John Kogel

Switch off, no power.

You're a lucky man, Phillip. Enjoy them when they are young, cuz they grow up pretty quick.

I don't think you are overly cautious with that installation. It is a hack job that allows flue gases to be sucked back through the fire. This could cause incomplete burning and soot buildup. Good catch.

How do you two propose he measure the voltage? Between any two legs it is 208 volts. Between any leg and neutral it is 120 volts. Each leg can safely carry 100 amps. Now describe that, and that is what you got.

We used to use Borax and icing sugar. Same principle, ant carry the sweet poison back to the queen.

These guys are based in Tacoma. http://www.propestcontroller.com/pests_ ... e_ants.php Scroll down for moisture ant info. He also mentions form boards, anywhere wood is rotten. But I would expect that rotten wood to be easily accessed, not buried deep under a slab. I would check the area of the previous roof leak real close.

Nice find, John. Yeah, your French is terrible. That must have been tricky feeding the cable in and out like that. Very skillful. I drilled a pilot hole for the guy from inside the house that came out just under the lower edge of a siding plank. Easy to hide and caulk, I thought. He shoved his big old drill in there and came out in the dead center of the plank. Beauty!! [:-dunce]

Maybe they are just there for an excuse so you can show us the tippy top of that peak? I agree with Mike and Kurt, the metal roof sheds snow better and is tighter without all those vents sticking out of it. I imagine that was a thrilling climb, both up and down.

That is a 1000 times more scary than a bad outlet. Good catch indeed.

Must be scary for people with homes out there. You want all your most valuable stuff ready to throw in the car. Nothing puts out a fire quicker than the world's largest water bomber. http://www.martinmars.com/gallery.htm Click to Enlarge 16.66?KB Flying Tankers operate on the philosophy of "gallons per hour". Simply stated, this means a direct assault on the fire by dropping the largest possible amount of water or gel in the shortest possible time. This philosophy, combined with the Mars excellent initial attack and outstanding ability for sustained operations are the keys to our success - they are scoopers and, working in tandem, they are able to deliver 14,000 US gallons (54,500 litres) of suppressant for the initial attack and continue delivering as much as 7,200 US gallons (27,276 litres) every seven minutes thereafter in sustained operations if needed.

I don't know about 'allowed' but it is certainly incorrect. Easy enough to fix. If the sag is less than a couple of inches, the vent will work. Put it in the report, but don't expect anyone to fix it anytime soon. I think the rule for pipe support is every 4 feet, but somebody correct me if they know better. That looks like the kind of tin roof you would see on a barn. No wonder there is only one plumbing vent. Vent flashings in that roofing are hard to impossible to seal.

Ontario is a dog's breakfast of HI associations. I think there are 9 groups, all claiming to be the best and collecting membership fees. They need to clear the air. In BC, we have licensing, with fees to pay to an unorganized bureaucracy and associations we are required to be members of and pay fees to and now we get another organization to join and pay fees to. Bully!

Driving with an ice cream cone in your hand, tsk, tsk. You need to switch to an automatic. [] We are no longer allowed to drive while operating a handheld device up here, but I don't think an ice cream cone could be called a device. It's still ok.

There's copper flashing all around the base. Not visible. They don't pass thru the attic, either. The stone seems to be well attached with no sign of cracked mortar. In fact, all the rockwork is exceptional on this property. There are stone terraces everywhere. I'm starting to think the core of the chimneys may be reinforced concrete or maybe welded steel. We'll have to go back to the blueprints I agree.

Correction - the fireplaces are metal heatalators and metal chimneys are just visible at the top. Everything is closed in behind facades. The foundation below is poured concrete with concrete ceilings in the crawlspace areas. Above the roof, all behind flashings, not visible. All the roof flashings are copper, BTW. Expense was not a factor in this place. I'm saying stone veneer because the stone appears to be added from above the roofline up, supported by steel angle iron lintels. They are not conventional stone chimneys, obviously.

These 12 yr old chimneys are for wood burning fireplaces now converted to gas logs. The veneer is real stone, kind of thick and heavy. Should an engineer take a look? There is no indication of trouble, maybe just in my mind. Would there normally be steel reinforcement between the flue liner and the veneer and if so, how would that be accomplished? Click to Enlarge 77.03 KB Click to Enlarge 58.94 KB Click to Enlarge 68.68 KB Click to Enlarge 45.82 KB

It's missing the drip leg. Tsk, tsk. []

I don't have the stock, but you had me sweating. I've got GE appliances of that vintage. However, it's my lucky day, my DW is a Whirlpool. Does anyone think they should go back through 6 years of inspections and call everyone that bought a GE dishwasher? I record make and serial #, but usually skip the first few letters of the serial #. My bad. I think I'll check my database for new homes of that vintage with a GE DW.

Thanks, Gary. I like the way you describe the thing, made to fit by the first saw cut. I had to rip some floor boards last week, could have used a jig. I did clamp the boards to the edge of my table, but then I just eyeball the pencil line and dive the saw over the clamps. Sometimes, I will go left-handed so my body is on the blade side where I can see the cut better. But that's not for right-handed folks. []

I would keep all the paperwork to show the repair was done. Then I would seal the cracks with a tube of concrete caulking compound. Shop for the right stuff that has a silicone and concrete base. I sealed up a crack in my foundation 4 years ago. It is still sealed, so we know there is no problem, no movement.

Most likely radiant ceiling heat then, but we still can't be sure.It is too old to be a radiant in-floor system, I think, at least from systems I have seen. The modern infloor systems are 15 amp and only 120 volt. A question is why 2 20 amp circuits? One circuit should be plenty for one room, and you only found one thermostat. Something isn't adding up. If you saw 2 120 volt 20 amp breakers, they should be joined with a tie-bar. If that is the case and the breakers are installed incorrectly on the same bus, that would explain the slow reaction time of the heater. It would then be only getting 120 volts.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=hea ... 77&first=1 Well, that makes the alien theory more feasible, [] but I will stick with smoke detector. As opposed to smoke alarm. There is a difference, although most people use the terms interchangeably.

They are being put to good use, so they are good books, no? Are the books holding the pipe or is the pipe holding the books?

The titles are "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" "Nurse With a Dream" Nurse Landry's Challenge". Anyone read these? [] Click to Enlarge 56.22 KB

CO detector maybe, smoke detector, more likely, alien spacecraft, possibly, but far less likely. []