David Meiland

The long-wave cameras that are common for inspection don't see much at all in the way of gases. FLIR makes a very cool line of mid-wave cameras that see different gases. The CO model would be neat to play with. http://www.flir.com/thermography/americ ... /?id=18294

This one has numerous piers like those in the photo, but the perimeter is 1/2" plywood skirting that's tight to grade, either sitting on the slab or right next to it. Numerous vents cut in. I will probably need to revisit this one after winter has really set in. It's about 1/4 mile away on the road to town.

Mike, it certainly could have flooded under there, and with skirting tight to the ground I suppose it could have gotten an inch deep and stood there awhile. Surface water, downspout problem, pipe burst, washing machine hose, not sure. The owner hasn't been there long and didn't have any history on it. I was impressed by the uniform nature of the deposits... evenly spread almost everywhere, nothing to suggest areas where water flowed and other areas left dry. The interior humidity was significant, 72F and 58%RH, with lots of sweat on the windows and a skylight, even a small area of mildew on drywall in the upper corner of a bedroom. I read my meter in grains per pounds, outdoors yesterday was about 30, inside my little slab-on-grade office was 42 with me sitting here, inside her house was 68. I like Jim's comment as well. I assume they pour the slab, lay the plastic, roll a tractor trailer on with the house on it, then scurry around with blocks to get it on the ground. All that traffic on the plastic is going to leave a lot of tiny pinholes.

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Checked out a manufactured home yesterday that had very high interior humidity. Underneath there's a concrete slab with poly sheeting over it. There is a lot of whitish crystalline material deposited on the top of the poly. It looked very similar to lichen but wasn't. There are also stains on the bottom of every pier block, most noticeable on the bottom block but also on the second and (and sometimes third) block in each stack. The home has an electric downflow furnace sitting on the floor of a closet with return air entering about 3 feet off the floor. I take this to be condensation on the top of the poly, enough over the years to leave mineral deposits on the poly and cause some efflorescence in the blocks. I find it really interesting that the upper blocks also have some of that showing. It's surprising to me that the slab can get cold enough to condense, but with high enough humidity it's certainly possible. I've been under a couple of other places in this same 'hood and not seen this. It probably does not help the the FAU is pushing the humid air down into ducts where some of it doubtless leaks into the crawl. Any comments on this?

If I had my daughter's room painted like that, she'd grab a handful of sharpie markers and add a whole bunch of her own touches to it.

U.S. export restrictions on thermal imaging equipment are not uniform--some is in the "could be militarized" category and some is not. You should be able to get almost any level of equipment in Canada that you want.

Check this out: http://www.iopath.com/freepage.html

Scott, I have one that's mine for keeps, wouldn't part with it. The unit I'm selling came in with some other gear that I'm keeping.

I'm not familiar with filling glycol systems, but I think you need to set yourself up so that you can purge a large volume of fluid through the system. Did you give it a couple of hours to purge all the air? Or maybe more? In my limited experience, non-flowing hydronic systems always mean air stuck somewhere, and more purging needed. Kurt, I don't see an issue with loop length. A lot of systems look like his, in terms of the manifolds, and the loops are kept to <250'. He said 700 feet total, 5 loops.

Is there a water fill line connected to that system? Run water through the system using the fill line, and out through a short length of garden hose. Put the end of the garden hose in a 5-gallon bucket or even a trash can. As the water flows through, you will probably get batches of air bubbles periodically. Keep wasting water until all the bubbles have stopped. It can help to open and close the loops individually, run them in groups, run them all together, etc. Then try running it again using the circ. After doing this you may find that some loops flow and some do not. Purge those that do not again.

Were those in situations where the meter is right on top of the breaker panel?

Fluke Ti32, new and unused in original packaging with all the various parts, pieces, paperwork, discs, etc., calibration date 5/2011, $6800 including shipping. U.S. buyer only, Washington state add sales tax.

Every batch plant rents concrete blankets, and probably in the perfect size to cover sidewalks and footing/wall forms. I'd easily do that with temps in the 20s... below that (doesn't happen here) I might start heating them after the pour.

The TK-11 looks like a pretty good melon-scooper. One in each fist and any agent would back down...

It's possible that the top of the 3x2 tee is the vent, with a 45 right where the beam is notched, and a pipe continuing back, parallel to the joists, and then probably up inside (or on the outside of) the exterior wall. Very hard to tell from the photo.

For a Ufer ground, we're not allowed to connect the EGC to rebar here (WA State Labor & Industries inspects electrical work here). The copper wire has to be run into the footing and clamped to a 20' length of bar (sometimes interpreted as multiple piece(s) spliced together with tie wires, sometimes interpreted as one uncut 20' piece). I specifically have to get the electrician to come out and clamp the copper to the rebar before we pour, and then get that inspected or in rare cases provide a photo of it. Later, he connects that same copper to the panel.

http://www.electrical-contractor.net/fo ... 256/1.html

You're saying there are no ground rods and no Ufer ground, and that the electrician connected to the water line as a way of grounding the house??

Those blue ones from Amazon are the same that I have. They are quite splendid and amazingly cheap.

John, your photos show what appear to be a short connection to a water heater and possibly another one to a furnace, although that's a lot less clear. Is it just these two sections of CSST, and are they short, or is there more? If most of the piping in the house is iron, and there is a ground conductor present, wouldn't you expect the iron to be bonded and these two short pieces of CSST to be left as they are? And, what does the plumber's opinion have to do with it? The electrician is the one who comes in and does the bonding, in my experience.

We periodically get air in our water lines, and I'm trying to come up with a solution. It only happens when my wife runs drip hoses for long periods, and the solution can't be to stop watering, so... We have a well about 50 feet from the house. There is a 1" line underground into the crawl space to the pressure tank. All of the house plumbing is fed from the tank tee. There is also a tee at the well. The separate shop building is fed from a 1" line underground, pressure provided by the same pressure tank, of course, but one fact being that water moves in both directions through the underground line to the house, depending on where the water is being used. It is fairly common for my wife to water the orchard from a hose bibb on the shop, while also watering the kitchen garden from a hose bibb on the back of the house. I believe this is the most likely situation that causes the air problem, but I haven't pinned it down--it may also be that only watering the kitchen garden can cause it. All of this watering of course uses a fair amount of water, so the submersible pump runs fairly often (the pressure tank is 119 gallons and seems to me to give about 35 gallons before calling for a pump cycle). One possibility that has occurred to me is that the well or pump are somehow introducing the air, but I guess I don't think that's likely. The last time I checked, the pump was 60 feet underwater, and we are in an area with plenty of water and many wells that are 20+ GPM. Another possibility is that the fact that the water periodically reverses flow direction in a portion of the line is the issue. I'm wondering if this somehow causes air to enter via one or another of the backflow preventers on the hose bibbs. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Anyone out there use or can recommend a good headlamp that uses an 18650 battery? I'm using a Fenix flashlight that does, and would like to standardize on one battery/charger.

We almost always run the water line under the footing, and we put pipe insulation on it. One thing that happens... if you cut a ditch down a hill to the foundation of a house, you often create a channel for water to follow, if the backfilled ditch is not as compact as the soil around it. I'm watching some guys build near me right now, and they dug a 2' deep ditch down a long slope right to the middle of their building footprint. If they're smart and they compact the soil well as they backfill, they'll probably be OK. If they let the excavator flip a bunch of fluffy soil back into the ditch, and blade the rest of it out in the general vicinity, they'll have a new creek running into the crawl space.

If you don't sell it here, you can probably get a pretty good sale on eBay. Nearly-mint units go for $2100-2300. You'll spend a couple hundred on fees.