Tom Raymond

This may help: http://www.daveyoho.com/training.php. It's a heat loss checklist designed for selling home improvements. I don't care for it, but I'm not a hard sell kind of guy. I couldn't find a sample of the form on his site, but I have a hard copy I could fax (scanner at work is a PITA) to you if your interested. Tom

I take that a step further and talk about tax credits, rebates and other incentives that are available for making energy efficient upgrades, but that's what I do at my day job so I'm very comfortable making those statements. There is the added benefit that it reinforces the idea that my client should negotiate for dollars and not for repairs. I don't know how well you'd be able to do marketing that as a seperate service. Maybe if more people knew what a real audit involved you could make a cost/value pitch, but consumers have no idea. Tom

Uhm, the only thing I see that I can positively ID as mold is the drawer pic, so is that predicated on the stains or the fact that everything looks as old and out dated as the Harvest Gold range hood? I would be far more concerned by the poor condition of the tiles than anything else in those pictures. A redo is in order, but for far more reasons than a little mold. Tom

After a (very) brief cruise through their website it looks to me like you will need to keep your existing water heater for back up and run the solar system along side it. I know of only one company that makes a heat exchanger that will fit into any existing water heater tank, sunmaxx solar. The advantages are; your solar storage and domestic hot water are in the same vessel saving lots of space, the controls are very simple, and back up is automatic. Solar thermal is highly scalable, but for domestic hot water keep it as simple as possible. Tom

I've seen it drip from the neutral, but not with conduit. The water gets in the meter can through the putty around the SEC. Something on that can leaks. Tom

The problem is that net is never cast in the right direction, it's always reactive, never proactive. It doesn't matter what we need protection from; we'll find a better poison, new uses for the old ones, or a cheaper source. Lumber that leached arsenic was replaced with wood that's caustic and corrosive, urea formaldehyde in everything from adhesives to insulation to carpeting, the current Chinese drywall mess, and lead - don't even get me started on lead. Tom

It's a bricky thing. The old timer who taught him to lay brick used that formula, and he probably got it from the the old timer before him. When I worked masonry every firebox was exactly the same, because they worked. Why would you expect anything different from someone content to lay brick, one after another, over and over, gazillions of times. Tom

That looks like a listing pic, it's oddly composed and poorly lit but the feature is smack in the middle.[] Tom

Mark your one twisted individual. You just did the easiest inspection ever of a 1920 attic and your complaining about it[:-dev3] Tom

The problem is caused by a fundamental flaw in our building science, compounded by a removal of qualifications to design buildings. First, the vast majority of new homes are designed by the builder, the material provider, or a home designer these days, no training required. They are flawed while still in plans, so it's really surprising that more of them aren't seriously flawed as buildings. Second, we have this magic bullet called attic ventilation, a one size fits all system that is left to no less than 3 trades to properly install. It's a wonder any of it works at all, so why are we surprised when we find one that has failed? Ventilation needs to be designed for the building, and just like any other system, installed by a single skilled trade, but until there are more stringent requirements for the people designing buildings that is just a pipe dream. Tom

I think Richard is on to something. What is supporting the brick where they span the basement windows? I wouldn't be surprised if they rest right on the window trim, unusually nice construction or not. 1927 brickmold that close to grade is gonna be in pretty poor condition. As the soldiers lose bearing surface and roll out mid span the soft mortar allows adjacent brick to follow, and once they project beyond the stucco they capture run off and speed the process up while extending it outward from the windows. Call for a really short bricky to straighten them out. I hate working on stuff at ankle height. Tom

Yeah, but there's no ladder needed to steal service. There's a bright side to everything. Tom

I got a good laugh out of it. Thanks.

