Chris Bernhardt

While we await Kurts next generation report, would anyone like to share their vision of the future of HI reporting? Links dijour (everything you wanted to know about the problem but was afraid to ask) or just enough explanation to make a decision to pass it onto a repair person, multiple formats? Chris, Oregon

True Be that as it may, why would you set up the misguided client to trip? Thats why I argue that the report should be a list of whats wrong and what to do about it first and then the relative importance of items left as a separate discussion. Chris, Oregon

Important with respect to what? In terms of value? In terms of adequacy? In terms of safety? In terms of habitability? My opinion is no, at least not on the first cut. I believe the report should list what you think is wrong and what to do about it only and that to go further begs a discussion with the client and usually turns into an Oscar speech. Chris, Oregon

I am not against categorizing. If it works for you, and you don't break a sweat trying to do it a la Cramer, that's fine. My experience with how clients actually use the report has convinced me that its benefit is an imagined one. It can confuse and become an obstacle in negotiations just as well as it would be an aid. Chris, Oregon

For what it's worth, I use to categorize the findings mainly because that was traditionally how other inspectors were doing it. But what I found was that unscrupulous realtors and sellers more often than not used it against the buyer. I would routinely find out typically on a reinspect a shaded complaint by the buyer that because I had differentiated the findings that the seller dug their feet in and would do only what I said was major or a safety issue. This led to fretting on my part followed by the advice that Jim K. gave me which took the monkey off my back. The secret is just giving good advice in the manner a la Katen & Jowers. The remarkable thing is that since I changed to a completely Katen findings format, I can't even remember the last time a client or agent hit me up for advice on which items were important or which ones should they hit the seller up for. Chris, Oregon

I don't. I use to fret over trying to figure out how I was going to categorize this thing or that thing until Jim K. gave me that pearl of advice. Make a list of your findings and give your advice. No need to categorize findings in terms of deficiencies or degree of deficiency. Rather than helping the client you end up helping the seller and the realtors. Chris, Oregon

I've never reported dirty moldy window tracks. I was just curious. I see so much silly stuff about liability concerning reporting or not reporting on mold over at inspection news. Chris, Oregon

How much concern do you give mold in window tracks vrs mold on interior wall and ceiling surfaces? Is it really not a concern compared to if it was found on a wall? What would you tell a client if they asked you about moldy window tracks given there was no other mold found on any wall surfaces? Chris, Oregon

Weyerhaeuser made that same pattern too. There is retirement community that I inspect at a lot and for the first couple of years I called it out as masonite until one inspection I found a bunch of spare boards in the attic. When I turned them over they were stamped Weyerhaeuser. Chris, Oregon

What's the clients concern? Is his siding deteriorating? For cases where I don't have a hard code or standard that I can throw against the wall and hope it sticks, I put the recommendation in a form that I learned from Walter Jowers. "If you don't want your (whatever) to (do whatever you don't want it to do), you'll need to (Write in what ever you think is good advice)." Chris, Oregon

It's unsafe. I know I would be falling off the thing even when I'm sober. Code smode! I would advise the client if he didn't want his mother taking a fall when she's leaving, he'll need to tear it out and pour a correct one. Chris, Oregon

Hell yes I ordered one too! I got a bunch of teenagers. Chris, Oregon

In Oregon we keep heading that direction. Our legislation recently made it law that a builder of a new house has to provide the buyer with a maintenance manual. IME it has been a big deal when a buyer later finds their house is uninsurable. I agree it's kinda beyond what we are there to do. My reasoning is if this was my mother, what advice would I give her. Hey mom, the house you want to buy has a fuse panel. That's better than having a FPE or a Zinsco but the problem is having a fuse panel might affect your hazard insurance rates or even getting hazard insurance. You might want to check into that. Chris, Oregon

