Ken Meyer

The 4" cast iron vent runs horizontally through the attic for a few feet from the bathroom before turning 90 degrees and going through the roof. There is a crack in the horizontal run. Since this is not carrying liquid, is there a way to patch it? Cutting out and replacing the section would involve having to resupport the vertical run of the pipe as it up through the roof. Image Insert: 434.28 KB

Here are two photos of the Stealth vents, inside and outside. The homeowner told me the roofer was "very persuasive". Image Insert: 360 KB Image Insert: 446.15 KB

Is there a minimum clearance required between a PVC exhaust flue pipe and a heat duct? Here's a zero clearance installation. Image Insert: 177.69 KB

I saw these for the first time today, is anyone familiar with them? http://www.awardmetals.com/StealthLowProfileVent.htm

I agreed to do some miscellaneous work for a friend of a friend, her priority is adding insulation to save energy. There is a small basement area where the furnace is located, flanked by two crawl spaces. The basement is open to the crawl spaces. There was no vapor barrier in the crawls, and there is no subfloor insulation. I installed vapor barriers in the crawls, and she will get someone else to install the subfloor insulation (I don't care if business is slow, there are some jobs I just won't do). My question is whether it's better to close the crawl space vents or leave them open in this situation. It seems to me that from an energy savings standpoint, closing the vents in the winter makes sense, the entire basement/crawl space area would then become a conditioned space. Does it make much difference in energy use if the furnace is in a colder space with the vents open, or if it's operating in a warmer space with the vents closed? Of course, I just don't think that the average homeowner would bother to open and close the vents with the seasons, so maybe it's better to leave them open all the time. The best solution, I think, would be to wall off the crawls, leaving access doors, but that won't happen.

No sound here, either, but it doesn't matter. The video clearly explains what happened.

That's not quite right. A heat load calc determines how much air the room will need, to maintain design criteria, followed by what size of duct will deliver the needed CFM. Adding up all the rooms will determine the size of the furnace (or you can wag at X cfm per square foot). Thanks for the info. There is no central air, we get along fine without it, so it's just a heating system. I'll gather more information about the furnace and see what I can figure out. I just want to know if this is practical. Maybe if and when the furnace ever goes out, we'll replace it and move it to a new location other than the middle of the basement, and redo the ductwork at that time, we would gain a lot more room that way.

This may be a dumb idea, but I thought I'd throw it out there and see what you guys think. About 15 years ago, we converted from an oil furnace to a high efficiency gas furnace. The basement ceiling is 87" high,and one of the heating ducts is 17"wide by 11" high, leaving roughly 76" of headroom. Since we changed the furnace, we have remodeled two bathrooms and removed the ductwork to them, using a toekick heater in one of them, and radiant floor heat in the other. Both bathrooms previously were fed off this duct. It occurs to me that I could reduce the size of the heating duct to gain some headroom, since the demand is lower now. How would I go about calculating the size required for the duct?

I've only had one EIFS building so far, a commercial building. I explained to the owner that I did not do EIFS, but could arrange for another inspector who is EIFS certified to do just that part of the inspection, and I would do everything else. They agreed, and I arranged it. It cost the building owner double what my fee was, but they didn't bat an eye about it.

No, we don't, but it's been a good ride, albeit a bit bumpy at times. I never intended for the thread to go this way, but I learned something, so it was worth it.

This helps. Don't know if I put the link in the right way. http://www.elitesoft.com/sci.hvac/ithighlg.html www.elitesoft.com/sci.hvac/ithighlg.html

I'm getting everything except where the 208V comes in, and what the term "phase angle" means. I'll do some more web research later when I have time.

Thanks, everyone. I was told that they are considering replacing the aged unit with a tankless, that would be the smart way to go.

Commercial inspection, small office building. The hot water heater is in the attic space directly over the kitchen area. I was told that they had problems with the water heater leaking, so they put a pan under it. Good idea, especially since the WH is 20+ years old. They ran 3/4" PVC down from the pan to the kitchen sink. It comes down the interior wall and with two 90 degree els, hangs over the edge of the sink. Is this wrong, or just ugly? Shoulda taken a picture, but didn't.

