David Meiland

It should be quite easy to replace the shims with either steel or solid wood, by jacking the beam slightly at each pier.... just enough to take the pressure off. I would bring chunks of 1/4" steel plate, chunks of sheet metal (easy to just buy Simpson tie plates for that), and chunks of dense VG fir 1x. A few layers of 30# felt would go between concrete and wood. I have done significant jacking of finished homes and it's not that easy to break the drywall or anything else, especially not with the <1/8" you need to replace the shims. Grout is a good material but you need to let it cure a bit, so you'd have to go to the job twice, and you'd need enough jacks to support each grouted location.

Hopefully it's clear by now that I meant 14% max MC in the framing lumber and sheathing, and ideally lower than that.

Mike, let's make a deal! You tolerate me as a ride-along, I'll bring my camera.

It's not clear from your post where the insulation is installed.... under the roof deck? If so, the combination of the encapsulated insulation and the lack of ventilation in that area could indeed cause elevated moisture levels. I would not want readings much above 14% or so, and preferably less. The attic can gain some moisture by solar vapor drive thru the shingles, but the majority of it is probably percolating up from the living space below thru gaps, cracks, holes, etc. You want to keep the humidity in the attic well under control, mostly by air-sealing the attic floor, boxing any recessed lights, building an insulated cover over the attic hatch, etc., and you want at least the code-required ventilation levels, unless you opt for a completely sealed and conditioned attic.

Another possible problem there that's partly pitch-related is that water can easily blow uphill on metal panels, and enter under the ridge cap. The ridge cap profile they used rides along across the high spots on each panel, rather than notching around those high spots and dropping down to the main level of the panel. They are supposed to bend the panel ends up at 90 degrees at the top, to create a dam, but may not have done that. The lower the pitch the more likely this will be a problem when it's windy.

I had the same question as you a short while back and ended up with $700 in meters... the Protimeter and the Tramex. The Protimeter has pins, which I am very much used to as a builder/woodworker, and also has long probes that I have used a few times. The Tramex is better for scanning finished surfaces and if you read a couple of other threads on this site you may conclude that it scans deeper than the Protimeter. I started with the Protimeter but added the Tramex after worrying that the Protimeter might be prone to false negatives when scanning drywall. Of course the Tramex has that potential as well.

Is the a/c on and running thru those ducts? What was the temp/RH/dewpoint in the crawl? Absent a dryer vent leak or some other egregious source of warm moist air, the answer may be that the ducts need to be sealed with mastic, and probably insulated, and sources of moisture need to be controlled (how good was the ground cover, any observations on drainage around the perimeter?)

According to the scale in your image, the hot spot looks to be 98 or less. How do you get 105? There is definitely current flowing. Curious as to why the owner asked for the inspection, and what might be discovered without any loads? FWIW, there are several very good posters on electrical equipment issues at irtalk.com

Sure are a lot of variables in that scenario. Why does the building owner think the irrigation is the sole source of his problem?

Jim, what is a "classified" breaker?

Every user of an infrared tool like that needs to understand emissivity. If you are using one, keep a roll of Scotch 33 electrician's tape with it, and put a piece of tape on the metal you want to measure. Assuming the emissivity setting of the tool is around .95, you should be fairly close.

People want to help you diagnose this, but your descriptions are not adequate. Need photos, clear descriptions of conditions inside and out, etc.

Are we talking cold water only, hot water only, cold/hot together...?

I have a customer with a similar problem. During windy storms a little bit of water drips on the interior sill from behind the interior head casing. The room has a cathedral ceiling. There's a skylight in the roof that's in line with that window, and when it gets real windy, water gets driven up under the apron flashing of the skylight. The leak drips down onto the back of the drywall, runs down to the top plate of the wall, runs down between the top plate and the drywall, lands on top of the window jamb, and drips out from behind the casing. The roof in that area needs to be stripped and the skylight replaced.

The corrugated plastic piece is especially nice.

It is difficult to buy used energy audit equipment right now, there are occasional offerings but they go quickly. There is a gentleman here advertising some equipment for sale at the moment, and I have occasionally seen similar listings here and in other places. You may also find something on eBay, but you have to be diligent and move quickly. I think most people who want equipment are buying new.

There's good and bad to this. The owner may be able to recoup some of the cost of the upgrades thru rebate programs, and they will recoup some of it thru reduced energy use. If the owner sells shortly after the upgrades, benefits will accrue to future owners instead. $550 seems high to me for a duct blaster test, especially once we see larger numbers of trained and equipped auditors out there, and I believe future code revisions will require duct blaster testing on new installs too, so more technicians will have the equipment. I've done work on plenty of houses with ductwork in the attic or crawl space, AND ductwork concealed in floors and walls. You can do duct-sealing on the exposed pipe, the other stuff is harder....

If you're talking about flashing / cladding / WRB problems that led exterior moisture into the wall, then yeah, I can imagine a disaster. No matter what your wall detail is you have to keep the rain out. If you're talking about interior humidity finding its way into the foam sandwich then I'm surprised but I guess it's possible.

Agree that modeling the proposed assembly, and/or simply using an existing, proven design would be good.... but if this is in the Portland OR area, and the 4" of foam is roughly R28, are concerns about interior humidity condensing in the wall warranted? Seems like this is plenty to move the dewpoint well into the insulation, and that interior ventilation should keep things under control. Or, are you suggesting something else? Also agree that this is outside the purview of this forum... but many of you guys are great on topics like this.

Hopefully I'm not disagreeing with Joe Lstiburek here but I don't see putting the WRB behind the insulation. I would probably put it on top of the insulation, cap-staple it to help prevent billowing, and arranging my battens so that it was never going to see a single ray of UV. If you put the foam over the WRB, and the tape joints fail, you will eventually have water working its way into the layers and sitting there on the WRB... which defeats the entire purpose of rain screen walls. And, with the WRB on top you're not relying on the tape nearly as much.

So you are relying on the taped joints as your WRB? How well will it perform as an air barrier, and how long will the tape hold? Have you got specific approval from the insulation manufacturer for your application, and for the tape you intend to use? Manufacturers all have (800) numbers with tech people on hand, and I would strongly suggest you talk to them and get their blessing for every detail. Building details have already been developed and tested, it should not be necessary for you to invent anything nor is it wise.

That's why I don't want to do RRP, I want to test/abate. It's totally unproven at this point, and I have yet to try to find/hire XRP testing, but I bet in a lot of cases abatement will end up being cheaper or on par with RRP work procedures.

Is he trying to avoid having a trained/certified worker on the jobsite? From what I have read, there has to be a trained/certified worker supervising the job, and also training others who work on the job how to follow the rules, and then maintaining all the documentation. Is he suggesting that you would be that person? The strategy I will probably try is testing/abatement. A consultant with XRF equipment identifies LBP components, if any, and a separate abatement contractor removes them completely. Actual remodeling work following that does not need to be per RRP work practice.

You're right, I didn't look closely enough. There's a sort of whitish chatter on the edge of part of that, and it fooled me. The drain holes in the edge look like nails. Never seen that product, ever.

So they cut the felt open at the ridge, install the Cor-a-vent, and just skip the cap shingles? I bet the mfr. of the vent wants shingles installed over their product. We install caps so that they overhang the vent by 1 inch, to reduce the chance that water wicks into the vent, which it might do if the rain is falling directly on it. Bizarre...