The down side is that most manufacturers limit the warranty to 1 year on units used for radiant heat, and some void it all together. It' good to see that there are now units rated for boiler duty. The limiting factor in the performance of tankless units is their flow capacity. There are low end units that can't make more than 3 or 4 gallons per minute which can easily be exceded with two points of use, and high end units that'll churn out over 9 gpm. It really comes down to reading the specs for the installation in question. Tom

Can someone 'splain to me why there is an expansion tank and a mixing valve on a DWH? Is this a Left Coast thing? Even in a really tiny house there is generally enough pipe length in the distribution lines to accomodate the expansion, and there's no need to temper the water unless the temps are cranked up for hydronic heating. Around here this set up would be used to manage the constantly varying high limit of a solar thermal DHW system, but only if the tank was used for both domestic (the tempering valve) and solar storage (the expansion tank). In response to the OP, what is the air pressure in the expansion tank? Increasing the the air pressure should solve your problem, that is after all what you are doing by capping it. When did you measure the water pressure? If you measured it at a period of even moderate demand, it likely goes much higher than 83 pounds at periods of no demand. If it were mine, I'd leave it capped or max the air pressure until I could get a PRV installed, and request a new water meter while I was at it, just to be sure. Tom

That's a serious network. The print shop my wife used to manage had a set up that big for the admin and plant, and another like it for the art dept. Nearly 60 people worked there. What did the phone system look like? Tom

Dr. Joe is a brilliant presenter, I would go to another of his seminars in a heart beat. In the first five minutes of the seminar I attended he told over 200 architects and engineers that they were stupid, and every one of them roared with laughter. Is Woeste the guy that looks like a cross between a mad scientist and a highschool shop teacher? The one that likes to pad out building exteriors with base sheet furring strips and spray foam? If so, his intuitive grasp of how buildings behave is utterly amazing, his insulation concepts are damn scary though. Tom

Does presenting a course count toward your CE? If so I might have to register a few. I still think Mike should work on getting participation here accredited, say one hour a month for anyone that posts over 500 times a year. I should be just about covered.[] Tom

Are you sure it's not hydronic with an air handler for each unit? That would make a lot more sense. Tom

Heat recovery ventilators are pretty cheap and very reliable and HE mechanicals are going to utilize outside air for combustion anyways. Creating an appropriate number of air turns is very easy and inexpensive, much more so than compensating for uncontrolled losses. Tom

My renewal date is coming up, so I thought I would check in with NY to see if any the training I did for my day job or my ZBA appointment would be accepted for HI CE credits. I have 14 hours approved, and 24 hours up in the air (until yesterday). 12 hours of solar energy training does not qualify because the provider is not on the list of approved educators. I can live with that. 8 hours of HUD/EPA LRRP Lead Hazard Certification training does not qualify because the application for approval is still pending. The provider is not on the list of approved educators, and must be aproved before their course can be. They are good enough for HUD and the EPA but apparently not for NY, very disappointing. 4 hours of Zoning Law training, which meets the legal obligation for training for every local government employee in the state, does not qualify because the provider is not on the list of approved educators. Apparently the NY Dept. of State isn't qualified to make it onto their own list. I'm not making this up, that is the official position of the Bureau of Educational Standards. How sad is that? Tom

Yes. The side windows are double hung and the EIFS is butt to the frames, but there are no capillary breaks or head flashings, they aren't even caulked. The fixed window frame is completely incased and the finish coat is actually applied over the glazing stop. Not only is the run off directed behind the EIFS, one would have to cut it back an inch or more on all four sides to service the glass. Tom

In the second pic you can see mold on the pleated shade inside. The double hung frames are trimmed into the EIFS but they're wrong too, just not as wrong as the picture window bedded into it right up to and over the glazing stop. To make matters worse, the interior is finished of with a seat board that is hinged for closed storage below the windows, so it's wet and there is zero air movement to help dry it out. Tom

Is HWA a sponsor or paid advertiser? I hope Jim didn't offend a sponsor[:-dev3] Tom

Yeah, if your gonna do it, do it right. I've got a bcam and while it impresses the hell out of clients, I could really use better resolultion. At $5k it's very disappointing to be able to higher res pics with my cell phone cam. $8500 is a pretty good deal. Tom