Terence McCann

Right behind you.

Gas fired equipment needs adequate air for proper combustion (remove oxygen and the fire goes out or burns badly). Typically you would see two 6" sheet metal ducts entering the area. The requirements are 50 cubic feet for 1,000 BTUs. Some measurements and a little math will clear it up. Good catch though....

CO is not the problem - enough combustion air is however. You have a hot water tank and a gas fired furnace in the garage and both of them are pulling combustion air from the garage. Unless it is one huge garage or they have brought in makeup air from someplace you will be short on air. Did you notice makeup air anywhere? On a side note they can pipe combustion air, for the furnace, in from the outside which you already knew. When I installed my new 95% furnace this past spring I did not pipe in combustion air from the outside. Something about bringing in 0 degree air into a hot furnace didn't sit right.

If I may ask why pinless?

The only part I question is the part I snipped. The beauty of GFCI outlets, in an old 2-wire system, is their ability to work properly without a ground. Not to hi-jack the thread but......... I always recommend a grounded outlet for garage door openers, refrigerators (appliances with motors). We touched upon this briefly in the past but a GFIC outlet, on a garage door opener (not grounded) would still achieve the level of safety ones looking for would it not? If the motor is leaking current and I touch a metal part of the system, while standing on soil, the GFCI would trip as current is "leaking" somewhere. I believe that J.K. had a few comments about this too. We will now return to your regularly scheduled program.

Wow, I don't usually comment on boilerplate but that's a stinker. Some/many/most? Upgrades are recommended?? To what?? A grounded style outlet on a knob and tube system? Not personal Cary.... but I'm sure, with a good cup of coffee and five minutes, you can whip that into shape.

Just for two-prong or K&T along with two-prong?

Alarmist! []

Sorry, don't check any safety devices - in for a dime in for a dollar; that's why God created HVAC tech's. I do pay attention to boilers as most of the safety controls are purchased separately (or at least were when I was in the trades). Still don't test them but note their presence or lack thereof. Welcome to the forums Matt, the uninterpretable! I'm Terence -the incomprehensible. There are many other knights of the round table before you.

I've owned it since 2001 & love it. There's a definite learning curve with the software. Best advice is to attend one of 3Ds two day training classes. It will help a lot when first starting out. Donna, tech support, is on the ball and very helpful but their tech support is via email only (my only beef with them). The other thing to do is print out all the manuals (Office Max) and read them. Trying to read a PFD while setting up the system for the first time doesn't cut it. Other than that just jump in and kick the tires - as long as you make regular backups of a proper working system you can't hurt it (too much). Always make a backup every time you book a job and after every report for the obvious reasons. Keep a current 3d on another computer if your main one dies. At the end of the year make a backup of all and archive it on a CD - this way you can go in and delete the past years reports and start fresh. You can PM me via this forum if you have any question or just need some help. You'll learn to love it.

From todays inspection. It was part of the basement floor. Basement had a wet bar too. Cheap date night. Click to Enlarge 42.2 KB

From todays inspection. It's part of the phone system and I see them all the time in the older homes around here. Click to Enlarge 39.58 KB

Why? Do they act as some type of repellent?

Well said. Moisture meters are more for show, than go. And in the wrong hands they likely won't provide reliable results. I have to disagree. The proper training, to use a moisture meter correctly, is pretty basic stuff. Every time I see a stain on a ceiling, loose toilet, rafters that have stains, stains under windows I pull out the moisture meter. A nice picture with the LEDs in the red zone go right into the report. I would think that, in a court of law, a moisture meter would be considered a "must have" tool for home inspectors. Besides my flashlight it is the workhorse of my tool pouch.

A thick skin.

Amp probe around the water lines I would imagine.

Dumb place for a panel, but not an NEC violation. - Jim Katen, Oregon Really? Perfect height for a toddler to investigate.

The tile and/or the glue may contain asbestos depending on how old it is. Search this web site and Google for more information.

Tried to go to York this morning but the residential site is down. This link http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&s ... f&oq=&aqi= will show what liquid line dryer look like. If this is a newer system it may not even have one installed - depends on what kind of mood the installer was in. Also, if it is a newer system, that uses R-410/Puron, the pressures on these systems are much higher than R-22 systems.

When you say a single unit what do you mean? Was it a typical split system, furnace inside condensing unit outside? I ran into a liquid line that started to "sing" but the condensing unit sat a few stories above the air handler. This was due to a velocity problem - If I remember correctly we had to add small restrictors to the discharge valves on the valve plates (Carrier semi-hermitic recip) Typically if the unit is low on charge you hear gas/liquid movement in the liquid line. When the unit is fully charged the liquid line remains pretty silent for the most part. It may have had some type of restriction although these occur most often around the liquid line dryer. You can visually see these - right after the point of restriction the liquid line will start to ice because the restriction is acting like a metering device so to speak. Did you feel the liquid line? Typically it should be warm to the touch but not hot - if it was really cold then it most likely is low on gas. The more I think about it the more it sounds like a discharge valve vibration.... Got a model number?

Was the air handler and condensing unit on different levels - air handler on 1st floor condensing unit on roof type of thing?

http://lohdown.caltech.edu/script_archi ... 2006-07-31 Had to look it up myself too.

Wear a quality respirator!!

The start cap may still be working but as Jim said it should be replaced. When a start cap fails the device it's connected to will just hum on startup. A start cap gives the device a kick in the a$$ to get it going - much like my morning cofee. The thing going between the two terminals is a bleed resistor. BTW, good catch.

Interesting story... Did a home inspection last week and found FPB in the home. I informed the client to which he replied "Oh no." Seems his dryer shorted out, a fire started and the fire department was called. After the investigation it was traced back to the FP panel (220v breaker didn't trip). This was the first time I've had first hand confirmation on an actual problem arising from a FP panel. During the conversation with the fire department he got quite an education on FP.