hausdok

Not one word of what you typed matters in lawsuits like this one.The case will certainly be educational to follow. I sure hope that, in the end, whatever seems realistic and fair is what happens. It would be nice if fact gets separated from fiction and it doesn't become a matter of the best BSer wins.BS has nothing to do with it; if you have enough money to keep paying a lawyer, you can usually grind the other side down even if you aren't right. When's the last time you heard about a poor person suing someone for mold exposure? Go to the poor part of town and start going through apartment buildings and you'll find building after building with mold growing and people completely oblivious to it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Yeah, I've been following this one for about three weeks now. I'd sure like to see what the spore counts and species are for the types of mold that she says she's been exposed to; so I could compare it to the average spore count per species we have in the air everybody breathes 24/7/365 out here. If the count were less or comparable to what everyone here in the western corridor breathes every day all day, I wonder how her lawyer and allergist would explain it away? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

No, no time warp, that is a 2003 article. I wrote the lead-in wrong. It didn't come from this months JLC, it came from this month's JLC Update, which is their newsletter and from the part of the newsletter they call JLC Archive. Good catch; my apologies for the error. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, If I understood Robert correctly, that deck is nailed through the T1-11 directly into the rim board of the main floor platform (Assuming this is box sill construction and not plank-on-frame). If that's the case, I think Robert's idea of a supporting beam and posts close to the house will work as long as the beam and posts are anchored through the siding to the framing of that lower level and the joists are solidly tied to the top of the beam. If it were me, I'd add blocking between the joists on top of the beam to stiffen up that house side connection and resist rotational force. Some more info for the client here, Robert. That, combined with diagonal bracing on all three sides, will probably keep it on the house until it rots completely away, which brings up the question of rot at that house side connection. This being T1-11, I'm guessing that there isn't any kind of flashing or cant board above that house side connection and they're relying on the grooves in the T1-11 to keep that dry. If it's on the east or north side of the house and they have the typical roof overhang that most splits have here, it'll take a friggin hurricane to wet that area, but if it's on the south or west side, they've probably already got rot in that rim from punching all of those nails through there and giving water a way in. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Kenmore, WA - August 24, 2010 This month's issue of JLC Update has a well-illustrated article by Cheryl Anderson, Frank Woeste and Joe Loferski about various ways to properly secure a deck ledger to the side of a home. This article is a must-read for anyone in this business and the smart home inspector will keep a few copies in his vehicle for those times when powerful ammunition is needed to quickly shut down an aggressive listing agent or builder that is trying to slough off sub-standard deck building practices on your client.

All home inspectors that are complaining because they are in licensed states and are being required to get somewhere between 40 and 120 hours of training, and perhaps must spend a week doing inspections with a more experienced inspector and then sit for the NHIE, need to read this for a reality check and thank their lucky stars they aren't trying to get into the electrical field in the State of Michigan. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi Mark You might check out the Hud Guide for Foundation and Support Systems for Manufactured Homes in TIJ's Library. Go to the menu bar above, pass your cursor over "Library", choose "File Downloads" and then scroll down until you find it. Once you click on it, depending on how fast your connection is, it might take a long time to load. I'm on Comcast cable and it took my computer nearly five minutes with a white screen before it finally displayed. You won't see this system described there but you will find a very extensive list of manufactured home support system sources in the back. If you send out an email to a list of these companies along with a photo, I think you'll probably discover that one of those firms makes this system. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, Yeah, I agree with Jim; I'm thinking either the second week or the second month of 2002. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Olympia, WA - Monday, August 23, 2010 The Washington State Department of Licensing Real Estate Division today announced the appointment by Gov. Christine Gregoire of Paul Duffau, proprietor of Deffau Enterprises Inc., Asotin, WA, to the Washington State Home Inspectors Licensing Advisory Board. "We are very pleased Mr. Deffau has accepted this appointment as the member from eastern Washington; and we are looking forward to his first appearance as a member of the board at the next quarterly full board meeting on September 14th," said Rhonda Myers, the Department of Licensing Home Inspector Program Manager. The Washington State Home Inspector Licensing Advisory board consists of seven professional home inspectors appointed by the governor who advise the Director, Department of Licensing concerning the administration of the home inspector licensing law. Of the appointments to the board, six must be actively engaged in the practice of home inspections immediately prior to appointment to the board and one must be currently teaching in a home inspector education program. Insofar a possible, the board must be composed of members that generally represent the geographic distribution of home inspectors in Washington State; and no more than two members of the board may be members of a particular national home inspector association or organization. Deffau has been appointed as the representative from eastern Washington State. Deffau owns and operates the National Property Inspections franchise for southeastern Washington and north central Idaho and has been a home inspector since 2004. According to Duffau's profile on the NPI website, Duffau has extensive training in a wide variety of fields and is a Certified Special Inspector with the International Code council, an Energy Rater with the State of Idaho, a Structural Pest Inspector for the State of Washington and an Infrared Thermographer.

