Inspectorjoe

At least one of the timbers is nearly completely hollowed out. Those epoxies wouldn't be effective on something like that, would they?

Tuesday, I'm inspecting an 1860 bank barn which was converted to a residence in 1974. I'm concerned about insect damage/rot in the floor structure and I'm not sure what I should say about it. The floor planks and support structure were used with no apparent modifications or repairs when it was converted, other than a finish being applied. Walking around the main floor, there are many potential trip hazards due to unevenness. At least one of the timbers is mostly hollowed out, and some of the planks are pretty much gone above their supporting timbers. There's some give in these areas when walked on. It seems to have been performing OK for the past 37 years, but I don't want to get a call someday informing me that the piano mover fell through the floor, and the piano landed on top of him. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Click to Enlarge 37.92 KB Click to Enlarge 36.34 KB Click to Enlarge 47.4 KB Click to Enlarge 46.63 KB

Looks like he should have bought a bigger roll.

It was sort of beneficial - by contrast, it reinforced what a great place this is.

You're not the only one out there looking for that info, John: http://www.terrylove.com/forums/showthr ... stery-CSST Talk about thread drift! The original poster came back and identified it as Gastite.

Every doorbell transformer lead I've ever seen has been stranded. The wire mashes down around the solid wire quite nicely. I don't call them out.

The gas water heater was operating before I got there, but I did fire a dead cold boiler. I wonder if the check valve was letting water expand back into the supply line. The old style expansion tank located between the floor joists was pretty much completely filled with water. That certainly sounds plausible.

The water has been on for at least a month. There is no dishwasher and the only toilet I flushed up to that point was in the basement, very near the underside of the kitchen sink. I'm fairly sure I would have heard it if it continued running after refiling.

I don't check pressure, but the house was near the top of a hill, so it most likely wasn't unusually high. But I don't see how pressure would have an effect with no flow.

Friday I did an inspection on a house that had been vacant for five years. The owner had inherited it from his parents. He grew up there. It's a 1950 ranch with a half inch copper service and interior piping. We were in the basement when we suddenly heard a VERY loud noise caused by vibration. We ran upstairs and saw nothing. Went outside and saw nothing, but we could hear that it was originating in the house. We went back downstairs again and found nothing. I shut the power to the house off and the noise continued. I pinned the location to the area of the kitchen sink. I put my hand on a floor joist under the kitchen sink and felt a strong vibration. Going back upstairs, I moved the Moen single lever faucet handle from side to side and the noise stopped for a second or two then resumed. I ran some water and the noise stopped permanently. The owner grew up in the house and had never heard it before. He'd been spending quire a bit of time in the house over the past month cleaning it out and had never heard it. What could cause such a strong vibration with no water flowing?

Thursday I did a late 19th century farm. Several outbuildings were sided with Chapman slate. I'm surprised at the level of detail on this one, considering it was such a minor building. Download Attachment: 1 019.jpg 724.28 KB

Yeah, that's wrong. Assuming the sizing is correct, using a proper wye, you could run the water heater into a vertical vent from the furnace. But since there is a chimney, the water heater should vent directly into it, above the larger vent from the furnace, as Bob said. At least that's my take.

Those units are fairly common around here. I had one today. That one is a real hack job. It looks like handyman or homeowner work. The pros around here generally don't use that flex vent connector material. It should be secured and supported a lot better than it is. It also needs a barometric damper. I don't see on in any picture. I see signs of a lot of condensation at the burner. Depending on the BTU rating of the burner and the length of the vent connector, an insulated vent connector may needed. The unit itself should be rated for use with oil. The discharge appears to be at least 4 feet below the window which is OK. If it was an oil fired boiler supplying an indirect fired water heater, you'd want to warn the buyer to expect exhaust smells to come in the window when it's open. It appears that it's a little closer than the one foot minimum from the ground. There's certainly enough wrong with this that I'd recommend a full evaluation by an HVAC pro.

John: Same as asbestos on heating pipes, it freaks some buyers out, while others aren't at all concerned. There were a few discussions about it last year: https://inspectorsjournal.com/forum/top ... C_ID=12925 https://inspectorsjournal.com/forum/top ... C_ID=12849 https://inspectorsjournal.com/forum/top ... C_ID=12164

This past July I did a 1949 house with three attics and all three were insulated with vermiculite. You can see my look of wide-eyed wonder upon discovering it. Click to Enlarge 43.93 KB Actually, I wasn't filled with wide-eyed wonder. I snapped that at the end of the worst day I'd had in 11 years of inspecting. I was at the point of exhaustion and I was wondering if I looked as bad as I felt. That was my second inspection of the day on one of the hottest days of the year. It was a small, but difficult to inspect older house. It was like an oven inside because it had been shut up tight. There were two crawlspaces, both humid and hot as blazes. The larger one had 65 years worth of junk accumulation to go over and around. The smaller one was a dirt floored tunnel so narrow and low that I couldn't turn around in it. If I had passed out, I'd have been S-O-O-L because the buyers stayed in the kitchen, which was the only room with an air conditioner. At one point, the daughter (dad was buying the house for her) went out to a convenience store and brought back cold drinks for everyone - everyone but me that is. She never even asked me if I wanted anything. Normally, i would have declined, but I had emptied my gallon jug of ice water hours before and was drinking warm tap water. I can't understand how someone could be so thoughtless and uncaring. Your vermiculite picture brought back a flood of repressed memories from that crappy day. I feel much better getting it off my chest! Thanks 'Dr.' Rob! []

