading about any kind being grieviously burned by one. They probably don't even get that hot; I've touched plenty of them and have never been burned. I've seen kids playgrounds with sewer vent stacks surfacing right in the middle of them too; I can't remember ever hearing about a kid dying out on the playground because he'd inhaled sewer gases. The burning thing aside, once that gas hits the outside air it dissipates pretty quickly. what's a kid going to do - go over to one of these throw a garbage bag around it and then stick his head in the garbage bag along with the flue and inhale deeply? I don't think so. There are bibs around the base of each of those. Those bibs are probably integrated into whatever type of waterproofing has been applied to the top of that bunker under that gravel. Those bibs take the brunt of the weather and whatever else touches them; not the B vent. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Very instructive video here about sanding hardwood floors. I'm sure we can all learn a lot from it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike [utube] " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344">

By the way, I've got a whole drawer full of wolf tickets if anyone is looking to make an investment. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Back to the original thread, I'm not so certain that a tall chimney would have been absolutely required in any jurisdiction. As long as they were far enough away from the windows and doors, I think that it would be fine to have those vents come up out of a bunker like that. As for the deck over the top, though; that's just plain silly. The acidity in that exhaust gas is probably going to cause a host of problems with that wood and any metal fasteners, and the gas is liable to spread out under that deck and rise through that deck over a much broader area than it would have if the deck weren't there. It might be entirely possible to be sitting there in a deck chair and literally be surrounded by air that's heavily laden with C.O.. Someone should get the Darwin award for this one. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Kurt, It isn't names and places, it's methodology. It'd be like giving a blueprint to people we don't want to have that kind of info. Fun exercise though. We train our guys to take out infrastructure and to know how to do it for specific lengths of time; then, because we couldn't exactly go to Russia and conduct research and recon on the ground there against infrastructure targets there, they cut us loose to do the recon and planning on similar targets here. Very stimulating, very challenging exercise and a whole lot of fun. I still chuckle when I think of the ATT guy that was giving a group of "engineering students" and their professor (Me, I was about 15 years older than the next oldest of them)" a tour of one of their nodes. He suddenly paused in mid-sentence, looked around and then to me and said, "Hey, I coulda swore there were 9 of you guys when you came in here. Is anyone missing?" I just smiled and said, "Well if there was, one of us would be strapped to the hood of the Wagoneer on the way home," and we went on with the tour while #9 was unobtrusively poking around every little nook and cranny in the place. It's always pretty cool to get paid to have fun. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Thanks, I might have to rethink this backup drive. I'm really not technically astute and I'm scared to death that I'm going to somehow cause all that data to get locked inside that thing in encrypted form and I'll be totally screwed. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Is the systems room in a bunker?That's my take on it. Small thread drift. One of the coolest places I've been back in the day was out to an ATT communication center. The only thing above ground was a bunch of air cooled Liebert glycol condensors. After going down 4 flight of stairs, into the earth, you came upon a huge steel door much like a bank vault. It was built to withstand a 1 megaton blast at ground zero. Once inside, the whole communication was built below grade along with living quarters for the techs - with food, water and fresh air going through scrubbers. It was built in case of an attack, by the USSR, in the cold war. Boy, that description brings back some memories, Coincidentally, when I went through the Q course at Ft. Bragg in 1989 my team's infrastructure assignment was to figure out how to take down all of ATT's southeastern grid, including backup grids and then relatively new fiber-optic grids for a period of not less than six weeks. Those bunker nodes you're referring to figured prominently in that plan. The teams do their research and then sit down to work out a plan. Then they have to present the plan to a visiting full bird. He liked our solution the best of all infrastructure assignments given out to the class and we got some decent kudos from the cadre for some out-of-the-box thinking. Too bad revealing specifics would be considered a threat to national security 'cuz it would have made any of us a fortune as an action flick. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Thanks for the tips. Yeah, I don't do much beyond writing reports in word, invoices in Excel and surfing the web - don't know how. I don't need any spyware or malware or anti-virus ware though. I subscribe to a service that took all of the conflicting crap off my box, installed a good reliable program and is available 24/7/365 for assistance. As soon as my buddy got done yesterday, we called them and a guy logged onto my computer remotely at 1:00 a.m., cleaned all the crap out, set everything up and organized things. We ended up with a glitch with the new Western Digital 1/2-Tb backup drive. My buddy thought he'd backed everything up onto it but apparently he had not. Worse, the new box wouldn't recognize the BU drive when they rebooted. The tech worked diligently on it from about 2:00 a.m. to 6:10 a.m., figured out that my buddy hadn't set it up for a 64 bit computer and hadn't updated it properly so he did it all and got her up and running like a Swiss watch. I grabbed a jump drive and downloaded what I absolutely need onto it and transferred that data to the new box. I'm going to have my buddy pull that old hard drive and plug it into this one. When I do that, I can get to the other not-so-critical stuff that's still in there. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Well, Last weekend was my birthday and my wife and a friend got together and bought me a new puter box. It's got the windows 7 on it and a newer version of word and a little over 6Gb of ram. He came over last night and hooked everything up for me and showed me how to back up my data on the old box and move it over to the new one. So far, it seems to do the net thing faster but it's taking me longer to write my reports 'cuz I'm struggling to figure out how the newer version of word works. I'm hoping that this thing will be fast enough that I can get one of those voice recognition things and maybe give my arthritic hands a break. Any tips from the brethren about good-to-have stuff for these new boxes? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's a German owned company, I've got plenty of friends in Germany. I can tell you with authority that Germans are both fascinated and horrified by the way Americans, for the smallest thing, sue each other - especially large firms - in what seems to them to be a never-ending quest to hit the big payola. They'd probably rather go to the expense of the recall than to deal with the bad publicity and loss of business that a CPSC product defect lawsuit and fine would bring. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Robert, I think Bill probably has it. They probably will come off...with a lot of difficulty. I've run across them a few times and the caps felt like they were a press fit. Once I got them to move about a quarter of an inch they slid right off. My nose told me the rest. Where are they in relation to the house? Uphill, downhill, on the same plane? If they were uphill, which would be weird for a septic system without a pump setup, they might be cleanouts for a curtain drain system. Had one of those the other day. Wish I'd taken pictures of it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike