Nolan Kienitz

Some folks do well with them. I stopped doing them ~5 years ago. Fee schedule sucks and FHA/HUD likely won't be adjusting any time soon. I even had my name removed from the list this past year. Setting expectations is a nightmare when the consultant tries to be honest/ethical. Also ... the "K" product not a huge item in Texas. Randy N. up in Seattle does them and does quite well.

That inspector is a nice fellow, but has had more than one legal (E&O) hiccup along with complaints filed against him at TREC (our licensing agency) as well.

This was on the local NBC TV station this evening (01/31/2014). Another chapter of this story will be on tomorrow evening (02/01/2014). Issues with CSST just don't seem to go away. A local DFW inspector is currently being sued due to a home that burned to the ground following a lighting strike that had "some" CSST installed. Lightning hit the home almost a year after he did the inspection. Insurance company is pointing fingers at everyone. Not sure how it will turn out for the inspector. Lightning Strikes home w/CSST. Burns and there is loss of life.

Then there are the "can lights" in the ceiling. They have plenty of holes and slots on the can as a big path for air movement. I've been putting in "dux-seal" (electrical clay or putty) to seal the holes to help minimize the air flow.

Nevada !!!

Kurt, There you go ... bundle your Filemaker Pro package and sell it as an app ... for the inspector to run on his purchased Filemaker {rp program. ??/ !!! A side job ... so to speak [?]

PDFs of new Texas TREC SOP and 7-3 template sent over. Our new SOP/7-3 went into effect on 01/01/2014 ... a two year process of lots of politics.

There you go ... warm/toasty. Get a card table, play some cards or dominoes and pour a glass of Makers Mark and you will be set. Of course, once you open the Makers Mark ... Chad will be on your doorstep in a heartbeat. []

Les, I'm sure you at least added "mileage" for that inspection ... [?]

That happens all the time, even on newer houses with prescriptive venting. I suspect that the air in the attics has never looked at the diagrams, which show how it's supposed to move. Attic venting is a chaotic system. Damn that "air" for not reading up on how we expect it to flow ... []

Carefully !!! []

Slight drift, but in the same chapter ... When I get calls from the SEO folks and other such marketers I quickly ask them what is the address of the house they want me to inspect. I follow that with asking them questions about the house so I can provide a fee quote. I do this before they barely have a chance to start their marketing pitch about getting my website to the top of all pages in short order. I continue the push asking about the house to inspect and then I pause and advise them that if they called me the only reason should be to schedule a home for inspection that they have under contract. If this call is about anything other than that ... we don't have anything to talk about. In most cases they are caught pretty close to being dumbfounded and they either hang up without another word or I will politely hang up on them after telling them thanks for calling and giving me an opportunity to quote a home inspection fee for them. It becomes a game after a while. []

Cannonball test ??

Taylor Morrison has builder presence in Austin, San Antonio and Houston and they are not a good builder to deal with. They definitely don't like 3rd party inspectors and have some serious roadblocks/speedbumps even if an inspector is willing to jump through their hoops to inspect for the buyer.

The link below goes to a database of decoding for Airco serial numbers. Airco Serial Numbers I use this site a lot for HVAC and W/H.

My $0.02 ... 1) Is it tempered glass? 2) Is spacing between balusters 4" or less? 3) They are simply ugly!!

It needs to be able to breath. Overall efficiency is restricted with the 'restricted' air flow area. No code requirements that I'm aware of. I pull manufacturer's requirements for location and most all of them require an 18-inch clearance all around.

It's done for job security.If everyone understood the rules and why they were written, there'd be no need for enforcers. OK ... you guys set this up all by yourselves ... and I can't resist!! +++++ And then you add in the dialects from a Canadian and someone from Louisiana you really have some potato and ham soup or gumbo. +++++ [][]

Nope ... Chad just got "geeked" [:-slaphap

Last two grafs in the article seem to indicate a "lack of air flow" around the heat generating servers, etc.. Well, when I was on the design/build group for internet web-hosting data centers (many years ago) when the dot.com world was growing like crazy, that was a prime item we had to deal with on all the data centers we built. Did someone forget or overlook that at the Bluffdale site? Humm [?][?]

Measuring from the corners is going to be tough. I just found out last week that my supposed .53 acre lot is much smaller. Apparently, I own out to the middle of the road/ highway. Middle of road, etc. is not uncommon. My wife and I have some land over in East Texas that we sold a portion of and learned there "used to be" an old country road along the fence line going back to another section of land. County stopped maintenance on it well over 20+ years ago and the fences have move a tad over the years and now the back section of land is actually 'land-locked' seeing as how the country doesn't really recognize the road. Albeit if push came to shove the county could re-establish maintenance on the road if they desire and fences would have to be moved accordingly. All that to say that once we had it surveyed the survey company advised that we owned up to the 'middle of the road' that was no longer maintained. From the middle to the other side was owned by the next door land-owner. At least, in our case, it was not a huge deal. Best of luck on getting all things settled for all.

No. Also, retaining walls, fences, etc. are not part of the state mandated SOP. But there will be someone that will see the required insurance for home inspectors and will try to tag us. I'm lucky on this development. I've only done about 4 FHA Finals up there and none of them were on streets with the retaining walls. And the FHA Final is not even close to a TREC inspection.

Saw this on the local news this evening and found the article in a local suburban newspaper. Homes in this general vicinity are typically 'starter' type homes. All new construction. With everyone tap-dancing around the responsibility I wonder how long it will take for an inspector to get tagged in some eventual suit? Retaining Walls Failing ... McKinney, TX

Building and delivering a report to a client while on-site (in my opinion) is fool-hardy. Many of us call such HIs "checkbox chimps" and a good number of such inspectors are awaiting their court dates due to legal actions such 'hurry up' efforts usually result in. Inspectors that know what they are doing are not limited 'one whit' by the application they happen to use to collect, arrange the data for their reports.

Nest has introduced a new item for their product line. Nest - Smart Fire Alarm Hold this post- front page article forthcoming.