John Kogel

They put out heat, but they are smaller units and you need to have them distributed thru the house. I've seen them but haven't checked one on a real cold day. I would say there's a need for supplement heat in almost any house here that has a heat pump.

Re: caulking to the floor, I recommend the Jim K method - caulk the front and sides to keep the pee spillage out on the floor where it can be wiped up, leave the back uncaulked so that leakage will show its ugly face. I have set two toilets on tiles in this present house and have not caulked the toilets to the floors. They don't slide around maybe because the flanges are new and tight and my tile work is impeccable. [] I am a pretty good shot, so pee puddles are not a major issue. But if you think about pee puddles, caulking seems advisable. R: the short stub, I had the same problem from a previous botched installation which led to rottage and stinko. I opted for cutting the too low flange off and gluing on an ABS flange with some modification and trimming. Yes the flange needs to be up on the subfloor so it can be screwed down correctly. That is what will hold the toilet in place. There is a PVC to ABS glue you can buy.

There's enough dirt under that carpet to support a farm. Just add spores and water. Or dog pee, for a corner garden patch.

Bill, I haven't thought of you being immature, but if you say so ... [] Click to Enlarge 63.58 KBThis mulberry bark looks rough, but if you look closer, there are the horizontal scars, alright. Kurt got it, hands on experience with the young shoots. I had the berry part so I was half right. I danced around the mulberry bush a few times when I was a kid, but don't recall ever seeing one.

It needs a Ferco connector to be done properly. Shiny metal and rubber connector with a clamp at each end.

Right, visit the big box store and find the extender that you need. There are rubber seals and the combinations mentioned by Wasden. I would buy a new flange kit as well, and find the brass bolts, not plated steel, because steel will go rusty. If on a tile floor, plastic shims may be the only option, but they can be set with putty or caulk to stay put. Fix the wobble first, then reset the toilet with a new tight seal.

Poplar Elderberry. Box Elder has rough bark, Les. Google 'Elderberry bark', looks like a possible match. We have elderberry here that grows like stink. The blue berries are good for wine, so they say. The Red berries are good for nothing. They are both females. []

Yeah, exactly. I think it's easier just going through once. If I'm going back over my own tracks at any point, I'm wasting time and money. I disagree. I do either with or without, but prefer 2 1/2 hours on my own in the house to get the information and the tough access areas done. Then I do a hour where I can give the clients my undivided attention. We walk around the outside then visit all the interior rooms. I answer all the questions and get paid. When the clients come early, I find the inspection takes longer. I allow it, but I do a better job when I have no questions and no interruptions for the meat and potatoes part.

Flushing the lead solder out? Maybe just a drain for winterizing.

If anyone is wondering about BC inspectors, there are two rival TV networks in Vancouver BC, and the CBC story went national about a month ago, so GlobalTV is pulling out the stops and pulling out the stories they had been saving up. At least that is how I see it. There are a lot of dedicated and competent inspectors here as elsewhere, and there are 1000's of satisfied home buyers, who generally keep quite and will never make the 6 o'clock news. We wanted regulation to be the cure, but it was diluted, by the government agency, to include anybody that can write an open book exam. [:-party] Re: training, yes, training and exams are important, but how do you train someone to expect the unexpected in a classroom? A class on case histories of inspections gone bad would be helpful, but people forget details, especially if it is just a story in a book or on a video screen. So you have a slab home, they say it's a slab, looks like a slab. Didn't anyone notice they were walking on wood? Don't be lazy, don't take anything for granted and remember the logger's motto - Expect the unexpected.

My understanding is that there are thermal release device reset/repair kits for at least some of the manufacturer's water heaters such as Rheem/Ruud/Richmond/GE.... I believe that if there's a true flammable vapor incidence, the manufacturer calls for water heater replacement. If the safety fails for other reasons, then repairs are possible. The safety issue I see overlooked here is the lack of any kind of bollard to keep the car from slamming into it. Not required. I call for one anyway. Same thing here, in some districts the heaters are elevated regardless of the flame guard design.

Heli-ties can be used to reattach the veneer. http://www.strongtie.com/products/ancho ... heli-tie/# I don't know about the 'chimbley'. If the gables are capable of swaying, fastening the chimney to the house is not the way to go, IMO.

Funny one, Mike. A wooden prototype might have been a wiser choice for your first run, at least until you got the brakes working. We had a perfect hill running past the house, two lane country road with a corner at the bottom and a long straight to the finishing line. We had two younger sisters to act as traffic control people, which was to yell 'car' at the top of their lungs, at which point we would steer for the ditch and hope the bent nails held er together. For brakes, we found the foot most reliable, the original brake shoe. We would race 2-man bobsled style, one kid pushing and jumping on the back, if he could. My brother tried the engine thing but it was a dud. As pit boss, my job was to push the cart off the block when he got the wheel spinning. I think the exhaust fumes stunted my growth and the engine stalled as soon as the wheel hit the ground. I'm sure we had to try it 10 times tho, just to be sure it wasn't just me not pushing hard enough. [] Later, my brother showed up with a gocart minus an engine. That was the "Steely", with bearings in the wheels and a steering wheel. Racing then became a cat and mouse chase down the hill with me and a buddy getting a no more than 5 second head start. I learned defensive driving on that old road. [] Later still, I built the supreme soapbox car. A buddy found a trailer axle with 16" wheels on it. I bolted angle iron bed rails to that and put a pair of small wheels on the front with good old rope steering. That thing was deadly when it got rolling.