Marc, all convector units have radiators in them. They use fins to give a greater surface area, resulting in faster heat transfer. Modern convectors generally use copper tubing with aluminum fins. The one in the wood enclosure was cast iron. It was built up in sections connected with threaded nipples. Click to Enlarge 42.96 KB While most room radiators are just smooth cast iron, the house the basement convectors were in had some unusual finned room radiators. Click to Enlarge 43.02 KB

Two of the rooms supplied are bedrooms and as far as I could tell, the radiators in the boxes were never supplied with outside air. I guess the 'why' of this one will remain a mystery.

Not to rub it in John, but the house still had its original kitchen stove. Click to Enlarge 47.25 KB And gas lites. Click to Enlarge 26.92 KB The basement was pretty cool (or kewl) too. Instead of beams and columns, there were two arched walls. Click to Enlarge 44.33 KB The rooms were big so space wasn't a problem. There were hundreds of feet of pipe installed - another three or four dozen wouldn't have made much of a difference. You might be on to something with that, but the opposite. The rooms with the ducts were in rooms above the boiler and the radiators were further away. There were no turns in the ducts, as far as I could tell.

I did a house a few blocks from that one with the same 100% outside air setup. But with that one, one of the owners must have gotten tired of the fuel bills and changed things. http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fb ... =1&theater

Or ............... they charged by the foot.

Today's house was 5,149 sq. ft; built 1882. The steam boiler heated radiators (some really cool) in most of the rooms, but a few rooms were heated by a strange gravity warm air system. Wood enclosures in the basement contain cast iron convectors that are ducted to wall registers on the first and second floors. I can't see how the rooms heated by the convectors in the basement will be as warm as the rooms heated by radiators. That will be in the report. I'm curious though, about why this convector/duct system was used, instead of just using radiators like the other rooms. Anybody have an idea? Click to Enlarge 43.9 KB Click to Enlarge 36.46 KB Click to Enlarge 26.26 KB One of the cool radiators: Click to Enlarge 31.79 KB

I'll admit, I didn't know expansion joints existed, let alone being required. You learn something new every day. http://www.carlon.com/Installation_Trai ... SEXPJT.pdf

Terry, yes it's EIFS (not EFIS). The reinforcing mesh in picture #3 is the biggest clue, but of course you shouldn't be seeing it there.

Dang it! I'm trying to do a report and this talk about Yuengling has got my mind a wandering. So I wandered out to the fridge and grabbed a cold one. Well, it is after midnight. Click to Enlarge 47.9 KB Yes, Yuengling is America's oldest brewery. It's not just a name that's survived for 181 years, it's still family owned. If you're anywhere near eastern PA, the tour of the plant is incredible. You actually walk through the plant, around the production lines. I've always wondered how their insurance company allows it. I found somebody's slideshow of their tour on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spkaine/se ... 3175/show/ About 15 years ago, I was going to take my wife and stepdaughters on the tour but we were late and missed it. As we were leaving, we saw Dick Yuengling standing outside. He was waiting for his daughters. They were going to a Phillies game. We struck up a conversation that lasted about 15 minutes. He talked about stuff from the history of the business, to his plans for expansion (which happened just about as he said they would) to how he hoped to turn things over to his daughters some day. While I was originally disappointed that I wasn't going to tour the plant again, our chance encounter with Mr. Yuengling turned my frown upside down. To get things back on topic, Yuengling lager is a dandy antidote for stress! [utube] " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344">

Yesterday I had a good-size 1986 Tudor. During my initial tour of the property I noticed both heat pump outside units were manufactured July 2007 and the basement indoor unit was a month older. I shouldn't have much to do as far as HVAC I thought. One thing was strange though - the airflow at all of the registers on the second floor was very anemic and not very cool. It was 90 degrees and sunny. When I finally got up into the attic nearly 5 hours into the inspection, my breath was taken away - not by the heat, but by this train wreck of a duct system. What on Earth were they thinking? Click to Enlarge 60.92 KB Click to Enlarge 57.81 KB Click to Enlarge 51.34 KB Click to Enlarge 50.66 KB Outside air temp was 90. I didn't check the attic temp, but it wasn't too comfy. After running full-tilt for nearly 5 hours, the system couldn't get the second floor lower than 85 degrees. At the plenums, the return temp was 87.1 and supply temp 60.7. Just had to share.