Bill Kibbel

If he subpoenaed you, you are not obligated to be an expert witness. You are a witness to a fact and/or custodian of records. "Yes, this is my report that I prepared on xx/xx/xx." would be the only thing they would get from me, if they did not sign my expert witness agreement and pay the rate listed for court appearance. Experienced expert witnesses here, qualified by the courts get 3-4 times what you suggested for an hourly rate.

Sounds good, but... If there's no state requirement, individual municipalities might have their own abandoned UST ordinance. They might be more stringent than the fed guidelines. I always suggest they check with the local officials too.

I don't think that this is about disclosing supernatural occurrences. I would gladly discuss my experiences with haunted house disclosure and a legal action in another thread. That's how the defense attorney tried to paint it. The jury didn't buy into it. This house is <30 years and the event occurred just about 2 years ago with the conviction earlier this year. I did not see a house number in any of the media reports, only the road name. Roads here can span several townships. This is a really rural wooded area where many homes aren't visible from the road. I know which house because I live less than 2 miles and I passed it while there was activity there. Also, a majority of my residential clients are coming here from the 2 nearest and largest cities and likely have not paid much attention to the reports. There's enough murders every night on their news. Precisely what I was hoping to see in this discussion. I'm usually not the type to contemplate what I would do in an upcoming situation. Anytime I do, it plays out differently than I expected. I picture one of the agents arriving before the buyers and I would immediately ask them if they made the buyers aware of the event. If not, I would allow the agent to be the one to tell them now, while I get to stand back and watch their reaction. That's what I did in a couple other "sensitive" situations in the past.

Bath fan, kitchen fan or dryer vent termination.

So, you see on your schedule a property address that you recognize. You think about it for a while, then you remember - it's the house where the wife shot her husband several times. Assume the master bedroom carpet has been replaced and there's no other "evidence". If no one at the inspection mentions the previous owner's event, would you?

That was manufactured after Ducane and ECS was acquired by Lennox in 2000.

'08 Three letters, then YYMM.

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To determine the correct diameter for a single-appliance B-vent, we need the height of the vent and length of any lateral sections.

Indoor riding arena - usually pole barn construction. I've inspected some >30,000, heated.

Someone brought up "code", so i posted it. It's not a bad reference for modern living standards. Most residential buildings I inspect only had fireplaces and/or coal stoves in a few rooms as the original sources of heat. I wouldn't want any of my clients not being made aware that when centralized heat was added, there is likely inadequate heat in habitable rooms.

Think of sticking your hand into an oven set at 250F. Now grab a piece of steel that is also 250F. There's a few reasons that measuring the exhaust pipe/duct with IR will not give you anything close to the actual temperature of the exhaust. You can't get accurate temperature readings from metal with IR. Your IR gun is measuring infrared radiation. There are some (very expensive) IR devices used for measuring temps of metals in industry, but they compensate for emmissvity of metals. The metal exhaust pipe will very likely be hotter than the exhaust gases as heat is conducted directly from the heat source (combustion) to the metal exhaust pipe. The exhaust gas is in motion - there's not enough time for thermal equilibrium between the exhaust gas and the metal exhaust pipe

Your IR is not reading the temperature of the exhaust gas. It's measuring the temperature of the surface that it's aimed at.

This should stay on topic and not become a debate about the effectiveness of a properly installed lightning protection system. Kevin, It is required by NFPA 780, UL96A & LPI-175. If the municipality has not adopted NFPA 780, I think it's also in the newest edition of NFPA 54 (National Fuel Gas Code). It reads: "Where a lightning protection system is installed for the structure, metallic gas piping shall be bonded to the lightning protection grounding system from a point downstream of the customer's meter..."

I'm quite sure that May will not be the compliance date. I read that there's a lawsuit challenging the rule that won't be heard 'till the end of this year. There's also a petition filed to extend the compliance date. There may also be a provision in the "enforcement" rules for granting waivers if installers determine that it is impractical (orphaned WH).

Sarah, who states she's from NY, has an IP address in New Delhi, India. Watch for her return to drop links into her useless posts.

That's the front base panel where it meets the cast-iron section assembly. Sealant is required at that location, per the installation instructions, to keep "flue gas" from spilling out. The manufacturer of the boiler supplied boiler cement for that application and for other seals needed on installation. It's just a sloppy job. Weil McLain EG boiler?

The bond pattern doesn't indicate it to be cavity wall construction.

Thanks Phillip. That's a significant change from the 2009 version I hadn't found.

The main house is from an earlier time and style. Click to Enlarge 84.51 KB The architect that designed the barn, Raleigh Gildersleeve, also designed another building that I'm intimately familiar with: Click to Enlarge 36.35 KB

I've inspected thousands of barns with a few hundred having been converted to a new use. This is the most unique barn I've seen. Click to Enlarge 55.16 KB It was built in 1899 on a wealthy industrialist/bankers estate, who's home became a Governor's mansion. The barn housed sheep, dairy cows and prize bulls. It is now a residence, with the exterior retaining most of it's original details. The top levels of the two five-storey towers originally held water tanks. Click to Enlarge 79.1 KB Click to Enlarge 150.45 KB Click to Enlarge 72.73 KB

Another foundation built with telephone tile. This one had a bonus column. Click to Enlarge 47.42 KB Click to Enlarge 115.02 KB

No, it's a gas vent. If the vent is 12" or less, and it has a listed cap, the height of the lowest discharge opening above the roof is determined by the roof pitch.

They added step flashings after discovering they were omitted when the roof cover was installed.