Jim Baird

The clearance idea is mainly about a visible zone for termite inspection, (at least around here).

What a delight. Around here commercial development is either Soviet-style steel building drab or cheesy EIFS faux facades that all look alike. This guy must have had to sell the quirk angle to AHJ, most of whom don't like left over or scrap materials.

One I inspected where a batch lived had a Jenn-aire downdraft exhaust at the range top in a peninsula. The exhaust duct had one 90 degree turn through a base cabinet partition and stopped there, open. Not a speck of grease and no outlet.

Thanks, Marc, for getting this thread going, tho I know it was not by your choice.

16 yrs ain't far from 20 on basic cheapo product, but Hausdok's idea may have hit nail on head, especially if there was some discoloration or moss the owner was wringing hands about.

Bats. They can wiggle thru mighty small spaces.

True, ML, but GA, with 159 counties, (don't know the # of municipalities), has a lot of little pieces of turf where the AHJ can hire anybody it wants to, including the local realtor's son-in-law, who can't even read the newspaper much less the code books, to be building inspector. Most of those kinds of inspectors work on being the builder/developer's "buddy", so as to promote bidnis and not make waves. So it goes.

A few years ago my wife and I went to see the Dalai Lama at Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta, where his Holiness holds a professorial chair at Emory University. A large crowd had gathered prior to the opening of the gates and we stood in a line of several hundred stretching down a sidewalk. A car pulled over from the passing traffic and the occupants asked if we were in line for American Idol!

You should search for the nearest Antiques Roadshow and stand in line for 16 hrs minimo and rely on their "experts'" opinions.

Chad's risers meet spec. As far a s GA goes, well, bidnis interests trump all, especially depending on the influence (money) level. Why pin a builder/developer down to a specified floor cover prior to reeling in the buyer/fish on the hook? Heck in an adjacent county they are so hungry for someone, anyone, to build anything, that they have waived plans review for all commercial comers.

Steel tank, huh? This sounds like the Garrison Keillor story about the car someone buried in the yard for use as a septic tank. Wonder if Marc's tank was a Camry or a Corolla?

I write them up regularly and rant about "leg breaker" stairs. In GA, the state amends, however, to allow a 3/4" diff between risers, instead of the standard 3/8 allowable diff, at the top and the bottom of a flight, I suppose to allow for changes in floor cover thickness at finish floors and at landings.

This reminds me of a poem by one of my faves, Billy Collins. The Country by Billy Collins I wondered about you when you told me never to leave a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches lying around the house because the mice might get into them and start a fire. But your face was absolutely straight when you twisted the lid down on the round tin where the matches, you said, are always stowed. Who could sleep that night? Who could whisk away the thought of the one unlikely mouse padding along a cold water pipe behind the floral wallpaper gripping a single wooden match between the needles of his teeth? Who could not see him rounding a corner, the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam, the sudden flare, and the creature for one bright, shining moment suddenly thrust ahead of his time? now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid illuminating some ancient night. Who could fail to notice, lit up in the blazing insulation, the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants of what once was your house in the country?

BTW I have twice found hand dug wells in crawl spaces. Both were so old that their concrete caps had fallen into the void. It's why I always crawl belly-down, so I can see in front of me.

I used to inspect and write housing rehab jobs for owner occupied dwellings, Under one, with a failing floor system and a too short for good sense crawl, I saw framing members sagging within inches of my nose as the hugely obese occupant, who walked with a very pronounced limp, lurched back and forth above me. It did occur to me that I could be crushed like a roachbug down there and not be found for a while.

Creek Ridge, which must be where Jack and his sister went up that hill to fetch water. Cottage Hill, in flat as a pancake terrain and all McMansions.

If that is cement based product, and not a dribble of caulk, I'd say it looks like a manufacturing defect. Installer should have culled it, but, as things are today, no pride in work = WTF results.

Not an expert on disclosure, but I have never seen a disclosure that meant much. Many people don't know how their house is put together. That's why there is a need for inspectors.

Hate to say it but I personally know a couple of AHJ inspectors that have trouble reading the newspaper, much less the code book.

Don't forget that haste makes waste. Hurry up usually costs more.

Haha. Don't fergit the 6' 8" from finished floor.

When you get a Mr. Slushy or something like it, be careful not to pull too hard on the straw, else you get frozen pipes (windpipes, that is).

I think green technologies are similar to technical greenologies, only different.

Know the diff between "gee" and "haw".

12 yr old expansion tank has BB size hole in side that dribbles. Why? Click to Enlarge 42.63 KB