John Kogel

If that's an older home, it could be some amateurs tore the original chimney down. It is some surprisingly bad work, alright.

That's a possibility. The house, built in '06, could have been a victim of wire theft.

That's a lot of lighting for an attic. [:-party]

At least it's leaking out, not in. Were you trying to kill the deal?

That's a fairly sturdy ceiling to take a load of falling bricks like that. One more brick might have done it in. Nice catch! []

You could just call it a waste of bricks. []

That is understandable. Testing a TPRV that hasn't been touched for years is just inviting trouble. In an unoccupied house, it would be ignorant. You can pass that on to the TREC board. If I see a client reaching to flip the valve, "No, first you buy it, then you can play with it." So far, all the news storys of tank explosion point to handyman activity before the blast. They call it 'accidental'. A pipe wrench accidentally fell into the hands of an imbecile. []

A google search for 'arizona water heater blast' brought this result. Some good pics of a blasted house. It sounds like the TPRV had been tampered with, but 'foul play' was ruled out. [] http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoe ... eater.html It appeared that the homeowner and the man renting the house had been trying to fix the water heater, which may have contributed to the heater being launched across Thunderbird Road and landing near a bus stop, Phoenix Fire Captain Sam Richardson said. The man inside the home had been renting the house for only about 12 days. Damage to dental equipment he had in the home may be in the tens of thousands of dollars, Richardson said. Foul play was ruled out, and the incident appeared to be accidental, he said. However, due to the destructive nature of the blast — which also caused minor damage to several nearby homes — the Phoenix police Bomb Squad and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were on the scene as investigators worked to find what caused the explosion. Richardson said the aftermath of the explosion left the house “leaningâ€

Almost no likelihood I disagree. I've inspected thousands of oil-fired and some still coal-burning boilers that have only a coil immersed in the boiler for the domestic hot water. The boiler stays within a constant temperature range throughout the off-heating season. That part is plausible. It's also imaginable that such a boiler could fail in the summer, resulting in no hot water and a flooded basement. It's somewhat possible that this symptom could be patched up temporarily and the boiler resumes generating hot water. I can't make a connection between the failed domestic water system in the boiler and a "clanking sound". Make it a hissing sound it it could be conceivable. The boiler, in summer mode, hisses and quietly floods the basement. This takes a while. The rising water picks up an old grandfather clock which is being stored for a friend. The clock falls, clank, crash, bing bong, into a shelf full of canning jars and gallon jugs of cider, which have been baking in the heat of the boiler all summer. The cider jugs explode, showering shrads of porcelain and glass onto a priceless Persian cuspidor, which is being stored for a friend, which falls off the shelf, pulling down a cuckoo clock, which is being stored for a friend ......The cuspidor fills with water and sinks, pulling the cuckoo down with it. The cuckoo bird, a fine example of Bavarian craftmanship, is swimming little circles with one wing and gurgling its last cuckoo as the poor sap opens the basement door. Maybe a jug of cider could be bumping the step by his foot?

There are some messed up connections on that neutral bus, alright. I think I see stranded Al in the same hole as copper. At least the solid branch circuit wiring is copper, could have been all Al in that year. That feeder is doing double duty as a giant drip loop. [] I usually see them go underground from the pole. They run a bit of conduit into the ground and then you find the service feeder and the water pipes laying in the dirt under the trailer.

Somewhere there is a room or cabinet with meters in it. That is where there should be 7 main breakers for the 7 units. That makes your panel a sub panel. In my area at least, the 6 breaker rule does not apply, because there is one main breaker, (which firemen can access to turn off power). Double taps and missing cable clamps you probably saw. I have found I get blurry shots from holding the camera too close. Better to increase the resolution, then to get a closeup, crop the pic on the PC.

I agree, they aren't much more than a huge toaster with a blower attached. They'll last as long as an electrician can get replacement parts; and, since those replaceable parts are pretty much all stock off-the-shelf electrical components that can be a long time before parts are no longer made or in stock. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Coincidence, I had one yesterday, a 1972 Duo-matic according to the manual that came with it. I can't see any relationship to the year in the serial #. Nice unit for 39 years old. Like you said, Mike, it's a giant toaster. Click to Enlarge 69.62 KB Click to Enlarge 56.69 KB Click to Enlarge 64.44 KB It may have been built in '74, as that is when the house was first occupied. Back then we manufactured these products in our own country. Weird, eh?

Jim, you might find an answer here. I'd keep looking, but there's hockey. http://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/sho ... stem/page2 They may be confusing reduction in total length, by using the new pipe systems. It sounds like it is simply the second chamber of a typical system, separated because of the slope. If the lids are off and the tanks have been pumped, you will need fill the first tank before you'll see any water in the second tank. That's 1500 gallons thru a shower head, eh? []

I can supply a theory for the faint light, but it is pure speculation. If there are multiwire circuits present, 2 hots and one neutral, and there is current running through the unswitched circuit, it may be inducing a small current through the switched circuit. When you plug your tester in, you provide a path for that stray current. If the neutral is switched, with the switch off, shouldn't the tester show an open neutral? I've never had all 3 lights on at once, but would put it down to seriously "faulty wiring". That would be what Phil describes, power to both the hot and the neutral with your tester providing each with a path to ground.

