John Kogel

Your chart says two digit year followed by two digit Month, not week. Is this a mistake?

The floor of this fiberglass one piece tub/shower unit is cracked in an area about 1' X2 '. I'll bet there's no support of any kind under the tub floor. No sign of leaks, 1995 house. Does anyone know about repairs? By cutting some drywall, there's access to the area under this tub, so mortar or foam could be added underneath. Then the gel coat or acrylic surface needs repair somehow. The problem is, the floor is nubby texture, not smooth. Will it be too hard, too costly to patch? Replacing this unit is going to be a chore. It's upstairs in a 1000 sq ft townhouse, first time buyers. Click to Enlarge 15.57 KB Click to Enlarge 17.4 KB

Yes, I blew your brother's car up too big. I guess you don't go for a 4X4 version. Here we go then. Click to Enlarge 43.28 KB Needs paint. Click to Enlarge 41.9 KB

Yep, that's looking better. We've got the LG ladder in the back now. Click to Enlarge 51.16 KB Mike, I'll race you to the next inspection. You bring the sedan delivery with the 283 three-on-the-tree, I'll be there talking to the client, in my '55 Chrysler with the 331 hemi. Click to Enlarge 6.97 KB Or no, I'll be pulled over getting a ticket in my yellow car when you go tooling by. []

Actually, they give you an all around lighter wheel. Magnesium or whatever alloy spokes are much lighter than the equivalent amount of steel belted rubber. And reducing the wheel weight is a good thing. Hitting a sharp curb with a $900 rim and 3" of rubber is a bad thing. []

She needs whitewalls. - Jim Katen, Oregon Yep...that would complete her. Click to Enlarge 50.32 KB Richard, can you give her blackwalls and small hubcaps? Click to Enlarge 43.7 KB

She needs whitewalls. - Jim Katen, Oregon Almost the end of the sedan delivery era. I would prefer a two-tone grey color scheme. Yellow car = speeding tickets. Change the rims or lower the car. Those wheels go with the lead sled look. I guess a ladder on the roof would spoil the look a bit. Click to Enlarge 29.3 KB I might have bought this one, but it was yellow. $170G at the Barrett Jackson auction a couple of wks ago. Click to Enlarge 49.39 KB

Right. At this point, my reason, not excuse [], for not using IR is that it would raise the cost of an inspection beyond what the average client wants to pay. The trouble with having it as an optional add-on is that it will take that much longer to cover the expense of the tool and training. Whatever. With TV inspector Mike strutting around with his IR camera now, it's going to be hard not to have IR as an optional service in the future. PEX pipe - How about these cheesy black plastic clamps I see everywhere? Click to Enlarge 38.25 KB

OK, what if you had had the IR camera and you scanned a few places around the house, but didn't happen to point it at that spot. What would your excuse be? The IR scan of a house should be more money for a lot more time spent inspecting, IMO.

Best I can come up with is a triplet. We're a conservative bunch out here. Click to Enlarge 49.16 KB

And though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all. IIRC. I just mentioned this attack on the house while showing them the pics of the rotten fascia boards and some other big ticket items. What should we do? Shot of Raid, putty and paint. [] Anyway, it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong or right, where I belong I'm right where I belong.

If it's in a 50's or older house, it might simply be four places to plug 2-prong cords in. People in those days found ingenious ways to get more out of that one outlet in the room.

Does anyone recognize this hole? It is too large for a powder post beetle. I just put "appears to be from a wood-boring beetle" in my report, but would like to know more. There are older holes in the sill on the lower right. Click to Enlarge 37.26 KB Click to Enlarge 37.44 KB Would a shot of Raid be a reasonable treatment?

