John Kogel

That is the work of amateurs, and you are right to call it. Anything more than the correct exposure is too much, IMO. There's also a good chance they screwed up other stuff and didn't use underlay, either.

Thanks, Mike. Balconet, like a safety net, got it. That thing in my pic is actually a deck with a room below. I was trying to make a joke out of it. The design is a joke.

Robert, you are right, the dormer needs a gutter in the Pacific NW, or else there will be a wet wall and worn shingles. Gutter guards will be good to keep Mr Handy down off the roof. And if they extend the downspout all the way down to the lower gutter, that's the best way to finish it off. That eliminates the green slime trail. Yep, rake board past the gutter is standard practice here, too. The better roofers will install a little flashing to direct most of the runoff at the rake edge over into the gutter. Most don't bother, so there is a perpetual drip off the end of the plank, and on an older house, a rotten end that needs to be described and talked about. [] Check out this new townhouse - a double course of shingles to cover the super wide rake planks, so a double wide drip on the patios below. The green slime is already there, too. A balcony drain centered right above the window in the stucco wall. Oh well. It all looks right to the architect. I think that's a Juliette balcony. Romeo can do no wrong. [] Click to Enlarge 55.13?KB Click to Enlarge 77.59?KB Click to Enlarge 34.36?KB

I think you covered it, John. The buyers probably won't do a thing about it. but it's there in your report.

Lucky they didn't put drywall over the hole in the garage wall. It would have been your opinion versus the signed letter from the 30 year vet. That house will sell to the first guy who knows too much about houses to get a home inspector in.

A copper strip will last for many years, until it gets stolen, maybe. Zinc strips I think are plated steel, as they seem to lose potency after a few years. A word of caution about spraying soap on any roof. A guy I know woke up from a 3 day coma after forgetting he'd sprayed soap on his shingles. He must have done a 3-point landing, broke both his wrists and his collarbone as well as getting a nasty concussion. I think dry agricultural lime will kill moss if you hit it hard enough. I'm going to be trying that on my place.

http://products.schneider-electric.us/s ... 26800cd66c The Schneider manual for Homeline AFCI's only shows one conductor for each terminal. I couldn't find any specific language allowing or disallowing a double-tap. I would call for a repair. It's an indication of careless work, IMO. How'd you like the weekend work after a week of work? []

My Lectric leaf blower can fry a cord in two minutes! It takes about 2 minutes for heat to build up on the neutral blade of the power cord. It's due to a bad connection creating resistance. That resistor gets hot!

If the excessive voltage drop is being caused by backstabbed receptacles, then using that tool has some merit, I think. It will depend on the circumstance. The first reaction from home owner's sparky will be "the inspector's an idjit". Back stabs: I had a flickering, dimming bedroom light in my place a couple of years ago. The switch and the light fixture checked out ok. The wall outlet was scorched. In the pic, you can see the metal is discolored from heat. Click to Enlarge 69.58?KB Click to Enlarge 59.1 KB Smoking cords and voltage drop: Way back in my youth, I was drying out some gear in a shed with a heat lamp on about 100 feet of extension cords. Good thing I was home to put the fire out.

I think the important issue would be to determine what caused that fry-up. Did the main breaker short out on its own? A more likely possibility, the total house load exceeded the main breaker rating, the breaker failed to trip, so it fried itself and the SEC's. So swapping in a new breaker and wrapping on a bit of tape may not be solving the issue of an overloaded antique service. I don't know, but that is the question that needs to be answered. An electrician could do a load calculation, make sure all the branch circuit breakers will trip if they need to, and repair those SEC's properly. But a complete service upgrade and a new breaker panel would be the best fix for that mess, IMO.

