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Jim Baird

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Everything posted by Jim Baird

  1. Jim Baird
    I've never seen it either. Mechanism might be water trying to get back to the ocean, as it all does, mortar being saturated from above by force of gravity, but not in amounts enough to carry lime along enough to make a proper drip and stain onto surface, like I have seen from uncapped parapets. Inside it is dry. This sand so obviously fell from these joints there needs to be a physical reason why.
  2. Jim Baird
    My thinking is that this column absorbed a lot of water in the course of a very wet year, (69 inches in an area that averages 45, 12 of which inches fell in December), and the migration down and out pushed this sand from those joints. Nobody living here was around to vacuum it up.
  3. Jim Baird
    Here is a fun problem. Where did these sand deposits come from both on the front and the side of a massive chimney column of a 70's brick ranch? The column rises from the ground up through it all, has a rectangular and a square clay flue, one for a gas furnace vent, another for a fireplace that was fitted later with gaslogs. Column up top lacks a cricket, as modern codes would require, but I could see no roof leaking around the column perimeter despite the really sloppy flashing. House has been unoccupied for an unknown time, no disclosure available. My thinking is that the sheer mass of this column's faces has resulted, in a wetter than average year, in moisture migration towards the ground, that pushed this sand out of the mortar joints.
  4. Jim Baird
    Lots of laughs and thanks for sharing. I take every chance to unload on franchise types in any business, from burgers to bakeries to any kind of service. A couple of times I have had gigs cancelled by franchise offerings, rendered by realtors, of "coupons" off my price.
  5. Jim Baird
    When my wife asked for a bottle rack on the wall for new wine club shipments, she got the charred southern yellow pine 1/4 inch paneling courtesy yours truly. Hanging ten on the curl of the future's wave.
  6. Jim Baird
    ...if it is concrete slab I would just flash under what is likely an aluminum threshold. Doubt you will find ground contact treated 1x6 anyway.
  7. Jim Baird
    I think you can get beaded material in 3/8 plywood too. Not so heavy as fiberboard.
  8. Jim Baird
    I'm sure you can find romaine insurance if you look around.
  9. Jim Baird
    Don't have the link but section details are posted on the Brick Institute of America site.
  10. Jim Baird
    "...We have good ceiling height (around 7ft)..." Seven feet is not compliant with minimum height for "habitable space". Do not waste time or money with the effort. Real estate types often encourage buyers by hinting that they can "finish" the basement and increase SF/value. I have seen some spectacular botch jobs in this direction that actually devalue the property. I was told by an inspector even older than me that there are two kinds of basements, those that do leak and those that will leak.
  11. Jim Baird
    So I guess this is a great leap forward? The code agencies are struggling a bit, as they make their money like any publishing house, selling their copyrighted content. NFPA publishes the full range of codes, but they dominate in electric, life safety, and fire. ICC used to run a great forum, but they shut it down several years ago, broke it into pieces, and the traffic dropped to near zero.
  12. Jim Baird
    ...when I mention potential cost of remedies, it is expressed only as far as number of figures, as in, three, four or five.
  13. Jim Baird
    Like Marc said be sure you know what you are looking for before you head down to the big box. Most of all don't ask the guy at the big box what to do or buy.
  14. Jim Baird
    ...if all you are doing is making up for that notch you are doing fine. That kind of scabbing can also be done with plywood and screws. Looks like you had plenty of room to swing a hammer down there. I have seen lots of floor joists way overnotched at their very ends that have lasted fifty years without failing.
  15. Jim Baird
    ...such a historian. You should be lecturing at local design schools. (In today's parlance I should have said an historian, but I have always thought the use of an before historic is affectation. It's like bone doctors calling their practice "orthopaedics" , I guess to claim some connection to ancient Greek whatever.
  16. Jim Baird
  17. Jim Baird
    Exactly my reason for pics is to see what I might not have noticed live. Often I am talking to client as I move and click, so there is a lot to be missed at the moment, but still if I manage 100 I have made a good record.
  18. Jim Baird
    "...I occasionally visit your place, but not as regularly as I should..." Funny, I used to visit Jeff's site fairly often but since my last laptop swap I can't seem to get back onto it via pswd/login probs etc. Also likely bcse I never would put any dinero in their offering dish since I am not an AHJ and most of their membership is. You are right, Marc, about those ladder rungs.
  19. Jim Baird
    ...a new kind of celebrity. Maybe Andy Warhol was right after all. Re toilet tank shrapnel I know a potter who stumbled coming out of a shower and fell across his toilet, knocking the tank off with his falling mass. Toilets are technically made of porcelain china, and when broken against a tile floor can become a field of shards, Those shards nearly severed this man's forearm. He survived, but just barely.
  20. Jim Baird
    Years ago I inspected a little house that used gas space heaters, those notorious moisture generators, on which a contractor had laid a metal panel roof. In so doing he eliminated every bit of attic ventilation there was. The entire attic frame and deck was blackened by something related to moisture accumulation.
  21. Jim Baird
    ...looks to me like they were building a bench right by that fence, and they were going to lay them out that way anyway, maybe even dry stacked, so that when the video was over they were almost done for the day.
  22. Jim Baird
    ...adventures of the overpaid.
  23. Jim Baird
    Here Bubba Roofer decided he didn't need no flange.
  24. Jim Baird
    I have some Marvin casements on my master suite addition. I have to ride herd on the inside wood and recoat it with spar varnish every few years.
  25. Jim Baird
    I'm the sure that installer would say that more must be better. If the roof panels outlive the boots, boot replacement might be a challenge the way that self tappers turn the hole edges up and down.
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