Chris Bernhardt

There's been debate about whether the poly mesh is a good thing or not; the physics are iffy. I would like to see some Joe L. type studies comparing it's performance to other systems. Chris, Oregon

I have made those finds too, but in my neck of the woods it hasn't happened very often, and it was one of my principal justifications for getting an IR camera. One of my other principal justifications for getting an IR camera is to train my eyes to recognize more problems or use past findings to guide productive changes in my visual inspection protocol, which has happened; however, not solely due to using the IR camera, but doing so in conjunction with hygrometers and moisture meters. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feared that the IR camera would find lots of stuff that I could not otherwise detemine visually or with a moisture meter, and that my hope was that I would be able train myself to uncover those same findings visually and with the use of moisture meters by improved inspection protocols. So far, fear is losing, hope is wining. What drives me is seeing so many old timers walk into a situation, just look at it, and Katen it everytime without the use of tools. That's where I want to be. Chris, Oregon

Well, in every case so far (not many), there was no question of mold growth and no question that the dominant source of the moisture was high humidity levels caused by the occupant (confirmed with Hygrometer and moisture meters). Now to be thorough, there could always be some wetness from a leak somewhere which I could use IR to search for, but such areas will likely be really moldy and easy to find visually when there is already a mold problem in the house. Maybe just me, but what I take from the article is that people will come away with the idea that IR cams detect mold. So far all I have found that they do is provide a cool radiometric image of heat. [] Chris, Oregon

What does advising a client on every piece of narrative to use a licensed qualified contractor buy you? Nothing. All it does is hide what needs to be done. Tell the client what to do and not how to do it so the licensed qualified guy (or whatever bubba they actually get) doesn't screw it up. If you say all the time "Have a licensed qualified contractor make repairs." There's a really good chance he will do the wrong thing, not perform all of the repair, or say it doesn't need to be repaired. I use to say the same thing in all my narrative: have a licensed bozo make repairs, thinking I was doing right for my client and covering my ass. But more often than not, the contractor was either doing the wrong thing, not doing all of it or saying it didn't need to be done. I went to Jim Katen for advice on the matter several times, cause it took a while for his advice to sink in. Saying something like, "The thingy is not working, have a licensed qualified thingy fixer fix it." ( uh, fix what?) is to easy to be misunderstood by somebody in the loop (Client, Seller, Agents, Contractors). In this case I would take a page out of the Walter Jowers play book and say, "If you want the thingy to work, you'll need to figure out why it doesn't work and then fix it." That's much harder to misunderstand. It says to the client that if he wants it to work the way he wants it to work, then he'll have to do it or hire someone to figure out what's wrong to satisfy the client and fix it. Otherwise you get everyone and his brother debating on what the proper and correct function of the thingy is and the limitations of repair. The trick is finding the most fitting verbs so that what needs to be done can't be misunderstood: Install, replace, adjust, rewire, secure, add, remove, provide, etc. Chris, Oregon

Yea, try not to do it all. I've asked Jim Katen about this several times. If you look at his narrative you don't find too many, "have a licensed (fill in the blank) make repairs; in fact, there are none! It's about giving good advice to that particular client, not economizing with broileplate & CYA'ing. Jim on his How To Read This Report page does say, "Wherever I recommend repairs, you should have the work done by qualified, licensed contractors." Chris, Oregon

In the last few months I have been called to figure out mold problems in about 4 homes. Seems they somehow heard I had an infrared camera. Actually the IR camera is the last thing I use on a mold inspection. Number one tool is a hygrometer followed by moisture meters; IR cam is dead last. Key to the inspection is the interview with the tenant or homeowner. It doesn't take very long using an IR cam before you figure out where the cold spots are likely to be. Chris, Oregon

That's interesting. In Dr. Tsongas's testing funded by Dupont(Tyvek) he concludes that type D building paper performs the worst, and in testing by Joe L. and Paul F. they concluded the opposite. Chris, Oregon

I bought a seagate FreeAgent Desk to back up to. It appeared to work great. It appeared to have my back up files on it. Then my computer went screwy, I restored it assuming everything was backed up, and when I went to restore the files from the FreeAgent it showed that zilch was stored on it. I had all my critcal inspection files backed up on a separated thumb drive. I am considering online backup, because there is still the risk of an in house back up device failing, burning up or getting stolen, it happens. Chris, Oregon

Exactly right. A few years ago a local TV station ran an "on your side" piece declaring that Oregon certified home inspectors are not required to perform wood destroying pest inspections. They spot lighted a single mother who had bought a house in the prior fall and when spring hit she had winged carpenter ants flying about. The inspector's report disclaimed hidden pest infestations, the disclaimer which they showed on the air with the inspection company name lighty blotted out but still readable. They showed a pest contractor walking about with his spray can, with a disgusted look and shaking his head and the lady singing that she would have never bought the house if she had only known, while she batted away flying carpenter ants for dramatic impact. What they of course failed to report on is that the vast majority of Oregon certified home inspectors are also licensed/certified by the Oregon department of Agriculture to perform pest inspections. You can't really have an inspection business here without also performing a P&D inspection along with the full home inspection. Chris, Oregon

