MMustola

I think the footings are fine. This is out of the 2006 IRC. R408.6 Finished grade. The finished grade of under-floor surface may be located at the bottom of the footings; however, where there is evidence that the groundwater table can rise to within 6 inches (152 mm) of the finished floor at the building perimeter or where there is evidence that the surfacewater does not readily drain from the building site, the grade in the under-floor space shall be as high as the outside finished grade, unless an approved drainage system is provided. As for the water correction methods, I would never "bless" a repair. Just document the water problems and that fact that repairs have been may and recommend the buyer obtain any warranties for the contractor who did the repairs. If there are no warranties or the repairs were done by the home owner I would tell the buyer that there is a good chance the the problem may still exist. I always recommend the buyer contact the person who made the repairs. Often the contractor will say they recommended another solution by the home owner did not want to send the additional money.

I just added my marker. That map I really cool! Thanks Bill.

Les, I'm planning on attending the meeting in Jackson tomorrow. I was hoping to get a quick pole of inspectors in other states to see what their liability is. If three years is a long time compared to other state laws than I would like MichAHI to lobby for a shorter duration. In 2006 the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld an inspection agreement that had a 6 month limit of liability. I have attached a letter from my attorney. I think things like this could be used to convince out legislators to be reasonable. For anyone whose interested: Download Attachment: Attorney letter.pdf 337.91 KB http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents ... B-4162.pdf

Michigan has a new bill to license inspectors. In the bill they want to make inspectors liable for errors for three years. For those of you who are licensed, what does your state law say about the length of time to are liable?

High pressure would indicate to me a water logged expansion tank. I have never seen a boiler on a hot water system over 20 degrees, but that does not explain the lack of heat in two zones.

Jim, I see your point. Around here nobody uses a camera. The county standard requires digging in the field. If I were doing septic inspections I would rather dig a hole in the field then have to handle and clean a camera. I aggree that an inspection to the detail you are discribing will tell you most everything you needed to know about a septic system. In counties not requiring septic inspection we still have home inspectors doing simple load and dye tests.

A camera will not tell you a whole lot about the condition of the septic field only the condition of the drain tile. There are four counties within a hour of me that require mandated septic inspections when the house sells. The inspections must be done by a contractor or inspector approved by the county and must be done to their standards. In all cases, along with pumping pout the tank, several test holes must be dug in the field. They are looking for a thick, black, smelly, jelly-like substance called a biomat under the drain tile. If this biomat is present than the field is toast. IMO there is no way to know what is going on with a septic system without a lot of digging.

I think you would have to write it up as wrong. It's so stupid I would not want any body thinking I thought it was good. Just image what might be wrong behind the plaster. To quote Kurt, "it's a jack-legged installation"

I have a very good relationship with my attorney. He says in Michigan it is very difficult to get around the protection of the corporation and sue you personally. It order to do it, they have to prove you were negligent or fraudulent. To prove you were negligent they must prove you did not meet the standard of care in your area. For example, if every inspector walks on roofs and you did not that would be negligent. You can be an idiot, or make a mistake and still be protected. I know I am simplifying this issue but I believe Mr. Ferry is trying to scare people to sell seats in his classes.

The local Realtor Board in my county went from 1200 members down to 800 members over the last two years. Not only has the number of inspections gone down because of the lack of home sales, I'm also losing some of my referral base.

Mike, I completely agree with you. I spent more time talking about it here then I did with the client and Realtor. I almost never get into debates like this with Realtors or sellers, I just state my case and move on. It was advertised as a bedroom and the client was asking for the situation to by fixed.

The Realtor/builder is not the guy who built the house. The house is seven years old and the living space in the basement was created about 3 years ago. I can tell that there were no permits involved because of the number of basic code violations. Of course the MLS lists this room as a bedroom. The Realtor is just trying to justify not helping the buyer correct the problem. When he first tried to tell me a room needed a closet to be a bedroom and he knew this because he has built hundreds of homes I was very nice and said just point me to the section of the code that he referring to and I would be glad to look it up. He just stammered and keep repeating that fact that he built hundreds of homes so he just knew it. This was all in front of the client. The exchange was pleasant but even the client could tell he was full of crap.

