kurt

Gotta test it to know, but I've found asbestos in tiles looking like that.

Illinois requires we do that. OK. What about exceeding the standards during the inspection? Is he arguing for or against? Exceeding the SOP or not, or just not advertising that one exceeds it? Also, within what context is the gentleman describing his magic ability? One could, more or less, sleep walk during an inspection and still hit the Illinois SOP, and yet, bucketheads on parade continually mess it up. Bragging that one can always nail a HI is kinda like bragging that one can walk and talk.

Stop worrying. Open clean outs if you can.

Try explaining that to your insurance agent.... "honest, it was the lawn ornament..."....

None of it did; My reports are stripped to a couple sentences. It was post report back and forth-ing between buyer, seller, sewer guys, me, etc. Folks resistant to hearing other than what they already think. I was trying to be an ambassador of change instead of telling them to shut up and scope the ****ing sewer.

I said this today....is it unreasonable? I was attempting to be fair and balanced, a condition largely unknown to me. Seller said they tried to scope it, but couldn't get farther than the curb, sewer guy said they need a clean out to go further, they balked at the expense...thought the sewer guy was pulling a fast one... so they just rod it every year like all their neighbors. My response.... "It's possible they couldn't get any farther than the curb; if so, they one has to install a clean out to get the rest of the way. It may have been real, or it may have been an unnecessary ploy to get them to install a clean out. I can't know the motives of a sewer guy. If they couldn't get any further than the curb, that can mean there's a blockage or other problem; the way you know is to scope the sewer. Do not rely on what neighbors do. On anything. Ever. Not unless the neighbor is me or someone very much like me, or a contractor of ultimate repute. The world is full of some of the stupidest stuff imaginable, most of it obtained from the internet. Ignore all advice on HGTV. Seriously. It's a wasteland. That said, what your seller and neighbors do is reasonable, but it doesn't tell you the condition of the sewer. If a sewer is in good condition, or even just fair condition, you don't ever have to snake it. I lived in my old house 28 years, never once snaked or cleaned. The only reason one has to regularly snake a sewer is if there's a problem. So, everyone will think I'm unreasonable and a jerk, but I scope sewers and don't rely on conjecture and banter. I am in a business where i have to see stuff with my own eyes and not rely on explanations of other people that may not know what they're talking about. It may be that you really need a clean out. Clean outs are way less money than digging up the entire sewer."

Sorta like selvedge, but it looks like there's some squeeze along those laps. I haven't seen any selvedge in several years.

We're finding that with SPF applications, vapor drive is intense, more so than I'd have ever imagined. If the only way out is into the attic, that's where it goes. That said, some of those black spotty areas look like sheets we pull off the bunk, like Raymond said. Was there additional "mold" beyond the black spotty areas?

There's no such thing as rubber. It looks like granulated mod bit with dogmeat details.

I do. No one does it though. We've done them on a couple repairs. About the most you're ever going to find is what you got now.

We call it a horse collar; it's just like a horse collar with flanges, and you bring the cladding over the flanges to counter flash it. The top inside of the horse collar is reglet-ed into the joist, or caulked.

I've never seen a roof even slightly similar to that, but we're seeing dozens of wall issues in the repair business. More than I could have imagined in ways I wouldn't have believed 8 years ago. CMU with wood floor platforms is it's own little (big) perfect storm. Stucco on CMU without parapet ventilation and impeccable flashing detailing is in the same league as some of the stuff Cramer's finding in Florida. CMU cavity and core ventilation is critical.

I don't know anything about the roof cover, but the flashing and coping details are a disaster if that's a standard Chicago single wythe masonry parapet.

Additionally, there's the idiotic transactional model we've inherited from realtors. Even though your's is a FSBO, the residue of stupidity is still part of the mess. Not knowing how to deal with the outcome(s) of building inspection reports complicates everything. Even if you understand, the other party may be operating under different assumptions.

I've been in Detroit for a few days, and for some reason I couldn't get to the pics first time around....lousy wifi at the Airbnb. This time, I can see the degree of the issue. You for sure walk away from this one.

Maybe. If it is, someone was surprisingly consistent in their overtorching ****up. Look at the difference between the overtorch on the parapets and what you're alleging is the overtorch on the field. Two entirely different patterns. The OP has nice relatively even lines of darkness, exactly like a mop job. The parapets have that blasted look, especially a the kant where it turns up the wall. I'd have to touch it and see it to know for sure, and until someone does, this is all conjecture. We've got thousands of these, maybe tens of thousands, all over Chicago. They don't do it anymore, but it was standard practice for years. Mopped SBS, white powdery stuff that stays powdery for a long time, etc. exposed tar turns a different color.....they're everywhere. They look like the OP. Nice even lines of overmop.

I just read through your commandments.... #8....yes. Toss #'s 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9. #3 is at the base of the problems, and if you knew and understood a shred of the issues with implementing it, you would understand how it's never happening. The part about the profession being dominated by it's least competent practitioners applies. There may be a school someday, but what would be appropriate would be a mentoring and apprenticeship program tied to geographic location. It's different everywhere; it's a surprisingly local business model. There's physics and science that translates from place to place, but the rest of it doesn't.

There's lots of problems with our profession, you've landed on a couple big ones, and there's a few hundred more. I've never tried to grow my business beyond myself and a few helpers due to the sorts of things you're upset about. It's all ****ed up, from top to bottom. Even the report systems are fatuously idiotic, as in folks are content in their foolishness; they didn't start from a good place and they're painfully disconnected from everything the larger world knows and accepts as useful information vehicles. A base reality in this biz is it's dominated by the least competent practitioners. Having done this for 3 decades, I'm finally seeing youngsters that have gone through the process a few times and they see and understand the sucker punch. Youngsters get it, and it will change, but it's probably like most entrenched stupidities in that it will take a generation or two before anything meaningful establishes itself.

Can't you see the difference between your pic and the OP? OP field looks like SBS in tar and the walls (which no one mops cuz you can't) is over torched. Yours looks like over torched.

Nice work. I'd show them the pics and request an adjustment that allowed me to correct the conditions that are painfully obvious. If they didn't give it to me, I'd have to do arithmetic to determine if deal was good enough to allow me to make the repairs and not be underwater literally and economically. Sometimes stuff is priced to reflect the problem, sometimes not. How good do you think your deal is?

You're off the reservation and it's hard to know what might happen. I'd have to be fluent in Eugene OR zoning and building codes to know, which I'm not. I'd say forget the wood stove for the time being and do a lot of homework.

HIP Pro works OK, like they say. Palm Tech just plain sucks...lousy interface, lousy format, lousy output. There, I said it. If the choice is between the two, HIP Pro. After that, all the software reporting systems are tired out, including Cramer's, and Cramer's is about as good as it gets. They were all valid and interesting 30 years ago, but they're all predicated on outdated concepts about report writing, which isn't surprising, because all the guys in this biz are creaky old farts that stopped thinking about different, new, or current ways to do things. Everyone takes the same tired out concept from the vendor of the month, tweaks it to their liking, and then stops thinking. It's a wasteland out there.

Then pretty much what Kibbel said. Usually no footing, maybe a slight spread at the bottom and some rubble...maybe. What you wrote is not bad, kinda boiler platey but not bad given the conditions.

Good line.

How old's the house, what's the foundation, and anything else you know for sure.