Inspectorjoe

Marc: If the tie thing works for you, that's great. Me, I seem to have trouble just keeping my shirt tucked in through the inspection. Joe

I don't do anything for show - at least not consciously. I kind of think people would see through it. One thing that never ceases to impress people are my Little Giant ladders. I can't understand posters here who say they are cumbersome and hard to use. After you've used them for a while, operating them is simply poetry in motion - a natural fluid movement. People are always commenting on how I "make it look easy". One trick that almost always impresses people (not my intent) is when accessing a scuttle in a high garage ceiling, opening the LG into an A-frame to lift the cover, pulling off the flared end and changing to extension mode to climb into the attic. The pièce de résistance is when coming down, I lay one side of the cover in the opening, with the other end on the ladder. I come down, slide the extension closed, and the cover drops into place. I can't count the number of times I've heard "I can tell you've done that before." I carry a big black trash bag in my bag. I use it to crawl under decks when the ground is wet. Another thing that seems to impress people is when in a basement with dim or burned out light bulbs, I pull a couple of 150 watt halogen bulbs out of my bag and brighten things up.

But there is consensus among scientists. Consensus: majority of opinion It's explained here: The Consensus on Global Warming He's got a point of view of course. He also seems to be fair. You have a problem with the following part of his bio? "I have a keen interest in anthropogenic climate change as I strongly believe anyone with a highschool education can see the flaws in the vast majority of the arguments used by climate change deniers and skeptics. If I am doing my job correctly, you don't have to believe me, because you can always check the references. I don't want people to have to believe me, because that's not what science is about. You should look at the facts and draw your own conclusions. If you can prove me wrong on something I will shake your hand and thank you for teaching me something new."

John, it's pretty ironic that Richard Lindzen, the author of the paper cited in that article (on an energy industry blog) appears to be one of those who sees the black goose, but ignores it. Here is some info on Richard Lindzen from Logicalscience.com. There is a lot more money behind those denying climate change than there is those who are in your words, pushing it. The Logical Science mission statement: When scientific evidence and the interests of an oligopoly or monopoly conflict, science is often suppressed, spun, edited and even deleted. This was true with big tobacco and it is true now with the 3 trillion dollar energy industry. Our goal is to simply defend the international scientific consensus and summarize the industrial misinformation campaign in a way any layman can understand. Every quote, every fact, every sentence will be sourced so the user can quickly and easily check the facts for his or herself. We do not perform any original research. This website merely repeats what the experts are already saying. This website is non-profit. It is built entirely from spare time and out of pocket money. This makes the work slow but it is the best way to minimize any conflicts of interest.

One fact is that you spend enough time on Google, you can turn up a number of posts where Mr. Connell appears to bait people on message boards. Here is an example In my opinion, he does the same thing here at TIJ. Any one else who came to this message board posting questionable (questionable at best) things outside of their professed field of expertise (in this case sheriff's deputy/industrial hygienist) would have the brethren come down on him like a ton of bricks. For some reason, Mr. Connell gets a pass from many.

I did, and was surprised by what I found. Scroll down to post #5. Very telling.

They're not my facts, Les. In my reply to Marc (just above yours), I stated that I don't use them. You may have posted before seeing that. What's with the smarminess? What is the risk of a strong recommendation? Roughly half the unmitigated houses that I test have radon levels above 4 pCi/L. My service area is located on the Reading Prong. "Geologists have located a formation known as the Reading Prong which contains elevated levels of uranium and thorium." The Pennsylvania Radon Story The EPA's Home Buyer's and Seller's Guide to Radon. I give a hard copy to every buyer. I found that particular form through a Google search. I have no idea who it belongs to. It's obviously geared toward use in North Georgia. That form was apparently based on one authored by Dallas Jones, formerly of Radalink.com. I built mine around his, not the one I linked to.

I don't know, Marc. Would it make a difference? The form I use doesn't contain the Radon Facts info below the two choices, so it's a moot point for me.

I see two avenues of liability for an inspector if a buyer chooses to not have a radon test done. Admittedly, the chance of either of them happening is pretty slim. A resident of the house gets lung cancer and blames it on radon (not provable of course), then comes after you because you because you knew the danger radon gas poses, but failed to fully inform him. When your former client sells the house, his buyer has a radon test done that comes back high, and the buyer wants your previous client to pay for a mitigation system. Your client then comes to you, again claiming that you didn't fully inform him. I have every buyer who declines to have a radon test done sign a document similar to this one.

I guess I'm one of the ones who spent "lots of time reading books and taking correspondence courses". My experiance (sic) in wiring a house doesn't go beyond adding some circuits to my own homes, but at least I know the difference between a plug and a receptacle. From your first, starting post in this thread: "How many of you are familiar with this and how do you handle it? I had a house a couple of weeks where the home inspector wrote up a house built in early-mid 70s for not having kitchen circuits gfi protected.I told the owner that they were existing plugs from when house was built but if he wanted them i would install them.Anyway when i opened up the boxes i found the old aluminum romex cable feeding the circuits so i put some nolox in the wire nuts i was using and pigtailed copper wire onto the existing wires to install the gfi's. Normally id just use plugs made for aluminum wire but this wasnt possible for the gfi's.So my question is how do you guys handle aluminum wire and plugs/switches and how many of you check for this on your inspections? " Just so you know, you're confusing plugs with receptacles. A plug is a male connector for insertion into an outlet. A receptacle is a contact device installed at an outlet for the connection of an attaching plug and flexible cord to supply portable equipment. Ya know, spending time reading books isn't entirely wasteful - especially if it can keep one from appearing foolish. You should try it sometime.