I am having a disagreement with a Realtor who also claims to be a expert builder. Here is the situation. The basement a finished walkout with about 2000 sf of living space. The furnace and water heater are in the bedroom closet. This closet is an unfinished 10 x 10 room. I called this out as a problem do to drawing combustion air from a bedroom. There furnace is a cat 4 and is not the problem but the water heat is. Here is the disagreement. The Realtor/builder says I am correct except that the room is not a bedroom so it's ok. The room looks like a bedroom to me. It has an attached bathroom and a proper egress window. The Realtor claims that since there is no clothes closet it is not a bedroom. Heres my question. The Realtor/ builder claims that the code says that for a room to be a bedroom it must have a closet. I do not believe that is true. I don't ever remember seeing that in the code before. Now the room does have a closet, it is just unfinished, has no clothes rod, and only contains the furnace and water heater. Now the Realtor wants to debate weather this room is closet. The only question I have is, does the IRC require a room to have a closet to be a bedroom.

It's always fun when you get a new tool. The SureTest was providing me with a lot of information that I never had before and a found it very interesting. I have no burning desire to do a technical exhaustive electrical inspection, I'm just trying to figure out if any of this new information would be helpful to me and if it's worth reporting. For the record, I searched the archives for SureTest. There was a lot of information but most if it was from 2005 and 2006. I wanted to see if peoples view on voltage drop reporting had changed.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a SureTest analyzer from an inspector who was going out of business. I have never used one before. For the last couple of weeks I have been using it at all my inspections trying to figure out how to use it. Here's the question. I have been finding a lot of outlets with excessive voltage drop. In a house today many outlets had a 12 to 15 percent drop under a 15 amp load and 17 to 19 percent drop under a 20 amp load. This seems extreme. I often find 6 to 7 percent drops The instructions I down loaded for the SureTest indicates that the maximum voltage drop recommend by the NEC is 5 percent. I understand that the drop can be the result of many different wiring problems like: poor splices, too many splices, too many outlets on the circuit, etc. How do some of you report voltage drop and what do you recommend?

AARST was the other organization I was thinking of. I had never heard of NEHA until I started getting calls from ESA. Thanks for clearing this up for me.

I have been getting calls from ESA (Environmental Solutions Assoc.) regarding Radon training and certification. The certification is through NEHA. My question is, what is the best or most widely recognized Radon credential?

I get 3 to 4 referrals from the ASHI site a year. 100% of them are converted to booked inspections. I love ASHI and I am active in the Great Lakes Charter. Most of the time inspectors operate in their own little world. For me the biggest advantage of joining an association is the interaction you get with other people in your profession. The education seminars are great but what you can learn from face to face interaction with other inspectors is priceless.

Thanks guys for the reply. My wife works for HP and she gets a 15% discount on all note books so I will certainly get an HP product. For my simple needs, report writing software, Quick Books, and photo management software I though any processor would do. I just wanted to get other opinions just to be sure I was not off base.

I am looking to purchase a new notebook computer. My question is this, what processor should I buy? I know enough to buy a computer with the most memory and disk space that I can afford but the choose of IBM compatible processors is very confusing. Also, Should I go with Vista or stick with XP?

I almost always light the pilot on gas fireplaces and other decorative heating appliances. Most clients have no idea how to operated the things. Taking 5 or 10 minutes to give them a lesson is always appreciated by the client.

We have a lot of buried oil tanks in my area. Every one of them looks exactly like the one in Phillip's picture. They are not home owner or handy man installations, that's just the way they are done here.

I also recieved a call two days ago but the caller wanted to know if I could test the grante at the counter top shop befor he brought it into his home. I told him pretty much want Scott said.

Many times I see trouble lights, retractable extension cord reels, or Christmas lights plugged into these ceiling outlets. I think it wold be wise to recommend updating the outlets. The cost do do so is very cheap.

I use the 7 1/2 inch stinger and just stick it in my back pocket.