Sounds like there's more than just fart gas in there. Somebody's been missing the bowl again. Yuk. I was thinking (on the throne one day) to explore the idea of a fan-loaded toilet seat, after market device. Mine would only come on with pressure from above (from a behind above??). Any investors interested? []

I can't say for sure, but I've seen similar damage caused by foot traffic. Hot day, guys scrambling to get the siding up. If that's the case, the damage pattern will follow the obvious path from the ladder, and go below and around the sides of the dormers. I would then just report it as damage from foot traffic.

I don't think the lugs at the top of the first sub panel are rated for double wires. One pair is coming from the 70 amp in the main, but where do those two others go from there? The other question in that panel is whether those bare conductors can be connected to the neutral bus. It would not be allowed in my area. It looks like the one neutral has been wrapped with tape, but it would be a bare neutral further downstream. If that's a stove circuit, it will carry 120 volts from time to time. Looks fishy. Then the feeder to the second sub, same thing. The bare wire become a neutral for any 120 volt circuits in the second sub. What is supplying the grounding to the outlets? There's enough dubious work there to warrant a checkup by an electrician, IMO.

Yes. it is typical place for cracks. I fairly often see tiled entryways on slab floors with cracked tiles right along that line. There will usually be a welcome mat there, hiding the cracks.

the inlaws have these in their 1961 ranch they had built. Ivory receptacles were all the rage in the early 60's. But I've never seen child-proofs from that era. Neat.

Yes, you should describe the basics. But parts of my SOP say "inspect" and for some things "describe". Service drop is either overhead or lateral. Breakers or fuses, main breaker size of course. (My house had "upgraded wiring" today, but it was only 60 amps) conductor types NMD, loomex, woven sheath, BX This shows you've looked for K&T and found these other types. I check a representative # of outlets, try to get one in every bedroom, and especially if there's old ungrounded circuits, then I try to get them all, because it will be a mix. But I only report defects in the receptacles. GFCI's all get checked and reported as present. AFCI breakers I report them if they are there, but will not test them if there are clock alarms. Report them to show you looked for them. But no, you don't need to report what is NOT there. [] If your report is setup to describe something, it forces you to check for that item. Like the presence of a vacuum relief valve on a water heater. It's either there or it's not there. We can't test them.

There's gotta be some reason! I would have guessed lead service entry pipe...but maybe I'm just projecting.[] Nope, it was the electric frying pan, the one with all the pits and scratches in it.

It appears to be "MDF". Modified dung fiber. []

There is bedrock just below the surface in that area, bedrock and gravel, so if your math is correct, I don't think the soil will be a deterrent. Good taste is another storey, and that's a pun. I think I'll try probing down to the footing so I can at least give them some idea of what's down there. A typical approach in that area is to leave the old house as is and attach a modern Siamese twin to the back of it. It'll be ugly any way they slice it. In another part of town, they picked up a Victorian style frame house, moved it to the back corner of the lot, laid down tire mats and blasted the granite down several feet. Then they built a full basement and set the old house back in place. I think it's a triplex now. Nice job.

Thanks Mike. No, it's not post and beam in the sense you are familiar with. It is a concrete foundation. There will usually be two or three beams supporting the main floor. 8X8 rough-cut posts nailed in under the beams. No fancy mortise and tenons, just nails and gravity. Perimeter walls are concrete, with Douglas fir 2X4 pony walls above the ground level.The house is a modified pyramid. I'm sure they could raise it on two I-beams. If they tear that roof off and build up, they will ruin the place, no doubt. Jim, it is three blocks to sidewalk coffee shops, three blocks to the beach, ten blocks to downtown. There are no vacant lots, so they buy these old places for inflated prices. Then they shiver through the winters cuz there's a ban on woodsmoke. [] A typical approach is to build a warm addition with insulated 2X6 walls, creating a duplex monster. Then they rent out the old half, mortgage helper. There is bedrock just below the surface in that area, bedrock and gravel, so if Mike's math is correct, I don't think the foundation will be a deterrent. Good taste is another thing.

I think the mouth of that valley needs to be wider, or it will jam up with debris. The framing crew screwed up because the design is f%&ed. The roofers just started banging down shingles cuz that's all they ever do. Back to the drawing board, eh? The architect could design a cure, but why pay him more money? The triangular piece should slope down from the wall to direct the water out and away. A trough like what you drew, but with slope on both sides. Up here, it would be roofed with torched on mod bit, maybe with an open metal valley so it will flush the leaves and needles out.