Chris Bernhardt

I knew somthing was wrong last summer when there were a couple of dispersed weeks that were off and they are never off. We saved double what we saved the year before but it appears now that we should have saved double that. Chris, Oregon

Yeah, Its slow here. Worst December that I can remember since year 2 in the biz. Year 1 doesn't count. Phone rang off of the hook day after New years thank goodness. But I am expecting that business will be off this year compared to the last 3 but there is no indication that it will worsen. The market appears to be correcting. Chris, Oregon

Now the seller says he stuck his head up in the attic and he can't see any areas where the insulation is compressed. He also says he called the builder and that the builder says there was more insulation installed in the attic then what was required. What I saw was about 12" of fiberglass loose fill with areas compressed down to 4" from prior storage and traffic in this 1995 house. I did take a picture of one of the areas but it didn't come out too well and its hard to get good pictures up there amoungst the trusses anyway to idenitfy areas so they won't belly ache like this. Ugh more seller games. Chris, Oregon

Over analyzing, crap you should have known me before. My first wife complained all of the time I analysed everything. Bad habit I picked up trying to play engineer. I am a lot better now. Just ask my 2nd wife. smile. I have been in a inspection bubble pretty much up to the point I joined TIJ and as Jim has pointed out I am trying to find the line now for me. I ask a lot of questions and have a ton of them and even though some seem to be the same question I am just trying to find that line out of habit I guess. Yes I may try to hard to please but better that then being an asshole don't you think. I know my weaknesses and thats why I am here to bounce things off and get my thinking in line with the profession and where it is or should be going and at the same time hope to benefit others who might have my same weakness from making the same mistakes I make. I really appreaciate all of the advice I get here. Thanks, Chris, Oregon

Wasn't quite sure where to put this since it applies across the board. The question is does any one write their recommendations differently when they know that either the home owner or the buyer/client will be performing the repairs? for example you know that they intend not to use qualified contractors. I generally write my reports assuming qualifed contractors will perform the repairs. Even then there are some circumstances based on my experience with our local crowd that I will start citing ... and in accordance with this code or this standard or this manufacturers installation instructions etc. I know that the general practice is not to design the repair but I don't feel that one is doing that if they are just citing code, standards or MII's in general. I know some will say what the diff the client won't read it or understand it anyway, hell even some of the contractors I know can't seem to read. I just feel the need to CMA and be able to tell them I told them to do it right so I don't have to come back and tell them its wrong and they complain why did I not at least tell they were suppose to do it per... Chris, Oregon.

Jim, can you comment further on what you met concerning time of construction non sense? I have an inkling of what you going to say but I want to make sure I understand what you mean. It gets argued often that a seller should only correct a condition to what should have been at the time of construction except where the repair rises beyond minor repair or to the level of new work at which it has to meet current code. Thats the impetus behind my time of construction language. I am making the assumption here that repairing the insulation is a minor repair but you have pointed out that it was R-38 anyway since 92. Are you saying that I should have just stated the R value and approximate height of the insulation and not leave em hanging with the time of construction wording or do you mean that my whole thinking in terms of time of construction requirements is non-sense? Chris, Oregon

An area I admit I am weak in is properly reporting on insulation. I have a picky client whos all concerned about the uneven insulation in a 1995 house. Here is how I wrote it.

After reading this thread and based on Jim's pics I wrote up a house that had shower wands in both bathrooms. Realtor who has used me for years and the seller thought I was crazy. Incidently I dropped by our local hardware store which has more stuff cramed into it then HD and they didn't have any after market backflow preventers for shower wands. However I looked at the collection of shower wands for sale and several said that they had anti-siphon hoses. Is this something do you think we should be calling out or this like the same issue with the unreturned handrail? I mean a lot has to happen for a cross connection to occur in this case. The wand has to be submerged in the tub with the water on. It seems to me that if I am going to call the lack of back flow protection on a hand held shower head I should call it on exterior faucets also. Chris, Oregon

I was waiting for Bill to chime in. In the beginning of my career I went the broiler plate route and had this elaborate custom made library in both english and spanish and had written a report system that built an english and spanish report simultaneously. After 911 I stopped producing reports in spanish. I was never satisfied with what was in my library and found myself constantly editing it as my experience and education grew. After a while I was spending more time trying to hunt down the approprate broilerplate then it did for me to simply type out my thoughts on the matter. I finally gave up and just went to full narrative about 3 years ago. I still have some broiler plateing but just a little. Now here is the interesting thing, when I dropped the broiler plating my call backs dropped off significantly and I started getting more comments from my clients on how they thought my reports were better then the last guy who did an inspection for them. I still to this day will type out that dam unprotected NM cable to the garbage disposal. I might have written it up 20 different ways. throwing off the broiler plate mentality allows you to focus on the house. As for liability, crap my liability went down after I went to pure narrative. Writing narrative forces you to think about the actual facts and evidence that that house had. using broiler plating tends to force you to think in terms of some other imaginary house. I can concede that your can probably get away with broiler plating newer homes but the older stuff, NO WAY! There is so much funky sh*# out theres just no way any library can adequately describe it. And who made those librarys? Theres so many diffent opinions in this business and the laws and practices from state to state to make any general library useless causing one to start all over and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite it. The only practical way for an evolving professional to capitalize on their continuing experience and education is to write narrative. That way you are always up to date. Chris, Oregon

Thanks Darren Chris, Oregon

Thanks Les! Chris, Oregon

Thanks Hausdok, thats exactly the answer to the idea of any "summary" I would hope for but was just checking because of something Les had said about good reports having an executive summary in the thread of another post. Maybe Les can clarify what He met by that or I just misunderstood what he met. Chris, Oregon

In this question I am asking do you make a separate report. When I think of the inspection summary I am thinking of a summarization contained in the full report. I have seen some inspectors name this separate report "Express report". At present with the convenience of email why bother with a separate report to just cut down on the page count? It use to be a complaint a few years ago when people were hard copying every thing to each other. What I was wondering is if it was still considered a benefit to send a separate smaller report? Chris, Oregon

Thanks everybody but I wonder if I failed to make a distincition in what I was thinking. I was considering that the "executive summary" was something other than the "inspection summary". Evidently it is not in general practice. I don't currently employ an executive summary, hardly see any written by other inspectors and only have a client request something like it once in a while. I think that they are intended for administrative types. I mean to the normal client you never know what is going to be important to them. Just yesturday my client was all concerned about the insulation in the attic not being evenly distributed but wasn't concerned to much with all of the rotted LP siding on the exterior. go figure. Chris, Oregon

Summary report vrs full report. In addition to generating the full report does anyone also create a separate summary report? What are the benefits of a separate summary report? What do you include in a summary report? Chris, Oregon

I would like some advice about writing executive summaries. I take it its about focusing on the improvements needed or recommended not resummarizing the problems found. The executive summary should discuss the immediate needs and ones which could be deferred and characterize major, minor, safety and comfort issues without getting into the detail of the problems found and that are already discussed elsewhere in the report. Chris, Oregon

Just curious. Did you consider just using a word processor. I use MS word and their built in visual basic to automate a lot of stuff. I want the flexibility to do it my way. It does take some effort to develope the macros I concede. Chris, Oregon

Probably not for curring squeaking. More likely a homeowner or handyman attempt to take out the bounce in the floor. What were the depth of the joists and how far were they spanning? Were the posts located under the middle area of the rooms above? Chris, Oregon

Ditto, what Kurt said. Walter, after you have drop kicked enough problems over the wall for a so called "professional" to evaluate you will soon enough realize that these so called professionals don't know as much as you think they do. You can learn, know and understand far more then what you have been led to believe. There are no boundaries. Its a bit massive but you can get a pretty good handle on the building code, manufacturers installation instructions and the various industry standards that apply to what you are inspecting. You can even learn to do basic engineering. Chris, Oregon

What was the reasoning behind the original inclusion of descriptions in the ASHI SOP? My best guess was that it followed from typical information needed by the insurance industry. At the time the SOP was developed I don't think that clients were sophisticated enough yet to want to know details of the construction like some investors do today. Jim, whats the HIAC commitee doing now? Are they planning on playing with the SOP again? Chris, Oregon

If they want to see the complaints drop why don't they share with the inspectors what those complaints were? When I worked as a design engineer and we got complaints back from the field we tried our best to incorporate the conditions under which it was said to have failed in our future testing. Theres only so much you can do in a lab enviroment. Its not real world. The complaints are real world so share them and let the inspectors work it out amoungst themselves in their associations or online forums. Directly addressing the complaints will get you 80% of the way there. Chris, Oregon

The SOP's require a description of certain items of inspection. I've gotten along just fine on the descriptions I have been giving stuff and have never heard of any inspector getting into trouble over descriptions but want to check to see how my descriptions might compare with others. Has anyone every had a complaint over a messed up description? How detailed are the descriptions suppose to get? I mean holy cow when I got a copy of "the Manual for the Inspection of Residential Wood Decks and Balconies" and I saw the detailed descriptions they give in their sample report It made me wonder if anybody on a normal HI made that level of description in their reports because I don't. When describing structure should one include the on center spacings? Is there any reason to describe the type of truss beyond "wood truss" Or does anyone describe the configuration, W, scissors etc and whether they have wood or metal gussets or bolted etc. Particularly on older structure where its not homogenous, do you go into detail describing the location of the non homogenous structures or just list the types of systems? And this question goes to Jim Katen. Jim why did Oregon change the headings in the structure section of the SOP to say "Floors and floor structure" from just "Floor structure" etc.? What was the purpose of that? What problem was that trying to solve that they felt compeled to add floors, walls, ceilings rather then the prior language of floor structure, wall structure and ceiling structure? Chris, Oregon

Ditto to what Jim said. I can't think of any area in Oregon that I have inspected in where I was really that concerned. There are some areas where I make sure to keep my truck locked securely durring the inspection. Concerning snakes, I am afraid of them. Spiders on the other hand, not a problem. Those mice under vapor barrier give me a good startle and the same with the ocasional frog and cat. However besides dead bodies no larger live vermin although I have heard stories of coons and possums attacking. How do your guys do it snake country? I can't imagine attempting to enter a crawlspace where snakes might be present. A couple of years ago I think I saw a show where they went under a house in florida to get a boa. Do they really build on sand? I saw them excavate from the exterior to go under the foundation and it looked like all sand outside and inside the crawlspace. Chris, Oregon

I went to the link but I still did not pick up on what you mean by a keyless fixture? Are you talking about a screw-shell lamp holder? Chris, Oregon

I understand Kurt. Like I was trying to say in the prior postings my intent was to use this as a test case. The issue that I started with was if in this case we were looking at a handrail with out a return that should have had a return because it was required at the time of construction. Now how can I say this with out contradicting myself. I am not doing a compliance inspection however my darn SOP uses the vague wording functioning as intended. It was intended at the time of construction that handrails be returned! So in a way I am not even considering the fact that its a hazard I am trying to approach it from that its not functioning as intended. I don't doubt that anyone of us would not write up a non-returned handrail on new construction today but whats the difference today then it was 30 years ago. If we write them up today should we not write them up if they were required 30 years ago? Chris, Oregon