Besides the radio that was always on, they had to plug in the record player, the fan and the new vacuum cleaner! Click to Enlarge 49.16 KB Kids, there weren't no power bars in them days. []

Yes, they all say that. It's not a correct installation. But the "failure" has to do with delamination of the applied sections, not the base layer. I'm not saying this is right. It's wrong. I'm saying that I've never seen it cause a problem in the performance of the roof. Let's just say Robert was not impressed with the performance put on by the roofer and his flaky ridge cap. []

That white fungus is going to destroy the ledger board, even after they cut some vent holes. At least it's a short drop to the ground from there. I had something like that last fall, but the OSB sheathing on the walls came down below the deck. I got my camera in there and it was not a pretty sight. Believe it or not, swarming termites had found it too and crawled down between the deck planks and the siding. I showed my client the little piles of wings along the wall. I don't expect I'll see that realtor again. Too much detail. []

Yes, sometimes that's it, but this was a one layer roof, I'm pretty sure. The upper edge of the first row seems to be visible in the exposed part of the third row. With some additional wrinkles. Thin shingles, no doubt.

Usually each thermostat has a corresponding valve. Scott's pic shows 7 valves, so there are likely 7 thermostats and 7 zones (loops). You can run up and down the stairs testing all the floors for temp changes as you play around with the thermostats. If you call for heat at all the thermostats at the same time, the whole system slows down. Tile floors are slow to heat up. See if the thermostats open valves by taking temp readings on the tubing where it leaves the valve. You can hear if a circulation pump is running or you can feel it for vibration. Check for a system for adding makeup water thru a check valve. Expansion tank, PRV, etc. Then I tell my client what I tried and what the result was, or if there was no result, and it's always best if they can get the expert in to check the complicated systems.

Different country, different perceived hazards, sorry for the diversion. []

The repair guy snaps the breaker off and then he puts his little padlock on it. A disco for the WH has never been required here, and I wonder if that is local requirement? Somebody in your area got zapped while installing a tank, no doubt.

Thanks, guys. I suppose wind does the scraping, hitting the high spots.

"Should we scrape off the moss?" "No, don't do that. At this point, the moss is holding the shingles on". [] Click to Enlarge 113.69?KB Click to Enlarge 122.68?KB Click to Enlarge 89.35?KB That was an easy one. This roof below was harder, It doesn't look too bad, except where the granules are gone off the ribs. I've seen this damage before and wonder if it is from scraping with a snow shovel? If so, it won't get worse for a while. But I wish I could be more specific on this one. Click to Enlarge 110.21?KB Click to Enlarge 102.13?KB Click to Enlarge 94.55?KB

I couldn't find any labeling on the silver jackets around the panel, but I did catch it by accident up in the attic. Dusty air was pouring up thru this gap between the batts. Click to Enlarge 46.03?KB

Should the neutrals and grounding conductors not be separated? It is a subpanel. I would get it checked out.

The house dates back to the mid 50's, but there are no two prong outlets anywhere. What is there is Al branch circuits, which I wasn't expecting to see. The hip roof and stucco fits the age, so I think the ungrounded wiring was replaced with solid Al branch circuits in the mid 60's. The Al conductors have silver cloth jackets. Yes, I know it is an old Federal Pacific piece of crap panel. Mr Handyman has added a #14 gauge copper neutral under the same screw as a #12 gauge Al neutral. Brilliant. It's a little reminder to expect the unexpected. Click to Enlarge 72.44 KB Click to Enlarge 61.57 KB Click to Enlarge 77.41 KB

I think they should get info from the builder. I would want to know what the membrane consists of, and what the sheathing is under it. The depth of the soil would be good to know. I suppose you could jab a probe in to measure it. I would expect to see some very solid supports under that roof, because the weight factor is significant. Check the drainage. The water has to seep out of there somehow. Good luck with it.

Brown shirts, slightly wrinkled, work for me. Take them out of the dryer before it stops, put them on hangers. For slacks, I've got the hangers with clips. When my wife does my laundry, I can't find my clothes for days. She'll let them pile up in a basket, then iron them days later. Norm, at least you were right about the missing knob. This may be the one and only time a realtor knew something you did not. It is a rare thing.

I am pretty sure that the bulk of complaints about Federal Pacific products has to do with the Stab-Lok circuit breakers, specifically those manufactured in the NY area. The other products, such as the older fused disconnects and the commercial disconnects, don't have any history of being flaky that I have heard of. But I'm in Canada, so whatever, I have no authority on the subject. []