Jim Baird

...don't know the local codes there, but accessory to residential is usually supposed to be to residential standard, where R-30 is required for ceilings. 6 inches is R-19.

...asking a mold investigator to look for mold is kind of like asking the guy at the spiral-cut ham outlet how big a ham he thinks you will need to feed X people. His answer will certainly be to his benefit. Did the lab also say the stuff was in the wall spall?

...sounds to me like you have been "sold a bill of goods" but don't quite know what is being bought.

...what did you say?...

I think you mean CABO. The requirement is much older, though. It's in the 1979 CABO and in the '76 UBC. (Those are the oldest ones I've got.) But I suspect that it first showed up in the early '70s. IRC inaugural edition was Y2K. Before that we were SBCCI, which used CABO for residential.

That much cornice repair looks like the complement to a pretty thorough paint job, at least on door/window/trim...

Now I see. It is a window in the wall, not a shower enclosure. Within 5 ft vertically of the tub drain is IRC. I have seen lots of windows over tubs that were not tempered.

Take comfort in the fact that in today's market, products made for buildings are required by codes to be listed for the use they serve. I don't think you would ever find a bootleg non-tempered shower door/enclosure.

Any house that is served by 400 amp service is going to have a high usage just to be up and running as a dwelling.

...does not 12 ga. wire need a 20 amp breaker?

I wanted to recommend the buyers have a Tarzan rope hung from the ceiling of the stairwell so the user could swing free if he had to on the way down. Click to Enlarge 23.67 KB

Sometimes jobs get stopped due to finance. Looks like whoever picked it back up changed to vinyl.

...you mean like this, Rob? Click to Enlarge 61.34 KB

My question is what kind of force might make those little copper blades lose their tight fit in the device. Jim, I try to keep a no-throw policy for breakers and don't typically operate disconnects, just like I don't operate plumbing cutoffs.

Outside condenser disco on my house was a simple push-pull with plastic handle. Luckily I was home and smelled burning plastic. HVAC man had no clue, other than to say it obviously became loose enough in its little box to arc and burn. He replaced it with something similar.

Bearing on wood is 2" in general, no?

The original instruction looked to reasonably include code requirements for flashing penetrations like windows and any other horizontal projection that is wood.

"...castles, made of sand, melt into the sea, eventually..."---Jimi Hendrix

My bad, S. Having followed the thread I already forgot that terminology. 2Xs nailed to the side of a post to me are just "scabs" or something The thread drifted to the little simpson tie-downs...I see 2Xs cut nailed to the sides of block piers now and then when layout errors make the girder miss the pier.

A lot of poorly built things last a long time. Some who know me accuse me of being a pedant. It helps, S. to read the OP. The "cleats" were incidental to the OP. Around here they are installed on roof trusses to meet "positive connection" code req's. They are to resist uplift from winds.

Exactly, John. It was so glued up with inches of silicone glob to that sheet metal I could not see the whole thing. I think it might be just a turtle-back stationary vent for attic venting. Below, in the utility room, the particle board walls looked like they had been fire-hosed. This assembly is part of a larger whole that I recommended demolition for and a fresh start.

A new one for me. This is a vent terminal for a gas water heater. Uphill you can see the roofer's effort to divert a wide steep valley's focused runoff which cascades onto the roof a few feet up. Click to Enlarge 33.64 KB

Have a seat. Enjoy the mild weather. Seller met us to open the front door, but this was in the back. Click to Enlarge 64.77 KB

hspinnler, ...are you missing the point here? Decks fail routinely, regularly. Are the defects posted here likely to be life/limb threatening? No, if there is only a three foot fall as a result of catastrophic failure. So you are qualified to brush off engineering standards for attachments? Most of us here just cite the rules and issue common sense warnings. I have seen decks underbuilt in ways I could not have imagined and have always issued warnings based on accepted standards...btw an in-law of mine leaned through a poorly fastened guard on a 2-yr old home at a wedding reception and fell eight feet to be ambulanced away in the dark.

The screws are not being used for structural reinforcement in this case. All weight is heading straight down. Writing up screws in this situation is a needless complaint. I disagree, Mike. The screws are under shear loads- glance at the rear post in the photo- it's evident that the ledger boards are just attached to the sides of the columns and no not rest on the footers. Also, it's pretty unlikely that the 2X ledgers are rated for ground contact. You are correct Chad. I did write this up in the report. The 2x4's do not contact the footers. This is another photo from the same deck. Click to Enlarge 34.77 KB ...looks like they have uplift taken care of anyway...except that the screws are also not the manufacturer's spec for the hardware.[]