Tom Raymond

That should be real fun to sweep[:-bigeyes

What kind of water temps are these things running at?

That, and the fact that a barber has to work harder than an HI to obtain a license in NY, and around here a contractor has to complete an application and sign a check. I know of one municipality that does not charge for licensing, but that's just the start of their hair brained schemes. The State doesn't license contractors.

I gotta say, I like it. There are a few places where it gets wordy, but so what? I get the custom narrative and how flexible it is. When your good at it, each report fits your client as well as the system fits you. I hope to be that good one day. I emulated your report when I designed mine because I liked it, but I axed the summary. My report is my summary. If my client wants or needs a condensed version then they can condense it themselves. Change the heading to 'Closing Comments' or 'Conclusion' or some such, and delete all of the bold text after your evaluation and comparison to similar structures. The report should naturally end with your conclusion, the rest is just clutter. If you must keep the summary, loose the page numbers. Since each comment is sequentially numbered they're easy enough to find. As you say, much needed white space. Thanks for sharing, I've learned alot.

That is precisely why I modeled my report after his. I also prefer 'qualified' over 'licensed', but I place that recommendation at the begining of my report. Some things that I feel strongly about will include a specific recommendation for who I think should fix them, including things that I think are, or should be, DIY. I typically recommend that installing or replacing smoke and CO detectors be the very first DIY project they do. Notice how many times I used 'recommend'[:-graduat

Not phony, out of place. That language is from another era. The old codger running that class had a seat on the arc. FWIW, I brought up "use at your own risk." The old guy liked it.

Part of my day job involves sitting at a desk essentially waiting for someone to walk in the door or for the phone to ring. Usually it's only a very small part of my day; 30-40 minutes in the morning, lunch at my desk(that is frequently interrupted), and 20-30 minutes in the afternoon. Today it was by design. The boss and his wife (the office manager) are on their way to the remodeler's show, one of our salesmen is on vacation this week and it is another's scheduled day off. Poor planning on their part has me scheduled for seat time with precious little to work on, so I'm hangin' here. If I had a report to write I'd be doing that instead. I'll probably do an RRP module or two after lunch.

I like the phrase: "use at your own risk." It removes any doubt from whatever I told them to do about the thing in question.

Expand your lesson plan and reduce your work load in one fell swoop. That's brilliant.

I was sitting at my desk this morning and it hit me that this would be a good example of the reflective capabilities of low e glass. Click to Enlarge 40.28 KB My computer screen is directly under that reflection off the interior of a high performance window sitting in front of my desk in the middle of my showroom. The source is passing through and being filtered by two high performance low e windows and two approximately 10' air spaces. Each window has a visible transmittance of about 55% (roughly half the visible light that hits the glass goes through it) and reflective coefficient of .60 or better (40% or less of the remaining spectrum passes through). The light reflected in the photo has been roughly halved at each of the three low e units. That should put a little perspective on how much energy is involved in this phenomena.

That is a constant force balance. It works very much like your tape measure and often sounds like one when you operate the window. The coil spring is designed to carry a secific load a fixed distance, a longer distance (taller window) requires a larger spring while a heavier load (a wider window, thicker glass, or triple pane) requires multiple springs working in tandom. I see 3 screws, meaning there are at least 3 springs paired there, and possibly one more since single springs are usually concealed by the sash when the window is closed. Multi spring assemblies must be stacked upwards from the standard single spring location or the sash won't open fully, better quality windows will conceal them with a channel cover. If the tilt latch is clashing with the spring assembly the window is either over shimmed at the sides compromizing the designed clearances or is constructed cheaply with low cost components that where not designed to work together. When cost is the primary design consideration the latter is all to often the case, and given that constant force is the low end to mid grade balance system of choice, it's what I suspect is the case here.