Here's some pics I took on Monday. This looks better than yours, anyway. Click to Enlarge 31.62 KB Click to Enlarge 20.7 KB Click to Enlarge 43.47 KB Click to Enlarge 41.68 KB Click to Enlarge 48.25 KB

Lots of handy places for towels and coat hangers. []

Your best move now will be to replace the panel. There's a good chance the bus bar is damaged as well where the connection burnt. You were lucky no serious fire occurred when the breaker fried up. Next time it could be much worse.If this breaker had been working properly, would it have melted? OK, so it was loose. Why would it become loose after 40 years of service? You could end up waiting till 2011 for Eaton to ship you a new main breaker. Can you trust the branch circuit breakers, that are also 40 yrs old? Will they still trip if they get overloaded? Have an electrician check it out and get some estimates. You might want to use this opportunity to upgrade to 200 amps. Even if you need to stick to 100 amps service for now, you could have the 200 amp panel installed with a 100 amp main breaker. I see CEB panels once in a while. I'm getting a mental picture of them in mobile homes, maybe. I was not aware of issues with them until now. But I've never come across those Ontario panels with the combination of breakers and fuses. One more item to watch for. Click to Enlarge 33.38 KB Thanks, Robert, for the link.

That's a left-handed boot on a right-handed vent. Shoulda taken it back. Who's that other dude on the roof? []

A good pic for the archives. Thanks.

Brandon has a good point which I'm sure occurred to you. Just because there's plumbing there doesn't eliminate a roof leak. And a leaking vent stack is possible. I know the fiberglass shower stalls have a tendency to leak around the drain connections, probably from flexing, inadequate support under them. Nobody reads the instructions when they install them, I guess. But you did your job, found a leak. Further investigation to pin down the source. Bring in the Mike Holmes team with their sledge hammers! []

Good catch. The way that upstairs bathroom wall is cantilevered out, the tub and shower drains must be almost directly above the kitchen wall. The water may be running down the outside of the insulation till it hits the header above the window. Fiberglass or metal tub? tile shower? What's the age of the home and the plumbing?

Mysliwiec said that this decision makes it likely that drywall manufacturers and distributors will be assessed more of the damages for Chinese-made drywall, taking some of the load off home builders and pressuring the manufacturers and distributors to settle cases. For example, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin, a major manufacturer of defective drywall, agreed in October to a preliminary settlement and will remediate 300 homes built with 95% or more Knauf drywall. “This puts pressure on Knauf to expand its drywall remediation program,â€

Right. That dormer had a vaulted ceiling, but the wall to the left was only 6 feet tall. We added 2 feet to that wall and eliminated the dorky dormer. So Mr. Poria had to find a new home. I hear he caught a gust of wind and flew to Louisiana. []

Thanks, Mike. that sounds pretty incipient, alright. Morrell is an appropriate name for a mushroom expert. []

These pics are from a tearoff of shake roofing, about a 20 year old roof. North of the Pacific Northwest. At the time of these pics, the area was bone dry. The second pic shows the same area after scraping with a claw hammer. There was a soft, rotted area slightly to the left of center of the branches. I thought these pics show how this species of wood-destroying fungi will spread between two layers, in this case, between the wood and the roofing paper. The shakes in this part of the roof were still in excellent condition, but some moisture must have accumulated there under the paper to let this growth get started. You can see the thing was still very much alive, just resting. Click to Enlarge 68.14 KB Click to Enlarge 60.82 KB

Interesting. You had the wisdom to hire a home inspector and he has rendered his service to you but has left you with questions even after he's seen the house with his own eyes. You've come to this home inspectors forum thinking that the answers will be found here. Given the limitations on what an inspector can say with nothing more than photos, I'd suggest that you use this forum to find an inspector who can visit you onsite, review the situation, answer your questions to your satisfaction and basically give you the service that you should have received already. From the looks of those photos, that's what you need. There could be major issues. Marc Marc, without seeing the report or hearing what was said, I wouldn't be so quick to condemn the inspector. No offense, I see your point.After identifying the concern, how far do you go in designing the repair? It's not an easy call to make, and the level or degrees of repair needed can't be determined by visual inspection, can it? (BTW, those could be 2X6 or 8's, not that it matters much.)