Jim Baird

Isn't any restriction on the intent of any suit itself a restriction on free speech. Just who decides the definition of frivolity? The court jester?...just sayin'.

Ten year old "replicants" were def not old heart pine. This carpenter has been using clear pine treated and then kiln dried for external trim apps. I think he may be doing these windows from same. It is expensive but more durable.

Yall are so funny. Heck it's cold here too. Still in 30's by noon! Pic posted was not mine, but public record's. Here's mine, along with view of attic frame. Click to Enlarge 90.79 KB Click to Enlarge 43.51 KB

Was proud to inspect an old tenant farmhouse that the bank recommended inspectors sneered at and would not touch. (Client said he was a smart*ss) The house stood beside a long abandoned chicken house, and was itself abandoned for some time, but client stood to be gifted the dwelling as part of estate settlement, and needed someone to inspect and advise on feasibility. House was all local pine, sills, joists, studs, rafters, flooring both sides of all walls and all ceilings. Had been covered with asphalt shingle siding before it was brick veneered. Because it was basically a big pine box it was very sturdy structurally, but still only about fourteen inches off the ground. Told client if they had historic or family reasons to restore it, it might be a fun project, but as comparable to building new would likely be a wash. Click to Enlarge 110.14 KB

Huge old historic "mansion" was moved to an intown location and "renovated" about ten years ago. Contractor stuffed insulation into walls, ceilings, etc, but did not, for historic reasons, make any changes to single glazed wood sash, double hung, some with meeting rails that stopped airflow, others with simple meeting rails without bevels. Windows were not original but were "replicated". A carpenter friend has been hired to replace most of them because condensate on the inside has gotten down into muntin pockets and rotted sash bottom rails. How can they avoid the ten-year service life on historic wood sash?

Is not what is frivolous and what is not also a point of discussion? I think anyone in law with some ability would be able to find enough dirt from which to swing a bat on either side.

The lawyer who worked up the action knew very well it was frivolous I'm sure, but it pays no matter how frivolous, and the "client" was able to vent to somebody.

After all this I want to clarify what is in the OP picture. Is it what I call the service lateral before it connects with the service entrance at the mast head? That's what it looks like to me. In which case it's nobody's business but the POCO. What I see damaged all the time is the outside bundle wrap of the SEC, but that is past the meter base.

R401.3 should be enough.

Kurt's point is well made. Most people never go in their crawlspace. I used to carry a tyvek suit with me and offered client, if present, to follow me in. Only once has offer ever been taken.

In my state private sewage disposal is state regulated and permitted through county health depts. Inspectors are called environmental specialists. Building depts require you give them documentation of your compliance with state/cty regs. Here septic systems are sized for residential by number of bedrooms (I suppose as a gauge of occupancy). How far you have to go to meet residential code will be the local officials' call. In my state enforcement is very hit or miss.

Where's the photo?

...very creative. Wonder what catches that focused stream that is like, as we say down South, like a cow p*ssing on a flat rock? Also, the tortured cut and place of those siding pieces above the roof surface, if that is hardi-type siding, is not allowing quite the recommended 3/4" clearance.

"... no sewer gases can escape..." except thru the flexible? I thought check valves operated in pressure situations, not in drain ones. No mention here of drain pipe sizes.

Those block walls that "partition space", if they do not do anything else, may or may not be supported by footing thickness, which should at least be six inches for residential for a wall that supports structure above. I have seen a lot of big cracks in basements where control joints were not cut, but have never seen boring/testing for thickness on remodels. The question is logical, but then you never know how home handymen might change things in a basement. Some of the worst I have seen is where home handymen have created "man caves" in basement/crawls out of osb that butts right into soil and nailed onto spruce framing that is equally risky re termite invasion.

btw the most current term for that cable is not bx but ac, no? I've been told calling it bx is showing my age!