That's interesting. The article runs contrary to what is stated in "Mold, Housing, and Wood". My understanding is that without a source of moisture the mold will go dormant. There's no more growth, no more VOC's, no more spore generation, etc. it just sit's there until you disturb it. The article alludes that the dormant mold has to be removed. My understanding is that the only reason to mess with it at all is because you either don't like to look at it or it's such a large amount and likely to be disturbed to a degree that you can either start inhaling or consuming the dormant stuff and reacting to that. My understanding is that because mold spores are everywhere floating around in the air, that as soon as you pat yourself on the back for your remediation efforts of trying to clean & kill whats there, the spores have already seeded the surface just waiting for moisture levels to build up again. If they had continuing mold growth and assuming there was no leak source, then I think the building materials must have still been damp enough to support mold growth. Chris, Oregon

Is there just one fireplace? I have seen something like that before where a second chimney was added next to the original and they then tried to integrate both together. Chris, Oregon

I have used the IR cam for a year and it has met the expectations that I had for it: Increased biz just because I have one, found a few things that I wouldn't have then found, learned more about how houses work. It's very rare that the IR cam or the moisture meters find something that I couldn't otherwise find with my eyes. But when I do find something moisture related I have been keeping track of what the IR cam and the various moisture meters and hygrometer indicate. I have been surprised to find that the vapor pressure in some flooded crawlspaces was no more than the vapor pressure outside. The vapor pressure inside homes vacant or occupied is pretty much always higher than the exterior. I can be very difinitive in determining whether a black attic is old or on going problem. The tools are not so much for finding problems but rather to confirm whether an already known/discovered condition is a problem or not. Plus I'm learning gobs about how homes react to moisture loads. Chris, Oregon

What meter/s that you need will depend on what you're trying to determine. Most inspectors it sounds like use the surveymaster. I happen to use the two separated versions the Aquant & the Protimeter mini, which are cheaper to purchase separatedly used on Ebay then a surveymaster. I use the Aquant (pin-less) primarily and depending on the circumstances will back up findings with a protimeter mini (pin) and sometimes a Tramex moisture encounter plus (another pin-less), which reads deeper. I would count my IR cam in with all this also. For my own edification I am always comparing what IR sees to what my moisture meters are saying and vice a versa. You also need to understand the form and locations that moisture might be present in the assembly that you're scanning or probing before you jump the gun and declare that there is some big problem. To avoid that I have found it beneficial to use several meters with differing performance envelopes. Chris, Oregon

Google William B. Rose If my office was on fire, his book "Water In Buildings, An Architect's Guide to Moisture And Mold" is the first one I would save out of my library. Other articles of his on the web: Issues Related to Venting of Attics and Cathedral Ceilings Moisture Control in Crawlspaces Early History of Attic Ventilation The Moisture Balance: Fundamentals Chris, Oregon

It's a very poorly written patent. Looks like they wrote it themselves. I can't believe this thing got passed; there's nothing unique. I wouldn't use their protocol anyway. It will miss all kinds of problems. It's just stupid. Chris, Oregon

You're not suppose to mud in a receptacle like that. I guarantee you that it's not UL approved. Other wise the instructions would specifically say so. I'm pretty sure there is an NEC provision against it; I see it a lot with clothes dryer receptacles in my neck of the woods (Brandons neck of the woods since were only about 15 miles apart). But outside of the code or listing requirement I'll stretch my neck out and say so what?. Chris, Oregon

I'm with Chad Fabry. I see it occasionally here in my neck of the woods. As long as things are shingling at least half way down, I'm fine with it. There is no such thing as the perfect roof. There are always nailing errors or rather errors of some nature. There's no reason to get hyper over this specific example of roofing over a roof vent in my opinion. Chris, Oregon

I doubt it. To get water running down the walls the water vapor pressure has got to be pretty high and that's got nothing to do with the attic. The lack of venting in the attic would most likely cause a problem in the attic and not on the interior walls of the home. Are the rooms carpeted? What happens first is that the water vapor condenses out near the bottom plate of the wall, where there's lots of cold air. Carpet gets wet, back spots up with mold. Could have been going on for a while before things got worse and then they noticed water higher up on the wall. Chris, Oregon

It's the tenant. He/she is doing something that's causing the problem. It's not caused by leaking. Adding insulation will makes things worse, but it's not the source of the problem. Measure the humidity in the home. I bet it's somewhere between 60%-70% @ room temp (70f). I would re-interview the tenant. They are doing something to raise the vapor pressure in the home on a regular basis. Chris, Oregon

I agree with Jeremy, those look every bit like old shingles. Are you sure they didn't just replace half of the roof? Chris, Oregon

I would have written it like Kurt. There's major problems with the roof including but not limited to: ... See photos on page A, B & C. Replace the roof. Chris, Oregon

Can you cite any authority that claims that partial coverage of the ground is significantly beneficial vrs full coverage? Sounds like folklore. Chris, Oregon

If there is evaporative cooling, you should be able to see it from the interior, but it's nothing that a careful HI wouldn't find with his eyes and a moisture meter. If the veneer is leaking and wetting the sheathing but not yet saturating insulation or getting to the interior, I imagine it would be pretty hard to make a determination in most cases given you need to monitor or sample scan the wall from before sun up to sun down to look for a lagging moisture signature. Might as well deep probe the wall. Chris, Oregon

Yes, I have to agree. I have only actually seen damage like you say related to leaks. Jim, do you think the way they are installing faux stone in our neck of the woods makes it more leaky then a standard stucco installation? At the end of the EFIS period how did you report on it? Did all EFIS installations get the recommendation for an invasive inspection to determine moisture content in the wall? I'm imagining a lot of wet sheathing with incipient decay behind that faux stone veneer that I simply can't detect with non-invasive means. Chris, Oregon

Here is an interesting thread on faux stone at JLConline that started at the end of 2007. Faux stone thread at JLConline Chris, Oregon