Hardy makes a board and batten product, probably what he's got.

Hey, I used to attach baby buggy axles to 2 X 4's with bent nails just like that. []

Re: thickness of the insulation, it is only a couple of inches thick in pic 2. You can almost see the top of the cross bracing. If the basement is damp, it is probably not a good thing to have that foam there.

I can and have in the past produced a pretty thorough paper report onsite. It may be that your instructor is of the old paper report school - a checklist with a few hand written comments. If your report is to include pictures, you will be clicking away on your keypad, iPad, whatever with client and agent breathing down your neck, can't be done properly. When I see a rushed report, it will have canned comments that have nothing to do with the house in question, lack of editing time. A mistake on a report will come back to haunt you. I give my clients a hand written summary in a little booklet that includes invoice, contract, info sheets on asbestos or Al wiring, generic cost estimates, etc. My writing is neat and legible, and I have always done onsite reporting, so this is how I transitioned to the digital report system. My reports are full of pictures, but there are few surprises, because they already have the summary. Don't write a summary by hand if you never learned to write in school. If you can type and print a summary, ok. What goes in the summary varies with the house and the clients. I will sometimes put good things in there, like I found no vermiculite, that's important news sometimes to somebody that is deathly afraid of it. Writing a summary and handing it off to the client is what I do, but it may not work for you, and you have to stress that the full report is still on the way. Good luck.

Mike, for every body that posts here there are dozens of lurkers who come here to learn something. I let the mold thing go, knowing it would raise its ugly head in due course. Re: goofy biz names, its a generation thing, no? It might work for you in the right demograph, a word I learned here.

What's on the DVD? Just pictures I took while walking and crawling about. I start snapping from the street and take a camera shot of everything I see, good or bad. It plays as a slideshow. I see no reason to horde them all to myself. I do a quick edit on my laptop, then hit burn as we are finishing up and getting payment out of the way. I avoid taking bad shots, such as deleting as I go a bit. This Canon I'm using now has a slow flash charge but one redeeming feature. It knows when to rotate the image, don't have a clue how it does that. My client was in a rush for info yesterday. She got the 130+ pictures and a written summary, along with general info printouts, old house stuff, a copy of the contract, invoice, etc in a sleeve. Enough info to make the decision. That is the Allsafe Home Onsite Summary Report, folks. HOSeR for short. [] I got the full report off to her last night, but it was more fluff than substance, with the vitals already covered by my summary booklet and the pictures.

'It's Getting Better All The Time"

That would be the Benny Goodman Orchestra, IIRC. Any buzzing is trouble, and I would not try tightening anything myself. I'm not allowed to "perform work" inside an electrical panel. But if it is humming, it may be arcing or overheating, and if it is indeed a tiny transformer making that noise, it is crying for help. Or it is just humming "In The Mood". []

Raymond Wand gives out a tape measure with his company info stamped on it. I haven't tried any of those but might give the thumb drive a shot as I presently give out a DVD. With my company and my name on it of course. The home owner gets a letter of thanks with my contact info and a biz card, and the realtors gets one even if they are not thrilled to see me. They might need an inspection for a relative or friend. [] I just did a search for a HI in your town and guess what, you were 'A', right below the paid ads. That is good SEO, Google Maps. Add a picture of yourself on your home page, less text. Link to text files and keep the Index page easy to skip thru. People don't read more than 3 lines of text, and now they are all squinting at iPhone monitors, and driving with the other hand. I have been told the thank you notes from past clients helped the client pick me, so they go on page one.

The screw and outlet are both grounded as its a three prong outlet and the entire complex is only four years old. I figure they did it this way to save a few cents on each of the 504 cord sets needed for the property. But they ended up paying extra dollars for somebody to install all those little jumpers and wire nuts[?] Somebody ordered appliances with the wrong cord sets, special order for ungrounded receptacles. [:-dunce]

That's right, the big pulley reduces friction, so it is an easier pull, and it reduces strain on the rope. For a mechanical advantage, you need to add another pulley at the bottom and run the rope back up to the top. Too much rope doing it that way. Install a little winch on there that you can run with a cordless drill. []

Nice one, John. The plain Jane pulley looks like it belongs there. Nice rope that will last. Gloves are good. I just wish you had used a Bowline knot on the rung. That is the knot that won't undo itself. Melt the end of the rope too, eh? []