I think I've said this before, but, it's a shame that IKO products aren't as good as their instruction manual.[:-banghea

Yeah, that's the guy I want to take writing advice from. Perhaps I could take him more seriously if he could be bothered to proof read his own drivel. On second thought... And to think he takes such pride in that to post his picture with it.[:-paperba

I'm with Kurt on the asbestos. Tile look paneling is shiny, this stuff looks just like transite. I think there might still be a few sheets laying in the barn at my parent's place, I know I could build a prettier fire box than that[:-dev3]

That's a great place to install a shutter. 'Plastic' shutters are made of polypropylene and have much higher melting point than vinyl. They're also much easier to replace than the siding. Problem solved in fifteen minutes for around $50. John, the problem is the glass. Most windows on the market are made with single strength glass that measures just over 1/16" thick. When the glazing area gets too large to be reliable, usually around 4 square feet for insulated glass, manufacturers switch to single strength annealed (Andersen places annealed only on the outer pane to reduce costs). Eventually the glazing area will get large enough to require double strength glass, and still larger units need to be tempered. Single strength and annealed glass are going to be more susceptable to collapse than thicker double strength and harder tempered glazings. The heat treating processes of annealing and tempering can distort the glass being treated, though I would think that the uniform ripple distortion of tempered glass would also prevent the fine focus that seems to exacerbate the phenomena, but that's just an educated guess. Collapsed glass has alot of variables. Thin glazings contribute, but so does the thickness of the air space, the overall size of the IG unit, the type and placement of the low e coatings, and the spacer system used. I think this problem would disappear in large part if the window manufacturers would use double strength glass with a ridged spacer, an overall thickness of no less than 3/4", with the low e coatings on the inner pane of glass. The impacts on thermal performance and production costs would be minimal, about .03 shift in U factor and 3-5 cents per square foot of IG unit, the latter would easily be recouped with the reduced failure rates of thicker glazings.

Michael, I think you answered your own question. What was the box bonded to? That became the ground path, but probably not a very good one. My in-laws have a detached garage with a 2 wire overhead supply (I assume because nearly all of the house is 2 wire circuits) to a fused disconnect. The garage circuits are all 3 wire, and the disco is grounded to a piece of rebar (yes, steel rebar) driven into the ground. While they had their travel trailer plugged into the garage to prep for a trip the furnace control board and the tank monitor board got fried because of the poor ground. As far as the masonry becoming the ground path, it might have when it was wet. Ever place an old metal bodied power tool on damp concrete or masonry? If conditions are right you get quite a jolt. Don't ask me how I know.

Hah, that's what I left the NEHA three-day class thinking. The real test calls for the measurement device to be in the house for a minimum of six months. Closings are taking so long here that there is almost time for a real test.

Sure it would, but today it would violate that pesky 'all conductors of a circuit must run together' rule. Sorry Jim, I haven't memorized the NEC yet.

There's enough fittings and nipples there to fix it. Might be faster and easier than writing it up. You do carry pipe dope, don't you?[:-dev3]

The trick is to drink all the beer in there first. It will be lots lighter when your done.[:-dev3]

What makes you think there is anything behind those tiles? Watch your step![:-dev3]

Jerry, you forgot to mention that there is at least one misaligned course in every pic[:-banghea That roofer is a moron, it's amazing he got that roof done without nailing himself to it.

If you want a 'green' drinking fountain unplug the damned thing. When you open the valve the water is wet, and if you let it run a minute it gets cold and wet. If you have an old drinking fountain you have to let it run for a minute to get cold water anyways. LEED is a snake oil sales pitch.

Why not? Lead is still as commonly used as asbestos, and in some pretty suprising places too. Got a soft sided cooler or lunch bag? The vinyl liner contains lead. Plastic mini blinds? Yup, there's lead there too. Most anything made of vinyl that is supposed to remain flexible uses lead as the primary plasticizer.

Steve, despite Marc being gracious enough to point you to the specific answer to your question, I strongly suggest that you read the entire installation manual. It will give you a far better understanding of what you got for materials and workmanship. It's just a guess, but if this is your only complaint I would think you got a good install.