John Kogel

No, the double tap is for the doorbell ringer, which some authorities allow here. The big one is lower down in the same panel.Click to Enlarge 72.37 KB

My dad bought a place with no indoor plumbing in 1956. He got a septic tank in, and dug the drain field by hand. I helped a bit. He did the plumbing himself and cut the holes for a vent stack, but he never got around to hooking one up. It's a real shallow crawlspace there, under the bathroom. Nothing bad happened. My sister bought the place and they got around to venting the bathroom drains in the 80's. 2009, different story. There should be plans somewhere that show the plumbing layout.

The AFCI breaker could be working fine, but the tub needs a GFCI. Shorting the hot to grnd with you 3-light won't trip an AFCI. Call for a repair by a qualified electrician. Have him check the whole place.

Canadian service panels have all grounding conductors separated from the neutrals. The service conductors are kept separate from the branch circuits. It makes for a tidy panel. Pics to follow. Mike, I photograph every panel, 4 pics or more. I have gone back to my pics to answer questions, like "Are the conductors to the kitchen range Al or copper? Can we put in a breaker for a hot tub, etc". The insurance co had a good question for my client the other day, "What % of the wiring is Aluminum?" The service conductors are stranded Al. Dumb ??? Click to Enlarge 65.43 KB Click to Enlarge 69.41 KB Click to Enlarge 96.86 KB Click to Enlarge 72.37 KB Click to Enlarge 47.76 KB This next one I threw in for a laugh. I know you'all hate them Stabloks. It is a Federal Pioneer main panel with a 60 A feeder to a generator subpanel with transfer switches . Click to Enlarge 74.36 KB There is a fault that needed immediate repair in one of these pics of residential, combination service panels. First spotter gets a beer. [:-party]

In reality, you tear off as much of the old shingle as possible. The nails are pretty hard to pull without damaging more shingles.

I see that setup occasionally. Better if the fan is on a humidistat near the hatch, so it will turn itself off. The last one I saw, the laminate floor was buckling and humping up from high humidity. We sometimes have an electric baseboard heater installed near the middle of the crawl, no vents, no fans. That seems to work better in our climate. When I see the crawlspace vented to the living space, I suggest people try covering them up and leaving the heat on low in the crawlspace.

A) 12" Clearance above grade, veranda porch, deck or balcony. This is from a Napolean Direct Vent Fireplace installation manual. If you have the make and model, Google search for the manual. That decking is restricting the combustion air intake as well as being too close to the exhaust.

You might have talked to them by now, but the tone of the e-mail does not always convey the real story, so I suggest what Kurt said, "sorry you're having problems, but ....". Intelligent people will understand that you have a limited time to inspect the house, and disposable appliances are low priority compared to the structure, roof and foundation, etc. Did they sign a contract stating that the report is not a warranty or a guarantee? If they start talking about you coughing up for new appliances, I would remind them that even the stores that sell appliances wouldn't replace old units for free. How can they expect that from you? You saw no signs of failure or you would have reported them. What is a major defect? a cracked tray or a bit of rust? If you don't have pics of the appliances, maybe the realtors do. I take pics and record makes and serial #'s. That forces me to check the appliances out a bit. Older units are pointed out, "could fail at any time". I am lucky my SOP does not require me to inspect appliances. I check them out a bit and even run the DW if there's time and it is empty, but it is done as a courtesy, not an inspection.

The video does serve some purpose - how to make your ladder slip. When I was learning to drive, it was fun and educational to see how fast you could turn a corner on a dirt road before you went into a spin - same principle. BTW, I always leave my sound turned off for those Utube blurbs. Dragging the little time button forward speeds the thing up, so you can skip to the chase. I've said this before. The Jaws ladder is much stiffer, because of the tapered knuckle joint. I had to use the Jaws with the top section while I was in vehicle transition, and I was reminded that the flare at the top really adds to the sideways movement of your weight when you go to get back on from the side. A bungy cord really helps there. Some guys prefer to step over the top when using an LG, with just one rung above the gutter. I understand why. No, it's not for me. If you use that method, there are handle extensions that would help, but again, bungy the gutter, or use Mike's Visegrips clamp method.

