John Kogel

Ya'll still burning wood in the kitchen up there? Marc It's a new age thing, Marc. Food tastes better cooked on a wood fire, or something like that. I see 2 or 3 wood burners in the kitchen in a given year. The airtights have an extra deep firebox. Not something I personally miss from my childhood. Wood warms you 5 times, the first 4 when you cut it, haul it, split it and stack it. [] From grade school - "Johnny, can you name 3 parts of a woodstove?" "Lifter, leg and poker?" "Report to my office after school" []

Elmira airtight wood burning cookstoves were very good, but I understand they sold that part of the company to Heartland. The new company continues to make excellent wood burners.

I was worried about my last place - 100 amp service, electric heat, range, dryer everything, 1900 sq ft. I had a plan to upgrade the main breaker to 125 amps, which would have been cheaper than a panel swap but still costly. In the end, we sold it as is and the subject of possibly undersized service never came up.

I'd been so stuck on thinking that AFCI's were for fire prevention, that I'd never considered the shock protection they provide until I read this. Thanks John. AFCIs don't provide shock prevention, unless its a combo GFCI/AFCI device. Marc Thanks, Marc, I should have said shocked or burned. IMO, the Inspectapedia comment is not incorrect. He says there that if an arc jumps to a person, the AFCI will detect that arc and we assume it will then trip - shock prevention, no? I have no idea why the Canadian authorities chose bedroom circuits only for AFCI protection, but I imagine they have studied historical events to make their decisions.

The complaint I have with Pushmatics is not so much the age but the lack of space, as suggested by Jim. FYI, in Canada, AFCI's are required only for bedroom outlets. Nobody is getting shocked, or at least not enough to warrant wholesale AFCI's throughout the house.

The arm could be mounted lower down on the door to gain a few inches. A garage door professional can fix that. As far as the track length goes, they are standard sizes matched for the height of the door. I suppose someone could install a short track on a tall door out of ignorance, but I don't think that is the case here. Correction -Tom and Mycroft say the track is too short and I shall bow to their sharper powers of observation. []

In this case, a big gaping hole would actually be an improvement.

Thanks, Les. Lead pipes and corrosive water explains it. The affluent neighborhoods have had new pipes installed ages ago. Now back to our top story, blah blah blah.... []

For a permanently fixed cooktop, solid copper will work just fine, and nobody here will disapprove. [] Now suppose the gas guy wants to install a flexible pipe at the back of the oven so that it can be shoved back or pulled out. What should he use?

Yes, I got that too. Use your existing software, and streamline your reports with better saved comments. A basic house with not much wrong shouldn't take more than about an hour to write up with pictures and comments.Set your report templates up better, so that you can run through and select the comments faster. The tablet is not really a time saver, IMO. Guys that use them spend a longer time in and around the house, in other words, the on-site inspection takes longer. The pics are not as good because there is no flash. The tablet is clumsy to hold and you can't drop it into a holster to free up both hands. I found when I tried one that it was easy to hit the wrong tab, OK I'm clumsy, which means editing or you could be sending reports with blatant errors. Anyway, compared to 3 other inspectors that used tablets, I was still faster with a camera and a laptop, and I was able to vacate the house or talk with clients while they would still be crawling about with a tablet in one hand. I like writing personalized comments for the defects, always full sentences, so the laptop keyboard is important for me. Go ahead and try it, but don't expect a great saving in time. Also, don't let your technologies distract you from inspecting.

Thanks, Jim. Here's the wording from Schneider: "Square D no longer manufactures the TRILLIANT product line. ALL of the Trilliant replacement parts(covers, interiors, main breakers, boxes, etc) are Obsolete and no longer available, except for a very limited number of branch breakers. Check the system for availability for any branch breakers, an example catalog number is SDT120(single pole, 20amp). Contact Square D at 888-778-2733 for further information. The customer would need to consider replacing the complete load center with a QO or Homeline."

That black glue is embedded into the concrete. Buy a house built after 1990, or learn to accept asbestos in our daily lives, such as in road dust.

Yikes. that's definitely a hard hat area. I'm sure the rest of the place was in much better shape? []

Hey, it's hard to think straight when you're laying on your back in the dirt under a crapper pipe. []

I think you are right and the owner was a crappy electrician if he was one at all.

Agreed. Both sections are stained at the lettering. Non-issue.

Gently fill the low spots where tiles are missing with leveling compound. Once that hardens, glue vinyl flooring down. That does not create dust. Did your inspector mention drywall plaster? Old plaster may contain asbestos. Just a precaution if you need to repair walls or ceilings. Painted surfaces are perfectly safe.

Since the fresh wiring is not tarnished, the problem may have occurred in the past from leak of chemicals, like chlorine?

Thanks in advance, Jim. Eventually, you will have fixed all the bad screws in your area. []That reminds me. I carry an empty bag of screws. []

Just to muddy the waters a bit, there is a builder of Manufactured homes here that refers to his products as 'modular' even tho they are on steel trailer frames?

No, it looks like it needs a qualified electrician to replace the hazardous installation. You have already evaluated it. Now tell them that it needs repair pronto before there is a fire or a shock. That looks like an extension cord feed from the main panel. The fuses appear to be over-sized for the wiring. It is all flaky junk. Even so, it is not a nightmare repair. A good electrician can have it all fixed in one afternoon.

The way our PoCo explains it, they need the funds to upgrade their aging systems. So do your duty and pay up. Tim, at some point it may be worth it to start up your generator. []

Here in the land of relatively cheap electricity and where NG has to be piped from the mainland, electric baseboard heat is the way to go for bedroom heat. Even better are the wall mounted fan heaters. So I rarely come across an unheated bedroom, and if so, call for a wall-mounted electric heater. This requires some creative wiring by a professional. I once inspected a mobile home that had no bedroom heat, but had a 1200 watt baseboard heater installed in the adjacent bathroom. The E panel was full, and with 60 amp service, no more capacity for 240 volt heating circuits. Mobile home parks sometimes are underpowered that way. The solution I suggested was to replace the oversized bathroom heater with a 350 or 500 watt unit so that the bedroom could have a 750 watt baseboard heater installed on that circuit. My client chose to walk instead. Electric baseboard heaters don't smell if they are kept clean, vacuumed once in a while and in regular use. I like inspecting the dusty ones, power it up, smell the burning dust, turn it off. []

Replace the TPR valve. They can get clogged with rust and sediment. Cost of a new one is only about $15. This goes for anybody that has an old reliable water heater - replace the TPRV.

Where I've seen no heat source is in a loft bedroom open to a living area downstairs. In that case I would mention no heat source just to prevent a callback.