Well, the wires should be in conduit, but you wouldn't need to run UF or any romex in conduit. The conduit protects the wires inside, the same thing the jacket on the romex does, and it would be really hard to pull romex through conduit. The PVC pipe might work to protect the refrigerant lines from mechanical damage, but again, the line voltage wires should be in water tight conduit.

This was a commercial inspection, a small office building. The report is for the current owner, he wanted to have the building inspected to get an idea of upcoming repairs he should budget for. The building is not being sold. Should I note in my report the fact that it has 3 phase?

Here are some more pix from today's inspection. The first needs no explanation. The second is one of those "why did they do it that way?" ones, I pity the electrician who has to get in to those grounding and neutral bus bars. And yes, I did note the paint, the mixed grounds and neutrals, the excessive amount of romex, and the wires to nowhere on the left side with no wire nuts. Image Insert: 467.53 KB Image Insert: 470.63 KB

Thanks so much for your quick responses. I should have known this, but I just forgot that it only applied to branch circuits.

Can anyone tell from looking at this photo if this is aluminum wiring? It's from an office building built in 1985. I could not see any markings on the insulation to help me out. The wires go to a heat pump. Thanks Image Insert: 383.05 KB

I have raccoons in my back yard, I know all too well what their turds look like, these were soil plugs. It's out of my hands now, I'll let whoever comes out to fix the problem decide how they want to do it, I've put my 2 cents worth in.

I wish I had taken a wider view, but I wasn't thinking about posting the photo when I took it. The gutter pictured runs the length of the front of the house, the section on the left returns to the roof above the front porch. The bottom of that section where it returns is cut out to let the water fall through, but of course, the gap is small and easily fills up with leaves, etc. There were a couple of soil plugs in it from someone's lawn that had been aerated, birds or squirrels must have brought them up there. The dam seems to have created a bigger problem than it was intended to fix. I still don't know why they bothered to put it in.

One of the first things I saw when I began the inspection the other day was this dam that had been installed in the gutter on the front of the house. I'm not sure why it was done, but I wrote it up saying that it would trap debris easily and water would back up and find its way between the roof shingles and the fascia to the left in the photo (red arrows), a poorly sealed area. The gutter drains at the right of the photo down a couple of inches to another shorter section of gutter perpendicular to it, on the side of the sloped roof over the front porch. From there, it goes to the downspout. It rained for the 2 and a half hours it took for the inspection. I was just packing up to leave, my box with all my gear was just inside the front door, and just above it was the mail slot. Running down the wall from the mail slot was a small stream of water. I got the ladder out of the car again and took a second look at the gutter dam. It was directly over the outside mail slot. I cleared some of the debris from the left side of the gutter for the photo. I suggested that they cap off the gutter pretty close to where the gutter spike is and get rid of the piece to the left, then there would be access to the area that needs to be sealed off better. I was feeling pretty good about having predicted something and then having it proven, but then as I was driving away I realized D'oh! the water leak had distracted me from taking a second look at something else on the exterior, so I had to turn around and check it. I felt a little less smart now. Image Insert: 348.83 KB

I knew Jim would have the reason. My thought was that a burglar could shut off the alarm system easily with the outside breaker being so accessible, but I guess they haven't figured that one out. Matthew makes a good point, what a great Halloween prank! I grew up in a small town (a village, really), and we used to climb up the one utility pole where the photocell that controlled the street lights was, and shine a flashlight down on it until it activated and shut off all the streetlights in town. For a few brief minutes, we felt pretty powerful!

I've seen several older homes that have had new electrical service added, and the main breaker is located outdoors in an enclosure next to the meter. Is this required either by the municipality (Portland, OR) or the power company? Is it to allow emergency personnel to be able to disconnect power to the house or.....? Can the homeowner padlock the enclosure with the main breaker in it? Anyone walking by could shut off power to the house. Thanks