Bill Kibbel

Crown Columbia Dynatherm Energy Kinetics Laars Hydrotherm Thermo Dynamics Heat Transfer Products (Munchkin)

It's probably a water powered back-up pump. If it's on a municipal water supply and there's a power failure, the water pressure will create a pumping action.

I was just thinking about some of the questions and responses on this thread and wanted to clarify something. The images originally posted by dtontarski show a very unusual material to be used as a structural part of a building. I'm pretty confident it is leftover or salvaged conduit tile, not the more common structural tile used for foundations and other masonry walls in older buildings. I get at least one e-mail a month from homeowners, inspectors and other professionals asking me to identify a clay block material that they are not familiar with. Some have been incorrectly told that it is "telephone tile". The pictures that they send are always of hollow, unglazed clay blocks that is now referred to as "structural terra cotta". I have catalogs and pamphlets from the early 1900s that call it "hollow building tile". The ribbing is on both faces. When used above grade, the interior has plaster directly applied and the exterior usually is rendered or stuccoed. One building I inspected omitted the stucco, creating an interesting texture. I've inspected many farms with tile silos (or piles of tiles that used to be a silo). I'll look for an image to post of the vitrified or glazed tiles used in their construction.

Sorry, we were too focused on determining what they were manufactured for. The material is fired clay (most likely made from pulverized shale). If I had to give a generic name to the units, I would call them hollow-core vitrified clay blocks.

Kurt wrote: "It looks too rough for telephone tile, doesn't it?" The exterior has been painted in the photo. The interior looks like typical vitrification. The proportions look identical to the 4 cell tile conduit that I have seen. I'm sure you've seen much more than the few that I have. I remember reading that Chicago and suburbs have more tile conduit foundations than anywhere else. I could be wrong, but I would bet on conduit over silo tile. Flue and conduit tiles have rounded corners. Silo tiles have sharper corners.

It doesn't look like the right proportions for silo tile. I've never seen them that long or with a square cross section. I'm pretty sure it's tile conduit for telegraph/telephone lines. They were usually manufactured with 2, 4, 6 or 9 "compartments". This looks like 4.

C'mon down here. I found 5 this week had definite activity and significant damage. 4 were just given clean certs by licensed exterminators. I don't do wdi, but they should be signing the checks over to me for the certs and paying me a commission if they do the treatment.

A.I.I. - "Member Inspectors shall not overly scrutinize the property. The Inspectors opinion shall only be based on their education, experience, and honest convictions." ISHI, (which appears to be by and for A-Pro franchisees) - "ISHI requires its members to write a Fair & Balanced report by requiring such notations as, positive attributes, discretionary improvements, general comments, etc. to be included in their findings."

Newer furnaces have an electronic control board to turn on the blower. Some have the control as part of the furnace control board. Unless the control wiring was really installed wrong, the board usually needs replacement Most older furnaces (that also usually have a standing pilot) have the old dial type fan/limit control. Could be stuck, miswired or failed. Some fan/limits have a "heat assist" or "time delay" that turns on the blower as a function of time or temperature and this feature could have failed. You sure it wasn't a heat pump with gas back-up? []

This was in my e-mail. The asking price is about what I paid to build my addition. "The 1857 Graham-Ginestra House Museum (Rockford, Illinois) is for sale. We are looking for a buyer who would truly appreciate and love the home/property and maintain it's Historic Landmark Status. This is a very unique and meticulously maintained property that has been owned by only 2 families in its 149 years. I hope that with your help we can find the right person to love and preserve the Graham-Ginestra House Museum." - President, Graham-Ginestra House http://www.aboutrockfordhomes.com/historicrockfordhome.htm

There is a superior court ruling that Federal Pacific violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act because FPE cheated during its testing of circuit breakers to obtain UL approval. This opened the door for the class action lawsuit. I personally don't get into discussing or reporting the "debate" over these panels. It's really quite simple. I just tell them that you can't rely on them being safe - replace it. There's usually a lengthy list of other electrical issues that need immediate repair anyway. Never had any call backs to dispute my recommendation. I will not refer it to an electrician for "further evaluation" as it's a waste of my clients time and money. It's also a possibility that the "licensed professional" they hire won't have the slightest bit of background on the issues with this product. While I tried searching for the text of the superior court ruling, I came across this real estate professional's website on the FPE subject. I was pleasantly surprised. http://www.breyerrealty.com/fedpacific.htm

Kurt was the first to be correct with the wake up call system. Buzzers are installed in each of the bedrooms. This is also an 1893 security system. The bell and buzzers go off when you open a window or door. It was run DC off a battery.

