Jim Baird

Local utility does not like some listed equipment, and rejects it. One design is an over-under meter base-disco fed from underground. Utility wants minimum 3" width inside the metal shroud that is on the left side, separating the utility's "lateral" from the body of the disco enclosure. Local electrician, when I kicked back his installation of the verboten equipment, flew a little hot on the phone and said he'd "fix it". I was called back to site and found he had "jacklegged" the panel, cutting the inner cover, and sliding the separator shroud over to get 2 1/2" width. Now, by altering the equipment, he has lost the UL listing. My call to the utility's engineers has not been returned. Comments? Click to Enlarge 31.13 KB

very funny...I slay them both by telling clients my report is "itemized narrative".

Tom, best I can tell that ain't no cleanout, it's a cap.

Something doesn't look right about this drain assembly under a manufactured home. (The section exiting the lower right corner exits the building) Click to Enlarge 51.05 KB

Like the "pork" in "pork and beans", they are there, just not visible tot he naked eye.

At least they appear to have some slope. Here the brick masons seem to have forgotten that brick sills should slope at all.

mgb, I don't know about your area, but here all those kinds of records are public, tho you can't get them online but have to pound the pavement to get to them.

ABSTRACT: ANNALS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM about energy efficiency and the Jevons Paradox. Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century was the world’s leading military, industrial, and mercantile power. In 1865, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman named William Stanley Jevons published a book, “The Coal Question,â€

Did you know that SPAM was originally an acronym that stands for "Specially Prepared American Meat"?

When I first looked I thought I was looking at block underpinning or skirting added after the framing. Then I decided it was an "owner-built".

"...where did all the sand go?..." There's a place in NE New Mexico called Great Sand Dunes where all the sand from a cpl of ranges/valleys, or whatever ended up. Very impressive.

I was going to start a new thread but decided instead to jolt this old corpse into a new dawn of the dead. Our state has adopted '09 IECC and amended it to require Duct and Envelope Tightness inspections by certified personell, with certificates issued to be stuck on main panel or on HVAC equip housing. Blower/blast required, a whole protocol issued. As mentioned above the local building science trainers are doing a "land office business", but new home construction is down in the dungeon still. Our area has an estimated 10 to 40 years' worth of new platted subdivisions approved and almost no building activity.

When I say I don't restore insulation it doesn't mean that I pull batts away and leave them. Sometimes I walk thru blown-in that is not very amenable to restoration, so I just leave it be.

Here is an illustrative story from another forum by a contractor in a state where new green regs are coming to fruition. "...I recently did a leeds project as a subcontractor. I was to install the windows and exterior doors. I didn't get the sale of the product but was recommended by the manufacturer so I ended up with the awarded contract to do the installation. First hurdle after signing the contract: I'm supposed to deliver all materials to the jobsite without any packaging. Some of these aluminum clad wood windows are 131" by 96". How am I to deliver without damage? I protested and was told no problem just document how you dispose of the packaging in an environmentally friendly manner. The bid's done already, Right? We corral all the packaging which includes wood shipping blocks, plastic shrink sheeting and plastic extrusions that are snapped onto the window frames to protect against handling damage. We weighed every bit of this trash and documented it! Time comes to dispose of and document the process. I send a carpenter to the dump and guess what, they don't recycle plastic at our dump. I calls the chicklet in charge of the leeds effort and am told I was supposed to know that I was expected to haul 24 pounds of plastic to Portland, Oregon where they do accept pvc extrusions as recycable. That'd be three hours over the mountains ( one way ) for five bucks worth of trash. Yep We're saving the environment here! Next comment: All the finish materials in this building are bamboo! Let me tell you if bamboo is acceptable as a finish material, I've got a corner on the FOOLS market. Bamboo is dimensionally unstable to a degree that George Washington would have said Get the fikk outta here were you to fill my shoes two hundred years ago! Actually, I didn't have the contract for the finish work but as I've cut my teeth doing finish work, I look at every joint I walk by, on my first walk through every thing looked fine. However two months later, every joint was 1.8"+ open. The flippin architect, rather than acknowledge that he'd specified the wrong material wrote a correction notice that required the subcontractor to eat the work. Can you say bankrupt subcontractor?..."

GA state has "adopted" National Green Building Standard 2008 with amendments. Sorry to say don't have my copy yet. I have downloaded last draft of IgCC, which appears to be an animal of much the same color, which includes the same cafeteria approach to local adoption (noticing how the "buck" is being sloughed off to local officialdom) while legislators get to claim "credit" for going green. Points awards appear to be involved as well, as mentioned in the following quote: "(3) The Adopting Entity’s building official, building inspector or designee shall allow new products and practices to be added where deemed to meet the intent of this Standard. Points assigned for any new product or practice shall be determined by the Adopting Entity’s building official, building inspector or designee." I find it ironic that this state, which could hardly be any more "red", and is currently hearing some of the loudest of the "big, bad government" choir practice, is at the same time engendering new jungles of bureaucratic growth by telling localities to pick, choose, mix, and match more or less onerous standards to which they must hold a residential building industry still kneewalking after the big bubble-bust knockdown.

Marc, I know we are supposed to cherish diversity, but I have trouble sharing my little boat with green people.

How about just a little plumbers' putty to even out the irregularities in the ceramic edge of the bowl?

Our state has adopted 08's National Green Building Standard 700 with amendments. Included is the following: 104.2 Special Green Inspector. 104.2.1 General. Where construction is proposed under this Standard, a Special Green Inspector shall provide inspections and verify work performed in compliance with this Standard. The owner shall be responsible for any costs incurred by the Special Green Inspector. The inspector shall be an independent third party. Anyone here so designated/certified?

Doug, That panel is so big it would have to be tempered anywhere. I guess a mention of horizontal is a reflection of how spacious baths are becoming in today's McMansions.

It's been some time, but in about Y2K I inspected a rehab house that had an under the counter gas clothes dryer that vented straight out the exterior wall. Have never seen another.

Meters are usually provided by the water service provider, even if private contractor installs. Sounds like water service is only one of a number of stumps in your road.

Great reason to shun vinyl.

Ken, If they took of five layers that frame is breathing easy. Let the roofer add the gussets just as an act of penance.

Common sense tells me that adding to the ridgeboard bottom would allow the rafters to bear opposingly as they are spozed to do. That is some very aged framing isn't it?

I prefer the Reunite and the King Kotton Night Train Peach Wine.