Since I'm not an expert, I would recommend that they get an expert to take a look at it. It is a small crack but I think you are right to be cautious about what you see and say there. In fact I never inspect a pool. We don't get a lot of pools in my climate, so the expectation isn't there. Too much liability for the cheap price of a home inspection, IMO. I would give a brief description of the obvious stuff as a courtesy but clarify that I haven't inspected the pool.

That's not damage if you're a termite. It's a high rise apartment with a penthouse suite. []

I don't think that will happen if the T or Y is level and there is a vent stack in the wall. Sometimes water will flood the trap arm towards the other sink.Sometimes a garbage disposer will have a trap and the other sink will have its own trap. Nothing bad happens. Two vanity sinks will each have their own trap.

Right here is good. I suggest gutting the house and starting over with new insulation, new ductwork and new drywall, before the inspector finds something wrong. []

You don't want CO from a water heater leaking out of your woodstove, which can happen when the stove is cold. And you don't want wood smoke and creosote belching out of your water heater vent pipe, maybe causing backdrafting as well.

Could that be the result of freezing? The blocks being porous would wick up moisture, then freezing could cause cracks?

Boxes of Xmas decorations, stuffed in too tight against the rafters. Santa did it.

Any skunk that would hold still for that has to be sickoid. Oh, you mean the entry hole. [] That explains why we've never had skunks under our shed. [] Mike, since you don't have a week, I suggest you use a tiger torch on the shed.

I stand corrected. Well actually, I am sitting here, corrected. []

Does your tank have a 'snifter valve'? It looks like a tire valve and is used to pump air into the pressure tank. Do you ever pump air in? I had air in my lines sometimes with the last place I had, and I'm pretty sure it was from drawing down the water level in the well. Wives with gardens are hard on well systems. [^]

I have 1/2 copper pipe in my house and the water pressure from the street is too high, about 90 psi. I need to install a regulator, but I hate plumbing. We have one faucet in the guest bath ensuite that gets a loud vibration going like what you described. It is only the hot side of the sink faucet that makes the noise, and only if you crack the valve slightly open. Was water off for a while before the inspection? There must have been a flow through the faucet valve, equalizing the pressure. Where you testing the dishwasher? Flushing toilets? Worse than that would be a hidden leak.

They are split-bolt connectors and they are good for that purpose. I believe they are rated for multiple wire connections like that, so the doubling of neutrals should be OK. A couple of concerns are 1) I don't think the bare grounding wires should be doubled up with the neutrals, and there is no need for that. The neutrals should be insulated all the way to the terminal bus, and having bare wires in there is just inviting stray voltage. But we need a code expert to chime in on that. 2)There is a chance of the bolts becoming energized by contact with a live wire or bus. So they should be taped, but that is my opinion only. 3) The neutrals should not be bundled with those zap straps. Heat buildup in the bundles is the reason.

Like Marc, we don't have a lot of below-ground basements here. They just fill up with rainwater. Walk-in basement set into the hill are pretty common. View lots, eh? As a rule, crawlspaces after 1970 have a concrete skim coat over a poly vapor barrier. The concrete doesn't need to be a slab, just enough to protect the poly and make a nice floor to creep around on. Storage hurts our economy. Throw it out so you can buy more Chinese product, so they can lend us more cash. [:-party]

Same here. Old is pre-70's for me. I imagine just moving around with all that clutter in the way drove you bonkers. Glass bowl sinks - do not leave the room with taps flowing. [:-yuck] BTW, if we could move that house to a lot up here, we could ask 3 times that price. View lot, try 1.3 M.

Just like Eddie Rabbit, "we love a rainy night", when we inspect a leaky house. []

We use insulators like that or similar on all service drops around here. Even the ones that screw into the fascia board are ceramic, for some obscure reason. They are known as "emily knobs", but no one knows what ever happened to Emily? I had a linesman tell me that he liked a weak connection at the insulator, because it was the easiest component to replace. There's one that uses a big cotter pin to hold the insulator, which just pops free when a branch hits the line. In Canada, we are not allowed to run the service over the roof the way you'all do. Only at the eaves or the gables. They will install a bridle between the poles if they have to, to get the angle of approach away from the roof. Maybe we spend more time on our roofs, shoveling snow? Not me. So yes, if I see a service drop crossing a roof with less than 8' of clearance it gets called out. It's an expensive repair.