4 of these, on the VA side of the bay, went up for auction last year. I read one was purchased by a Minnesota contractor for $170,000. It's currently being renovated within preservation and navigation specifications. These are still active, working, automated lighthouses, including horns that sound every 15 seconds night and day. I don't know the details, but plumbing fixtures are going into this one. http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=440

This isn't my pic, but this is original to, and is still in, an 1893 Queen Ann. It has 2 functions.

And the answer is... (drum roll please) I have no I-freakin'dea. Any of the above could be the correct answer, except the church pulpit one.

"When walking a roof do you look down the plumbing vents?" -Yep. "If so, when you see water lying at the bottom of the stack, what do you report?" -Never seen liquid, just debris, nests, test balloons and a ball once. "what's a inspector boy to write?" -As an inspector man, I would write something like: Water shouldn't be in there, it probably isn't venting effectively and you need to get a plumber to fix it. "I guess I'm too busy looking through skylights, especially the ones in the bathrooms." - I would think a large majority of the time I would see stuff I didn't want to see.

http://uploads/inspecthistoric/2006328171849_banister1.JPG http://uploads/inspecthistoric/2006328172047_banister2.JPG

I can understand why it's not an issue in AZ. When Scott takes a leak outdoors, it evaporates before hitting the ground.

I just took a quick tour of my current hard drive and couldn't find anything else that would stump the TIJ guys. I'll start looking at my old drive and disks when I get a chance. I did come across a pic I took at my very first home inspection. That was a looooong time ago. The buyers agreed to pose in front of their new home. http://uploads/inspecthistoric/2006327203045_firstclients.GIF

Once again, Joe H., my neighbor in Nazareth got it - on his second guess. This was in a 1929 Mediterranean style palace. Absolutely nothing in this 25,000 sq. ft. home had been updated except the service and some panels. I couldn't immediately determine it's use since the wires were all snipped off and relocated to an "updated" 1951 fuse panel added next to it. I also spent over 6 hours in just the basement and crawlspaces that day so it didn't seem that interesting at the time. When switched on, the feed would have energized the coil and square steel bar. The solenoid would rotate the bar about 1/8 of a turn, causing contact and current would feed through the fuses and wires. It was directly below the great room which, without exaggeration, must have been at least an 80,000 cubic ft. room, not including the large anteroom, grotto & 2 bathrooms (The mens room had a bar). I'm quite certain it was simply to energize all the chandeliers, sconces etc. simultaneously from a single local switch. You know how you walk in to a large warehouse and turn on all the lights with the breakers.

Hint: It's 110-120v. Sorry for the quality, but I must not have had the flash on. Larger image: http://uploads/inspecthistoric/2006326111158_whatsit.JPG

Unfortunately, I'm usually so focused on major issues in the old buildings that I rarely make the effort to record the interesting, abandoned and forgotten elements that were once important features to the earlier occupants. That being said, here's another one that might generate some creative responses: http://uploads/inspecthistoric/200632520548_whatsit.JPG%20

I've never researched Richmond, but I'm reasonably certain it would have been manufactured "coal gas", which is a byproduct from the distillation of soft coal. Not far away, Baltimore, MD was the very first city to lay a coal gas distribution piping system for street lighting. The Gas Light Company of Baltimore was the first "gas company" in the US. "Natural gas" was pretty limited in the mid 19th century to some areas of PA. The first significant pipeline was built in the late 1890's to carry gas from wells in Indiana to Chicago. After WWI, many more cities added pipelines for residential distribution, but gas lighting was already being replaced by electricity.

That's correct Bob. After learning all about acetylene, I realized that the 1902 miner's cap lamp we have from my wife's great grandfather is a tiny acetylene generator. Same exact process as the image I initially posted for a building's lighting system. The lamp has 2 chambers. One for water and the other for the calcium carbide. The adjustable valve regulates the amount of water dripping onto the carbide. The gas produced slightly pressurizes and travels up the tube to the burner tip in the center of the reflector. The striker assembly (think Zippo lighters) initially ignites the acetylene.