Not necessarily true, Some stair makers of pre-fabricated stairways intentionally build with tapered stopped dados in housed stringers. The treads and risers are then locked into place with glued wedges. The idea is that if the stairway is installed where one side is open there won't be any fasteners showing, whereas the other side of the carriage - the side against a wall, will be secured to the adjacent framing. Those wedges sometimes dry out and shrink or split and need to be rendewed. What you are seeing might be a perfectly acceptable stair building technique. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hah, I definitely get points for best trash talking here. [%|] ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, If the city already has anti-backwater valves at the meter it is eliminated. No? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hah, smack down? Wimpenbuler? Ain't gonna happen. The guy eats whey for breakfast. He comes near me with a baseball bat and I'm gonna turn it into an oversize tampon and put it so far up his butt that a dentist will have to remove it bit by bit with a sawzall. Ooh Yeah! ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Cattywompus OT - OF!!! M.

Ah, He misses it again. I'll never win accolades as the great communicator. I should have used a better example than gas lines 'cuz they're too close to this issue. Doesn't matter; I'm objecting to the idea of writing things up that we personally don't like or think are dumb, that are not prohibited by any rule that one can cite, and then using imagined scenarios to justify the writup. That's what bugs me. "Just 'cuz" is not a valid argument and if you're going to write stuff up it should be for valid reasons. I just don't see the danger in this one. Now, if I'd heard last week that some lady down the street had hooked her toe on a gas pipe in a hearth, fallen and broken her hip, maybe I might be inclined to agree that this is worth writing up and would be the champion of the trip and fall argument, but not based on imagined trips, or imagined axes falling on the pipe, etc.. By the way, betcha a case of Martinelli's Sparkling Cidar that's a stainless steel gas connector. I haven't seen aluminum one's used in years. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nope, not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that, IMO, writing this up is making a mountain out of a molehill. I think it was the very first response where Granny tripping over the pipe was brought up; from there, the list of possibles has grown by leaps and bounds. Where does it end? It wasn't so long ago there was a discussion on here about that particular type of ceramic log set and how dangerous it was to have the gas control valve and the gas line inside the firebox of the fireplace. The list of things that could go wrong just kept growing and growing. Well, if memory serves, the OP on that thread wasn't acquainted with the set and was, like in this case, just imagining all sorts of things that were going to go wrong. I didn't see an issue with it; I doubt that anyone out here where those log sets are a dime a dozen did. Sure, the pipe and elbow sticking up out of that hearth is a crap install and looks like hell; and I wouldn't like it any more than the next guy, but I think folks are over-thinking this one. Have you looked behind a gas dryer or a gas stove lately? When little Sally knocks her favorite shirt off the top of the nicely folded clothes into the gap behind the dryer and goes to fish it out with a broom handle, don't you think it's possible that she's liable to hit that flexible connector, kink it, break it and blow herself up? Guess we had better start writing those up. How about the kitchen stove? When Gramma drops her change on the kitchen floor and it rolls under the stove, what's going to happen when she starts shoving that broom under there? Better write those up too. Well, that might be true if I'd even considered it a "risk"; I don't. You are right; the job isn't about risk assessment; but neither is it about contriving wild safety scenarios in order to justify calling something we think is a piece of crap. The same thing happens with CSST; although with less regularity now that folks have become accustomed to seeing the stuff. Still, every few months....... Now whose being disingenuous? You know very well they will all decry it and you also know very well that if/when the pipefiltter calls them up to complain that some a**hole home inspector wrote it up, they'll probably take his side rather than risk losing his business. Exercising; also exercising my prerogative to voice my own opinion about it. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

OK, I guess the next time I see a fireplace tools stand on the hearth I had better write it up as a trip/fall hazard. Should probably also write up that darned metal thingy the firewood is lying in. Grandma likes to hug the walls as she walks and she's sure to trip over all of that stuff. While I'm at it, I need to get those radiators removed and put somewhere else, and then there's that...... The other day I had a customer that wanted me to write up the fact that there weren't any kiddie bars surrounding the front of a gas fireplace 'cuz his toddler will be able to touch the glass of the fireplace and burn his widdle hands. It's equipped with an ignitor so there isn't any 24/7/365 pilot; the only way a kid can get burned on it is if it's on and someone isn't watching the kid and saying something like, "No! Don't touch. Owee!" I asked him if he had some kind of physical limitation that was going to prevent him from grabbing his kid and keeping him away or would stop him from simply turning off the gas valve and not using the fireplace when the kid is out of bed and wandering around unsupervised. I pointed out that I hadn't seen any evidence that the people that lived there had small children so there obviously wasn't a need for any safety bars. Then I told him where the nearest hearth and home store was and suggested he stop by and see if they sell any kind of child-safety bars or whatever. If they do, I said, he can make it his very first new homeowner's project. Do we really need to be writing stuff because we think people in general are too dumb to not screw something up? Is that the job now? ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Thank you Douglas. That was helpful. I haven't completed this report yet, and in light of all of the developing info and insights, I'm really tempted to go back out and get the ATs open. It's a vacant foreclosure, so it's not a problem. I believe I'll do that in the morning, so stay tuned and we'll see what gives. Pick up a little can of liquid wrench on the way. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Jerry Llewellyn was my first permanent party Platoon Sergeant when I first landed at the 118th MP Co.(Abn) back in 1976. I've been keeping in touch with him for the past few years via the internet. He just sent me the following photos and commentary: Guess what was found just south of Canton. Near a new KB homes subdivision. Click to Enlarge 52 KB 15 foot Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake. Largest ever caught on record. Click to Enlarge 29.45 KB After seeing this, I did a little research, and learned the following: One bite from a snake this large contains enough venom to kill over 40 full grown men. The head alone is larger than the hand of a normal sized man. This snake was probably alive when George H. W. Bush was President. A bite from those fangs would equal being penetrated by two 1/4 inch screwdrivers. Click to Enlarge 26.6 KB A snake this size could easily swallow a 2 year-old child. A snake this size has an approximately 5 and 1/2 foot accurate striking distance. (The distance for an average size Rattlesnake is about 2 feet) Judging by the size of the snake, it is estimated to weigh over 170 pounds. How much do you weigh? ------------------------ Love that guy. He can probably eat at least 60 rats before he even begins to notice that he's getting indigestion. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

