Jeremy

For the valve and the shower head, I have always just stood in front of the wall that the plumbing was to be installed on and marked where it was comfortable to reach the valve. The shower head stub out I have always found to be comfortable at 84" above the sub floor. My thought has always been, if you can comfortably get through the door way to the bathroom then 84 would be ok for the shower head. As for the tub filler stub out, the manufactures have a min. and max. dimension from the valve. That is the only spec. that comes to my mind, and I am sure that varies a little for each manfacturer.

Ah yes. Gas does make the electric bill easy. I've been used to looking at 5 ton ac/heat pumps with electric back up and then all the modern appliances on top. I guess that is why I've seen so many 200A services. Larger homes with multiple all electric HVAC quite often are seen with larger than 200 amp service. Gas is good.

Is the new construction a whole house or addition to existing home? I just thought all new homes were getting at least a 200 Amp service with all the modern day appliances going into them. Maybe a cop out from doing the load calculations?

Cord/Plug connections are not permitted for water heater use. NEC 400.7(A)( , 422.16©

Fill 'er to the top. The load calculation requirements need to be met, but I'm not going to be doing those calculations. If the house is all decked out with all the modern electrical appliances and luxuries available on the market, and running off a 60 Amp service, then it's over loaded. A qualified electrical contractor needs to do the calculations and replace the service panel etc. Even a panel that appears to be full may be capable of expansion with the space saver breakers, provided the calculated total load does not exceed panel capacity.

There is a gas furnace and an electric water heater with no wiring running to it. Won't this make for a cold shower?

The HVAC equipment is required to have an outlet within 25 feet.

Basement: At least one receptacle outlet must be installed.....210.52(G)

Is there any HVAC equipment in the basement?

It looks like the space containing the water heater would need a self closing door with solid weather strip with combustion air directly from outdoors. Unless it is a direct vent unit. Read G2406.2

A bedroom is a living area with a bed. Not all living areas are suitable for sleeping areas (bedrooms). If it is not suitable for a sleeping area, don't call it a bedroom. I think the notion that a bedroom has to have a closet comes from the NAR for the purposes of marketing a listing.

Good place to hang the clothes out to dry? Recommend bigger window in the laundry room? Nice feature!

Right!

There were only 2 termites. Don't worry about it. They won't eat much.

Balusters are allowed 4 3/8 inch sphere to pass on the sloped gaurds descending along the stairs.

I just checked the 2006 IRC, Roof ventilation, R806.2 Minimum Area. It appears that your calculations would satisfy the requirement in the IRC. Verify net free ventilating area. If it has proven to work, I wouldn't change anything. No mold/moisture issues? Satisfactory shingle life?

It would still be wise to mention the hazard of children climbing and falling to the ground. I don't see a graspable hand rail.

Put a zipper on top and hinge em open when the sun shines.

Forgot what I was searching for now, but this old post caught my attention. Years ago I had a new water well put in that produced way more water than we could measure, but also produced gas with the really strong rotten egg smell. Not having anymore money to throw in the ground at the time, I connected to that well for about 5, 6 months til I could drill again in another location. During that short period of time all the copper in the place turned black, the plumbing fixtures corroded, silver corroded, cheap jewelery became junk, I lost a few electronic items, and the colorfully painted beer stein from Germany turned grey/silver. Interestingly the red came back, but none of the other colors. Bad stuff man. I can't tell from the picture, but it looks like this house could be in the country and likely served by a water well. Erby, would that be an accurate guess? I don't know if my situation had any affect on the building wire besides appearance; I would say probably not. Does anyone know if the hardness (or softness) of the copper could be changed by exposure to this gas? I did have a jeweler tell me one time that clorox bleach could change the properties of gold enough to make it more brittle. I suppose he could have been blowing smoke at me. I'm not a chemist. (May be a good thing!) At any rate, if I were to encounter a property like this now, electrical concern aside, the issue would definately be worth bringing to the client. It was pretty nasty stuff to live with and costly. Might explain why the house was vacant.

It it aint' broke, why fix it? Are the power vents just ugly? A lot of times these things are not operational anyway and are only venting by convection. Ridge venting offers an even ventilation with a nice appearance. The key is to be sure there is enough unobstructed soffit ventilation to draw air from outside. You may need baffles in each rafter or truss bay to facilitate this by holding the ceiling insulation away from the bottom side of the roof deck. Without doing any calculations I would bet that you need more soffit vents and may be the reason the power vents were added in the first place. When using a ridge vent you would want to close off the gable vents to prevent short circuiting the flow of air from soffit to ridge. Like less says though, if the old system is working, why change it now?

Is it GFCI protected? If I still felt it was unsafe, I might recommend just removing the outlet and putting a blank cover on the receptacle box. Unless it is a really big bathroom it is unlikely that any outlets are required besides at the vanity anyway. After that it is up to them wether or not they can spare 1 or 2 of the gazillion. Either upgrading to GFCI or a blank cover is relatively inexpensive for buyer or seller.

You wouldn't like the SYP anyway. Doug Fir is a much better wood; more stable, less susceptible to rot and bugs.

My bad. You are very correct. I should have typed "seller's agent" in place of "selling agent". Sometimes my fingers and brain don't work at the same time. Sorry for the confusion.

When they first began using agency disclosure, it was for the buyer's agent to let the buyer know that the selling agent was representing the seller (basically buyer beware). This was cover for the agents, but very little protection for the buyer in terms of buying a overpriced, junk house. So, cover their butts? Yes. That's my understanding (little as it is). Just another paper for the stack.

Yes. I was attempting to fulfill your request for pics of the wild west method. That was the closest that I had. I'd have to really search for pics of the embedded 2x4 version and, if I found any, they'd be from the perspective of the inside of the crawlspace and hard to see. Some years ago a brand-spanking-new inspector on his first inspection ran into one of these floor-framing systems and wrote it up as completely fubar. He'd never seen anything like it before, being from another state that shall remain unnamed. That evening, he called me to brag about the major structural deficiency that he'd discovered and boasted about how he'd saved his clients' bacon by frightening them away from the house. I explained his error but he remained unmoved and told me that this construction method was simply unacceptable to him and that he'd continue to flag it every time he saw it. He stayed in business almost 9 months. I shudder to imagine the damage that he did to our profession. - Jim Katen, Oregon The most common place I have seen 2X6 T&G is in log homes, where the bottom is exposed as a ceiling below, with exposed beams. It is usually SYP.