caryseidner

Or you could let your client know that the sneaky approach might be better, as in befriending the neighbor & calling the city. I chose to use that approach myself once. Here's the story. I was renting an old vintage apartment and during the holiday season one year, my upstairs neighbor was hosting a kegger party. They posted signs in the hallways inviting the neighbors to join in, which of course was pretty nice and/or wise of them. It was on the same night as my company office party, so I really didn't think it would be a big deal. After whooping it up at my party, I came home around 1:00 am to find the neighbors party in full swing. I was dead dog tired and all I wanted to do was call the cops and go to sleep. But I didn't want to be suspected as the grouch (or grinch) to bust up a party. So I called the cops. Went upstairs and said hello to the host. Grabbed a beer (for appearances only) and 10 minutes later was thrown out with the rest of the revelers when the police showed up. The perfect crime[:-paperba

Great photo Bain!

I can't tell from the photos either, but I have seen asbestos wrapped around supply ducts many times in houses that age.

I was a member of Le Tip for 4 years. It was not a waste of money for me and I found it to be a very good referral source. The revenue generated far exceeded the expense (about 10:1), and it continues to even though I left over a year ago. The Le Tip & BNI groups are very hit and miss. It really depends on the make-up of the group. I ultimately left because I don't believe in the membership philosophy of quantity over quality, but I still maintain good relationships with the commercial realtor, mortgage broker, financial adviser and others from the group.

Water meter reader receptacle?

Hell yea, but not cause the weaponry!

I get a little creeped out when I see this many guns in someone's house. If I had the time or interest in learning how to use the panoramic feature on my camera, you would see some of the more medieval weaponry in this room. I thought this one was good because it should the liquor bottles in it too. Click to Enlarge 65.89 KB Years ago there was a bowling alley not too far from me. Of course there was a cocktail lounge in it, but it also had a gun range. Makes for an interesting Saturday night I guess.

Ahhh. Job security!

Here's a pic I found on Google. Click to Enlarge 8.72 KB

Bend at your legs and grab one of the lower rungs with your dominant hand then reach up with your other hand and grab another rung. Lift and walk. You can lean it back into your shoulder for additional support but be careful not to tip it back too far or you'll lose it. To bring the ladder back to horizontal I would walk it to my truck's rear bumper. Using my ladder rack as a pivot point I would simply lift from the bottom until my ladder was at horizontal. Of course that was with my old pick-up truck and wouldn't do well with my SUV. You can always find something to use as a block. A fence, a tree, a post, a stair, your vehicle tire...there all over the place.

The 28' is a good size and should be a little easier to handle, but only you know if it will work for the houses you typically inspect. I would suspect it would. You and I are about the same size and I used to handle 40' by myself. I'm not bragging, but I was taught how to carry and set-up a ladder. One tip I have for you is that it's always easier to manage a ladder if you are carrying it vertically. I would use the street curb as a footing to walk my ladder up to the vertical position, then carry it to the building. If low power lines or other obstacles were between my vehicle and the building, then I would carry it horizontally and find some other stationary "curb" by the building to straighten it up. That should keep the feet from kicking out on you and save you some $$$ on a new ladder.

Or the homeowner wanted to relocate it because it was under their couch.

I've heard that too Mark.

As it turns out it looks like it is installed correctly, but I don't think it will protect the rip in the base of your flashing Phil. Rain Collar

I hear ya Brandon and I guess it's possible that debris would accumulate between the boots, but I wouldn't call it out for that reason. I can't show you a credible source that endorses either repair. The NRCA publishes a flat roof repair manual that quite frankly has some pretty wacky repair methods in it. Stuff like mod bit patches with roofing cement smeared along the perimeters. I don't believe they publish a steep sloped repair manual nor have I ever seen one from the shingle manufacturers so I just have to look at something like this and think like water, and I don't see a leak here. I would avoid letting roof cement and neoprene come in contact with each other. The oils in the cement will breakdown the neoprene.

Why? If the top of the boot is the only thing damaged, as in Jim's 1st photo, then a new partial (like the one you found) or full (like the one Jim put on) soil vent flashing will keep the top of the old flashing protected from the elements.

That is almost the exact detail used to wrap 4"-16" vent penetrations on a flat roof, only the rain diverter is metal and caulked in place. I think the neoprene would be more effective, but I've never seen it on a pitched roof. Of course it's not going to do anything to help the rip at the base of the older neoprene flashing shown in your 1st pic.

I use Microsoft FrontPage. I don't know if it's any easier than the other software, but since it's an MS product the environment is familiar to me. I can easily make any basic changes to my website with it.

Why wouldn't the copper tubes in the exterior disconnect have been okay, if the circuit breaker in the main panel was 25 amps or less?

I agree with Marc. Looks like XPS.

From the pictures it a little difficult to tell how wide those trails are. If it was made by something in the feline family, it would have to have been a mountain lion. On a side note, there was a mountain lion spotted here in Chicago a few years ago and ironically that topic came up during the inspection, but not because of the trails in the insulation. The big cat was spotted in the alley were my clients are currently living, about 15 miles away from the inspection. I think Bill is right and it happened during a re-sheathing of the roof. The curvy pathways go all over the attic, twisting and turning from corner to corner. No foot, hoof or paw prints in the insulation between the joist or below the top of the joists. A small amount of tear-off debris sprinkled on top as well. Really it should have been more obvious to me when I was up there. I was a bit uneasy thinking that a big animal was gonna jump out from the insulation at anytime.[:-bigeyes

Good call Bill. 7 year old roof and plywood decking. Thank you...again!

Approx. 1500 sf attic with these random trails cut through the insulation, throughout the entire attic. My first thought was an animal, but the paths are really much wider than that of any "attic animal" I have ever seen and there was no entryway for something that size either, except for the attic hatch. Too curvy for wind-wash and it didn't appear to be from human traffic either, but I say that only because the walls of the trails are so vertical. Maybe a drunk with a shovel? Has anybody ever seen this kind of thing before? Click to Enlarge 79.26 KB Click to Enlarge 69.24 KB Click to Enlarge 64.81 KB Click to Enlarge 69.86 KB

Your camera takes waaaay sharper images than my TiR1! After I saw your photos I pulled up some of mine for a comparison and, well there is none. Click to Enlarge 18.4 KB

Now you'll have to add katen.ir_3.23.10[^]