From a recent report I wrote: Chris, Oregon

The problem is IR is not conclusive evidence of an important problem. To use it usefully and intelligently in the scope of a home inspection you are forced to do a lot more considering, confirming and thinking things out. The discoveries I have made and continue making have given me reason to be more comprehensive in the visual part of the inspection. Thats where all the time for me is getting burned up. There's no turning back. Even if I stopped using IR, my inspection time would not go back down. I'm warning you, if you get a camera and use it, your time will go up even on inspections where you don't use the camera! Chris, Oregon

I'm leaning to just raising my prices and finding another business not real estate dependent to stablize the boat. I just like doing residential full home inspections only. I hate commercial stuff and apartments etc. It's never made sense to me to offer a bunch of add on services and try to sell those. Maybe if I only scheduled them as fill in work between inspections or when an inspection is canceled something like that. Chris, Oregon

I'm facing the same thing. Either up my rates significantly or break the inspection into two levels. I can't sustain the rate I charge now for the service that I now provide even without IR. Thanks to TIJ. Even accounting for the bad market here, my profitability is plummeting. Chris, Oregon

A camera lets say is $5000 - $6000. Your time is worth say $50 - $100 an hour or more. If employing an IR cam in your biz increases your average inspection time 30% and you are already working at your peak number of jobs per week, guess just what happened? Your profitability just went down 30%. In dollars perhaps more than $24,000 a year. The cost of the camera is nothing. It's not using the IR cam that is adding to my time so much, it's all the stuff I have learned and am learning since using it. I have found a number of things that I would have missed. Some that I couldn't find anyway but more concerning things that I could have found if I had known I should be looking and checking. The cost of the camera represents the cost of education. With the $5000 - $6000 in educational costs you will be performing a more comprehensive visual inspection because you now know more about houses and how to figure them out. Chris, Oregon

If you employ an IR camera in general HI work, it will increase your onsite inspection time significantly. The expense of the increased time will swamp what you paid for the expense of the IR cam in less than a year! I think that I have probably increased my use of my moisture meters a 1000% since I started using an IR cam. If you are already spending 3 hours just doing a visual inspection absent any report writing, then you should expect to see another hour added to many inspections. Pre IR I was getting thru most inspections absent report writing in a little over 2 hours. Post IR the typical inspection ends up being 3 hours and thats with me running. Chris, Oregon

It looked like individual brick faces. But jeesh that would be a lot of work to get them on straight. I could see at the corners of the building where their thickness was about 3/8" of an inch and the way things were buckling on the front I couldn't imagine them being full sized bricks. The thickness of the exterior walls was on the order of them being 2"x4" framed. IR wasn't much help as it was showing the walls being cooler then I would have expected but warmer above windows. I could faintly make out some stud locations but they could as well as been furring. If it is some kind of masonry unit its less than 8" deep, in fact it would have to have been closer to 4" to make sense. Image Insert: 73.56 KB Chris, Oregon

I haven't seen this before. At first my pea brain thought it was brick. Then I though it was a brick veneer stucco'd onto block. Now, I am thinking that it has to be brick veneer stucco'd on to a wood sheathed and framed wall. Can anyone confirm for me that it is likely a brick veneer stucco'd onto wood sheathing? Image Insert: 74.72 KB Image Insert: 84.64 KB Image Insert: 76.49 KB It's hard to see from the pictures the area between the two windows were buckled and bulging. There are two larger cracks that run from the corners of the upper window down to the corners of the lower window with everything messed up in between. Chris, Oregon

Yes, I will pay more attention next time. Chris, Oregon

Hmm, I have always attributed it to what Jim K. said. Les says it's unusual. I have never run into a complaint about it yet. I guess if you run hot water long enough, the inlet supply piping should cool down and at the same time if there was a missing or damaged dip tube then we should see a significant drop in temp at the outlet. Chris, Oregon

What about all those brick accent walls that I see with no weepage? What about around columns? Jim, do you ever write up brick accents for lack of weepage and thru wall flashing? Image Insert: 79.94 KB Chris, Oregon

Yes. You can also replumb or configure the lines to the tank to form a heat trap to minimize this. Chris, Oregon