Jim, do I have to come down there and straighten you up? Summary?. O'Handley?. He does good work, but he needs an editor! Only guy I know that wears the characters off his keyboard. Picky, picky, picky. Not so much an editor as a proofreader. Scott, I haven't seen very many with such media mixes that were not ugly.

Thanks Mike, for the summing up.

My wild guess is that this porch is an add-on included in a remodel. Whatever was there before was replaced by infill prior to tile placement. Infill has settled. btw like that cottage style.

Pier and beam is very common here on older houses. Also short crawls. If you can't physically get around the crawl, go to the middle of each room and jump up and down to check the sturdiness of the framing. Looks like a termite lunchbox to me, and somehow those piers do not look original to me. Here piers that old would just be stacks of field stone with no mortar. Further south where it never freezes piers were often made of cypress blocks cut in solid pentagon shapes with the fifth point straight up. If the curtain walls at perimeter are made of wood they will serve as termite highways. If you cannot crawl all the way through how did the guy who spread all that plastic do it?

Yes, you can demand show and tell of chapter and verse, but common sense tells me it must violate specs of rated assembly.

Long ago I knew an electric engineer who had worked at Oak Ridge during the slide rule era. He boasted that in a little home he built for him and his wife he had sized down conductors that way with such effect that the poco sent someone to investigate why his meter turned so slowly.

I appreciate the replies. I did stand shy of suggesting remedy, as I usually do. My job is to find problems, not to solve them. Here is what I said: 2.1) My crawl around the perimeter found mostly dry soil, but also many areas where the brick, the mortar, and the remedial repointing/parging that had been applied was flaking/spalling, pulverizing. Those effects are from moisture migration toward the inside. This link offers good info in that regard: http://www.oldhouseweb.com/how-to-advic ... onry.shtml I think the moisture source might be from the drain tiles I assume are buried outside the foundation wall that receive the discharge from the gutters all around the roof. I don?t know whether the drain tile travel south to daylight or whether they might join the building drain after it leaves the perimeter to tie into the municipal sewer system. The wood columns and the steel jackposts are technically temporary and would most properly be replaced by masonry, but they appeared to be effective on inspection day. My thinking is that the builders did not like the bearing left to them by the width of the granite block minus the width of the well-fired brick they used for exterior, so they used the other brick inside the granite. The South has long been a seat of eccentricity and I think this family was likely no exception. I do know there was a local brickyard nearby back in the day, and I don't think the exterior ones came from there, but the interior ones might well have.

1930's brick home with granite foundation wall that has concrete "coping" to support brick veneer and to span openings, has multi-wythe brick inside of granite that supports wood frame. Inspection found signs of moisture intrusion causing spalling of brick and pulverization of mortar joints over time, plus a variety of remedial efforts over some time to shore up brick. Remedies included repointing with more than one mortar material as well as what looks like a "surface bonding" material that looks like it contains epoxy or something. Some of the remedies have begun to exfoliate and spall themselves. Overall the surface bonds appear to have held up best. Moisture source is most likely a buried drain system that receives guttered roof runoff. I think most likely the drain system is old fashioned masonry drain tile that tends to leak at joints. Have no idea where drain system's daylight termination is. It may well tie into the building drain/sewer system whose path is roughly known. If my thinking is right, without having been intrusive, I am leaning toward suggesting correction/replacement of drain tiles to relieve building of moisture source other than ordinary surface collection. Other than that, perhaps a section/by section replacement of the inner brick wythes that support the frame. See pics below. Comments are welcome, as I have not seen a building like this before, and I am creeping out on a limb. Click to Enlarge 83.2 KB View of granite with coping above Click to Enlarge 60.12 KB View of surface bonding effort Click to Enlarge 52.65 KB view of pulverizing brick

OP appreciates the replies. In GA ownership change/title approval requires removal w/docs but only for commercial sites. It's all about gasoline tanks, as buried oil tanks are rare here. As a local AHJ in 2010 I required removal of one for a former service station, whose tank was so close to state hiway that they had to get involved too. Tank was about the size of a well fed pig from the photos, and cleanup not a prob.