It's been 37 years but that "coal" kind of looks like the coke we used to burn in the 55 gallon drums in the middle of our shop in the winter to stay warm in the Turner & Seymour foundry in Torrington, CT back in 1973. Why would you need a larger flue for a gas fireplace. If they've got adequate draw with what they've got? Making it wider isn't necessarily going to help, especially if they are relying on venturi effect to increase draw through a narrower opening at the base of that throat. Plus some of those top of the flue dampers draw very strongly too. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hmm, 98028 is 27 x 25 = 675 + 50 = 725 - I'm kinda liking Chad's formula; it's too bad customers around here probably won't. OT - OF!!! M.

I don't see how any wholesaler or vender of chinese drywall would willingly acknowledge to anyone other than perhaps their own attorney that they actually sold chinese drywall. Unless they're couillon. Marc I agree, just calling someone that just randomly answers a phone is not the most scientific way of figuring out if a particular house has tainted GWB. Even if they did ship bad GWB, they would not tell you. Heck the person answering the phone probably did not work there 5 years ago, and if he did, was he the one who placed the orders from the supplier? I doubt it. Look to the house to tell the story. If the copper is lightly tarnished, it could be location near the beach. On the other hand, it could be 20 sheets of GWB out of 600 in the whole house. If there is heavy corrosion on copper in the house then it is a possible hazard to people. Regardless of which the building systems are compromised. How would you feel if you bought a new house and had to replace the pipes, HVAC, and structural components every 5 years? Should the buyer be strapped with this higher maintenance requirement? People’s health is another issue all together. Is it like Mold a decade ago? Maybe. Unfortunately, like the video a couple of weeks ago (in another string) about asbestos siding materials in the 40's and 50's it was the miracle product. Today we have a different opinion. Use caution when making the call on Chinese drywall. The repair is strip the house to the studs, replace the copper, and start over. It is a big call, and right now the question is who covers the price. You guys must have horrible phone interview skills if you don't know how to go about asking those questions. Take it from an ex-detective - they'll tell you whether they have or haven't. Lying about it gets them nowhere. Ask the right questions the right way and they will tell you. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Hi, The first thing I would do is call a few of the local drywall suppliers and ask them if they'd imported any during Katrina or since. I know the media has spread around the idea that it has been distributed in 41 states but I think they've grossly exaggerated the actual number of states where it's been. For instance, none of it has ever been sold here and the basis for the press' allegation that it's here in Washington State is based on nothing more than a complaint from someone that had no idea whether they had it or not. It's funny, when people think they see a class-action on the horizon, they pile on left and right hoping to get part of the payout. There are lots of chemicals in new houses that will temporarily affect peoples sinus' and sometimes even one's skin if your very sensitive to it. When someone thinks they have Chinese drywall because their stomach gets queezy or they get an itch they file a complaint that they've been exposed to chinese drywall, 'cuz they're hoping for a payday, and then the local press runs with it and it fuels the rumors - just like the "toxic" mold stories fueled the idea that people are dropping left and right due to mold in homes, when nothing could be further from the truth. If suppliers locally tell you that they sold some of it, then it's probably worth checking out. As far as the toxic levels go, even EPA hasn't figured that out yet. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Nah, Korean television shows aren't broadcast in 3-D yet. Besides, she watches them via the internet on her computer, so it doesn't make sense to purchase an obscenely expensive 3D TV to watch a small selection of 3D movies and broadcasts currently available. By the time 3D movies and shows are commonplace, the price will have dropped waaaaaay down. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike

Reference? I believe that the code changed a few years ago and now double-walled vents are only required in climates where the winter temps are consistently below a certain average. Don't have time to look it up right now but the change has been a royal pain in my keester for the past few years. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike