Chris Bernhardt

I didn't look very carefully the first time and I missed that the ridge board is not deep enough either! Chris, Oregon

When the rafters were installed, full bearing against the ridge board was required. As far as a code compliant repair I don't see why one can't install a bearing plate made out of plywood or OSB or a 1"x and fasten everything together with a proper framing connector/hanger etc. If the end of the rafter was split then a code compliant repair might call for sistering up another rafter from point of bearing to point of bearing. However the code gods might say different. Chris, Oregon

Thanks, guys I am a bit embarrassed for being ignorant of the matter in light that I have been in the business longer than a while. How do you handle those calls from the third party? You know - Hi, this is so and so and we are trying to buy the house at ... and you did the inspection on it and we have some further questions ... or they say "the owners completed repairs and we were wondering if you could come back out and check them?" This is where I thought one could make them aware of the copyright and other things but I wonder how that conversation might go in a professional manner? Thanks, Chris BTW Mike and comrades at arms I can't tell you how much I respect and appreciate this forum. Thanks, very much!

Mike, You say this is nothing new however I can't recall ever seeing the subject mentioned in any of the common home inspection books or maybe I missed it and I have not seen any mention of it in the dozens of other inspection contracts that I have seen and those that are preprinted. Its certainly a revelation to me that you and probably a lot of other home inspectors are already well aware of its importance and have incorporated the manner in your contracts. I am not affiliated with any of the home inspection associations and I wonder if its common knowledge amougst them? I had a lawyer look at my contract and reports at one time and he never made any mention about copyrighting. This seems like an important issue. Do you know off hand where copyrighting with respect to home inspectors reports has been mentioned in any other publications and when did you first start communicating the seriousness with your clients? Thanks, Chris, Oregon

Who owns the inspection report? Are you really being paid to perform the inspection and write a report? I recently read an article in WorkingRE magazine www.workingre.com concerning copyrights that altered my thinking on the matter. My conclusion was that depending on how your contract is written, the inspector or inspection company owns the report. Think about it this way. What if you what you are really doing is going out at your own expense with permission to perform an inspection and create a report expressing your opinion of the home aimed at the client. The client purchases the right to rely on the contents of the report and limited copyrights to reproduce and distribute the report. All of the copyrights are reserved by the inspector or inspection company if the inspector is an employee of an inspection company For the client to own all of the copyrights the inspector would have to either be an employee of the client or the work is commissioned as part of a greater work or you specifically state in your contract that the work is a “work for hireâ€

Concerning popping off those child protectors I use one of the blades of my 3 light outlet tester like a screwdriver to insert behind them and pop them off. You can get quite good at after a while and do it in one single action. By the way I have 7 kids. The oldest is 18 and the youngest is 1 and I have never used those things and have never had a kid get hurt. I think they are for fire and forget parenting. I have heard of stories though where children were killed. I heard one story about a kid that had backed up against one with a wet diaper and got electrocuted. Chris, Oregon

Wow, That was cool! Great presentation. Love the music. Chris, Oregon

How much is the RAZir? Is it direct ordered only? And what about service compared to Flir? Chris, Oregon

I agree it should be $0 but then I do something stupid every 3 years and spend a bunch a money and see nothing in return in the hope that this time it might work for some reason. It seems like the best advertising money I have ever spent is on business cards. I get hits on my web site but thats only after someone was refered to us. Imagine your god himself meaning you have all the best credential and all of the certifications up the yin yang and all of the high tech thermal cameras that money can buy and you get your big shot at impressing that realtor and at the end of the dog and pony show he or she says sounds great uh leave me some cards and maybe I'll try you out on the next one. And so you shake hands and leave with a big smile on your face cause you think you did something and as soon as you are gone that realtor gets up and strolls over to the office adjacent and says "hey joe, can you give me a referal to a good home inspector?"

I personally hate doing big projects anymore and will often pass on them as I have found for me that banging out single family dwellings day in and day out presented the most optimum business model. To that end what I have done with larger projects like whole appartment complexes is I will talk with the client and inform them of the cost realities of doing such and try exploring with them the possibility of paring the inspection project down to a reasonable size and cost. If they insist then it is what it is. As far as conducting the inspection the fastest way that I have found is not to input data on site into a computer! Thats the slowest way! What I do is I take lots and lots of pictures! I take a picture of the number of the apartment before I enter so I can determine where the pictures of one apartment ends and begins. Homegenity of the units will dictate the need to enter other data. I prefer to write it down if a picture won't due rather than use a digital tape recorder but thats me. I know a lot of guys prefer the digital tape recorder. I have found it ultimately faster to just wirte it down in the momemt. For these projects I use a hardbound gridded composition book. With those you can easily hold it and write on both sides of the pages and draw any pictures or diagrams. I only use a preprinted form on my normal inspections for standard data collection but on odd projects it is faster to just write things in the book. The key however is to minimize the need to write because that slows things down. Take pictures. Pictures tell a thousand words. You also have to minimize your tools. Some guys bring in tool boxes or packs or tool belts. Its too clumsy and if your moving fast you are going to knock something over. Besides my camera and book I will run with a three light tester, a multi-tiped screwdriver and moisture meter. These days you might also consider renting a themal camera too. If you feel you need more tools then consider a helper to follow you with them like a nurse and a surgeon. You have to move fast thru these projects or you will lose your shorts. I later write the report at the office trying to summarize as best as possible but including lots of pictures. Pictures are the key. Most of the time the clients are really just looking for a way to justify reducing the purchase price. Chris, Oregon

If I interpret our Oregon standard right, in theory if you end up inspecting the same house year after year our findings are supposed to be based on the visual evidence present at the time of the inspection. In other words were not supposed to base an opinion upon evidence not in existance at the time of the inspection. Now that being said if you can find any evidence of a prior condition that reasonably implies a material defect that opens the door to bringing up past relavent supporting information. That being said if I strongly suspect a material defect hidden from view you bet I will bring it up! As far as disclosing if I inspected the sme house before which happens once or twice a year and is more likely to happen if your inspecting in smaller communities I generally will disclose verbally to the client after which a discussion usuualy arises but I don't remember if I have ever purposely disclosed it in a report unless there was some kind of evidence that opened the door to do it. Chris, Oregon

I have always been unconfortable with thier use as they are ill defined. I use "satisfactory" and "see findings" In that portion of the my report where we are required to list the items of inspection and indicate whether they are satisfactory or not. I actually have a page devoted to the context and definition of "satisfactory" as I use it in the inspection report. I actually write it as "satisfactory*". Otherwise I try to just write the best narative I can and advice in the findings section of my report aimed at the understanding of my client. I also found that developing a good understanding of the legal definition of "negligent misrepresentation" has gone a long way in guiding my language and discussion of the findings. Chris, Oregon

I write every thing in word too. I use to broiler plate but I began to find that I was spending more time trying to find just the right broiler plate so I gave up and have found it faster to just be a faster typist. I have carefully considered macros and the such but what happens is if you have to move a hand to a mouse then you probably could have just typed it out in the same time. Any macros or boiler plates must be within 1 or 2 mouse clicks otherwise its faster to just type things out. I don't know what Kurts working on. Im curious. But one of things that I have found is that in my market the clients and the agents need a hardcopy in thier hands when they go to sit down and hack out a repair addendum. And everyting needs to be said in the monograph of each item and not spread out somewhere else in the report or referenced on the internet etc. I like the idea of web based report but it is not practical for a couple reasons. One that I described above and the 2nd is that a lot of my clients are latino, asian and russian and don't read enlish that well or are not online. Chris, Oregon

Observation of automatic safety controls is required by most home inspection standards I assume but what are we looking for and how are we suppose to report on them? Should we report which ones should be there on a particular piece of equipment? And report which ones we were able to observe and which ones we were not able to observe? And concerning whether or not they are satisfactory or functioning as intended how do we answer that since were not required to test them? Is the intention of this standard really aimed at only trying to catch ASC's that have been removed, disabled or are otherwise obviously deficient by just a visual inspection alone and not whether or not they are actually functioning as intended which would require some form of testing?

thanks, Jim I had remembered reading P2611.6 Except for necessary valves, where intermembering or mixing of dissimilar metals occur, the point of connection shall be confined to exposed or accessible locations. But after your comments I re-read it and it impies that the body does not have to be exposed and only dissimilar metals are affected not plastics when the connection is not to a required valve. However does this mean that non-required valves, ones that a homeowner might put in for convenience, should be accessible where dissimilar metals are present? What think yee?

Should the whole body of the valve be accessible or is it ok if only the handle is? and what if the piping to the valve is some other material which it is likely to be, should then the whole valve and its connections be accessible? I inspected an unpermited garage conversion today and among other things only the valve handles themselves were exposed for the main shut off and a hose bib shut off in what is now a closet.

Are there any standards for the placement of laminate counter top seams? Why would one even consider putting one near the sink? I did a 1 year warranty inspection today for a couple where the seam was 2" to the right of the sink. substrate is swollen and pegs the Tramex moisture meter. I Googled countertop seams and I find warranty info saying that swollen seams are excluded! Well if your going to exclude them don't you think there should be a reasonable attempt not to locate them next to the sink? Duh.

Jim, Concerning the flex fitting used on the outlet of that trap, My understanding is that such flex fittings can be used in the tail piece side before the trap inlet. Or are they not approved at all? I seem to remember reading somewhere that HUD did not approve of thier use?

Does any one write up for correction P-traps with water seals greater 4" deep? The plumbing code here requires a minimum 2" depth and a max depth of 4". Has anyone every heard of this being a functional problem? I have seen them as deep as 10" on old homes. Normaly I just find the trap installed backwards. Thanks, Chris

Over here in the city of woodburn is an over 50 dvelopement built in the 60's and it is not uncommon to find the original 30 gallon gas fired hot water heaters still chugging along even though they are 40+ years old and sitting on the floor of the garage. Outside of here its rare to find them in the 30 year range however I find an awful lot in the 15 - 20 year range.

After considering further about what Jim said about witnessing the unanimous consensus of Oregon’s HIAC committee decision to recommend that Oregon’s home inspection standard be changed to require that the inspector provide recommendations for corrective action I have come to the realization that I have probably misinterpreted their intent. It’s that my reaction to what the HIAC committee did was ironically due to my belief that they were bending over in support of the realtors not the client. The realtors are always after the recommendation, the required items, and comprehensive direction for the seller to make their deals work. What I thought, because of the wording particularly the use of the word “Recommendâ€

Well Jim I guess I am odd man out on the recommendation thing. Don’t get me wrong I of course make recommendations and give advice even while the realtor standing nearby is winching, squirming and about to have a coronary cause I am threatening his or her deal. I did it today even right after the realtor got done telling the new guy with him how great I was even though I killed his last deal and he hoped that I would not do it again on this one. Well I did it anyway. The house had a broken foundation that had settled more than 2â€

Dare I say more for fear of being pummeled more by Jim? Am I being accused of using the “requiredâ€

Thanks The way I see it is that the underlayment in this case is part of the floor covering assembly and not the structual floor assembly. Therefore it is a facing just like drywall is a facing. If the drywall was moisture damaged but the source was corrected could one justify the need for corrective action as a required repair? I mean it appears at that point to be a cosmetic condition and not a clear and present threat to habitability. If I recommend repair and the buyer punts that to the seller I have had sellers reply that it will just dry out and they will not fix it because its cosmetic. However I agree with Jim and the point that need of repair should be indicated. For example something along the lines of "recommend restoring floor to a dry condition and replacement of any moisture damaged material" What do you think?

Thanks Jim I went down to the Oregon State library however they only have the code dating back to the early 70's. It appears that the requirement extends into the 60's. The question came up because I have seem some 70's homes with original hot water heaters sitting on the floor of the garage but near the garage door and the driveway sloped away.