I saw the splice, but didn't connect it with the damage. I knew splice shingles shouldn't be used, but didn't know what the consequences would be. Inspectapedia I really lucked out by discovering this before the inspection. Once again, the Brethren at TIJ is going to help me appear smarter than I really am. Thanks!

This laminated asphalt shingle roof is about a year old. Overall, the surface looks normal, but there are more granules in the gutter than you would typically see after the first year. Occurring in random places, there are about a half-dozen tabs that are completely shot. Has anyone seen anything like this? It's obviously a manufacturing defect. I don't know the manufacturer. I'm not sure what to recommend, other than to get a manufacturer's rep out to look at it. Although now the damage is very isolated, I'm guessing the rest of roof is a ticking time bomb. I've got some time on this, because the inspection isn't until next Friday. I went yesterday to do the exterior because with this snowstorm that's just ending, it would almost certainly still be snow covered next week. Click to Enlarge 85.1 KB Click to Enlarge 81.13 KB Click to Enlarge 73.16 KB Click to Enlarge 60.44 KB

It's a kickspace heater installed in a strange location. Edit I see I'm 2 and 3 minutes late to the dance.

You bang on the wall with all your might .......... and cross your fingers.

Access to the moving parts is behind the flush actuator panel. I wouldn't want one of these things in my house. Click to Enlarge 25.76 KB Catalog Installation

The white thing looks like a T12 fluorescent lamp holder, but I've never seen one with two white wires.

In ten years, I hadn't run across a previous grow-Op - til Monday. I didn't even realize it at the time. The 1920 row house had new rafters, new sheathing and the brick party walls were spray painted. I told the buyer there was a fire and asked if it was on the seller's disclosure. It wasn't. Curious, I Googled it: Fire story I'm suuuure Holmes would have spotted it right away.

I don't see how a bit of insulation on the exterior of the valve would affect the temperature at the probe, which of course is immersed within the tank. I've seen that insulation a handful of times. I had always assumed it was a nervous-Nellie homeowner who did it.

I must confess, until your post, I thought it was new. It showed up under "Active Topics" for some reason. Having read your post, I now see the date. What the heck? Yeah, Jerry had the answer. It was revived from oblivion when it was edited. I searched for it to link to it, but found that the pictures were no longer viewable because they were hosted at a site that went belly-up. I dug out the pics from my archives and uploded them to IJ. It's been happening to me too. Sometimes they are several days old.

Check out this like-new behemoth Roper, with 8 burners, a griddle and 3 ovens. Coincidentally, it was in the same kitchen that had the wall mounted refrigerator: Download Attachment: q 162.jpg 47.79 KB Download Attachment: q 160.jpg 153.66 KB Also in that same otherwise modern kitchen was the oldest Kitchen Aid dishwasher that I've ever seen. The spray arms were made of cast metal. Yeah, vintage is in.

So you were so enamored by it that you actually took a picture with the doors closed, and a picture with the doors open? Who on Earth would do such a thing? [] Download Attachment: R1.jpg 37.32 KB Download Attachment: R2.jpg 40.16 KB They are survivors from the golden age of manufacturing - before the concept of planned obsolescence was thought of.

So you start this thread by disparaging "Global Warming nutters". Sheesh. ------------------ John, you may want to look at this: The "Climategate" facts

I don't know. In addition to not having seen one that large, I've never seen one constructed of welded plate like that. Maybe it was insurance against the thing rusting out and dumping exhaust gasses into the basement. This is more like what I typically see - much lighter construction. This particular one handled both the water heater and the boiler. The problem of the smaller vent being below the larger one aside, venting both into that confined and obstructed box couldn't be good. Click to Enlarge 52.34 KB Here's a different type, without a heat exchanger. It's just a fan in an enclosure that surrounds the vent connector. Click to Enlarge 40.99 KB

Those heat exchangers are fairly common around here, but I've never seen one that large. Here's my boilerplate: There is a heat recovery unit on the vent connector. These units cool the exhaust gasses, which can result in moisture condensing in the chimney, which can in turn cause deterioration of the chimney interior. The unit should be removed by a qualified HVAC technician.

Some here may recall my tale from last summer about the second story deck that was hanging onto an apartment building by a thread. It had just been inspected by a city-employed code enforcement official who failed to mention it in his inspection report. My call to the codes enforcement office informing them that the deck was in imminent danger of collapse was ignored. It took an email and conversation with the mayor to get the deck condemned. So yesterday, while I was doing an inspection in the same city, a municipal inspector came in to do the Certificate of Occupancy inspection. I said hello as we passed each other. He ignored me. Naturally, I assumed he was just totally focused on the job at hand, rather than just being a rude d*ckhead. Heads must have rolled in his department I thought, as this guy is all business. A few minutes later, while he was in the basement, I passed through the kitchen and saw his open briefcase on the counter. I must say, I was pretty curious about the periodical that he had attached to his clipboard. If I can learn something new, I don't mind humbling myself. I meant to ask him about how it helps him in his job, but I was outside when he left. Darn! Click to Enlarge 45.74 KB