Jim Katen

What the heck happened? It looks like something struck the stem wall. Did a piece of machinery back into it or something? The rough pile of concrete turds around the footing suggests that the entire front section was somehow loosened and someone tried to "glue" it back in place with a wheelbarrow full of concrete. I'd ask the super what happened. If he says that he doesn't know, he's either lying or incompetent. As for the future, as long as the base under the broken section is well compacted, this shouldn't cause future problems. You might have the builder patch the crack with mortar just so that any future movement will be revealed.

You've got a great old furnace there and, despite what you think, it's probably as efficient today as it was when it was new - 80% combustion efficiency and 65% at the registers. Change the filter regularly, but don't mess with it otherwise. If you want to improve efficiency of the system, encapsulate the asbestos duct tape and install much better duct insulation. The code only requires R-8, but you can easily double that. If you were to replace this furnace with a modern 96% efficient one, your monthly heating costs would go down, but I doubt that the overall savings would ever make up for the cost of the furnace.

If it's not producing any heat, then it's unlikely to have one heating element that's out. Either all of them are out or the sequencer or a relay are bad. These machines are very simple. Any heating contractor can fix it. What state & city are you in?

We used to call them snow dogs in New England, too. It doesn't look steep enough to be an issue, but I'd probably devise some kind of extra-high snow dog to mount on the roof just in front of the panels.

2609.1 ?

I often see moisture problems under laminate. If drywall has 80%-100% moisture content, you can put your finger through it. Is this an exterior wall? If so, I'd map out where the high moisture readings are and then look outside to see where the rain is getting in. Water won't rise up from the ground to cause this. Anyone with a good sense of smell. I've done "smell" work before. I have about a 50% success rate. Water doesn't do that. Capillary action can pull it up a short distance, but the moisture levels will always be greater at the bottom. If there are high moisture readings high on the wall, the water is coming from above. (Unless something else is fooling your meters.) You don't need to cut a large hole in a wall to confirm or exclude a moisture problem. A 1/4" hole will do the trick and can be easily patched.

We can't solve your problem remotely, but here are a few things to try: Close all the interior doors in the house for at least 24 hours. Then go outside for at least an hour or two to "zero-out" your nose. Return to the house and carefully sniff the air in each room to see if you can narrow down the source of the smell. Go up to each bathroom sink and get your nose as close as you can to the overflow channel opening, then take a good sniff. If you get a strong smell from there, let us know. Pull up the corners of the carpets to look for mold and smell the underside of the carpets carefully. Don't run that ozone machine while people are in the house.

I can't find a definition either, which is surprising. My understanding is that it's a trap that has horizontal inlet and outlet openings at roughly the same level, and that doesn't serve any particular fixture. When I used to live back east, I saw them frequently in the form of "whole house" or "sewer" traps. I've never seen that application on the west coast. The "standard design" requirement prohibits people from making up their own traps from spare parts. It works hand-in-hand with the requirements that the trap be listed or labeled and that it be stamped or marked with the manufacturer's name. The IRC simply prohibits building traps (perhaps that's where the "running traps aren't allowed" thing came from), while UPC (1008) says that building traps are prohibited unless required by the AHJ, then it goes on to give specific requirements for installing them. In practice, the only times when I see problems with running traps is at bathtubs or showers, when someone places the traps several feet away from the drain outlets.

I doubt that there were problems with cold rooms. The radiators, if anything, look to be oversized for the rooms. And the ducts are centrally located in the house, nowhere near the outside rooms. There were no remnants of outdoor air ducts. If there were, they'd have been obvious. The pipes look much too small to have been used with a gravity system, but I see so few, it's hard to say. Weren't gravity hot water systems out of date by 1920?

This is 1920 very large 3-story house with a single boiler in the basement and baseboard radiators in each room. The radiant portion of this system looks perfectly typical. The building has no air conditioning. In addition to the radiators, the boiler also sends hot water to an old fan coil unit in the basement, with ducts leading some of the 1st floor rooms and some of the 3rd floor rooms. This is not a normal configuration in my area. I had thought that perhaps the designer was trying to defeat stratification of hot air, but that seems unlikely. Is this common in other areas? Any idea why this would be done?

Can't you make any software do that?

You listened to your instinct. That's good.

There's nothing in the NEC that prohibits and overhead feeder to a garage. Can't speak for Chicago. Why not just drop by the building department and ask them? (I understand it's customary to bring some folding money with you . . . )

Dangerous Stairways Both stairways have an assortment of problems that make them more dangerous than they need to be: Bullet point problem Bullet point problem Bullet point problem Bullet point problem Bullet point problem You might find it prohibitively expensive to fix every unsafe aspect of these stairways, but you could probably afford to fix some things, which would be better than fixing nothing. Proper handrails, guardrails, lighting and door-swing adjustments, for instance, would be relatively inexpensive. 1. Consult with a contractor to make as many improvements as you can afford at the stairways. Here’s a great reference document . As for the remaining issues, either accept the risk associated with them or find a way to pay to have them fixed.

That's just one pattern. They make several. Anyone who wants to know what it looks like can just go to their website.

Whenever possible, I try to buy products that are made in the US. I've been very happy with my Surefire flashlight since 2015. I don't know what their policy is on replacing switches because the switch has never had a problem.

Could be asphalt from the felt?

Are all the ducts made from ductboard or just the return-air duct? It's very common to use it in return-air ducts - particularly in Florida. Less common in supply ducts. Unless the ducts are damaged, I wouldn't replace them. The fiberglass lining tends to catch a lot of dirt, but not release so much. That's why it looks so gross. If you don't believe me, install some little filters behind the supply registers (and maintain your return-air filter). You'll find that the little supply filters don't catch anywhere near the amount of dirt that you imagine is there.

Have you tried deleting the connection on your phone, cutting power to the WLAN adapter, and then re-initializing the whole thing? I don't use an iphone, but my android phone regularly gets fouled up connections with "smart" devices that require me to wipe and re-load them.

And I thought I was being sharp. . . I don't see any problem with reaching out to realtors and establishing relationships with them. But you need to do it on your terms, not theirs. If you roll over before you even meet them, you're just setting yourself up to be what Walter Jowers used to call "the realtor's little helper."

The entire site looks insincere, beginning with the deliriously happy Shutterstock couple on the landing page. Why do your refer to yourself as "we" when you really mean "me"? Are "electronic reports" really something to boast about in 2021? What the heck else are you going to produce, an illuminated manuscript written by monks? When you say 20+ years of experience, do you mean 20+ years as an inspector or are you telling a lie? Why do you switch back & forth between spelling mold with & without a "u"? Nice dog whistle to the realtors about your "positive outlook." Do you tell your clients that one of your goals is to not kill the deal, or do you only tell the realtors about that? Where's your sample report? Why should I hire you if I can't see an example of your work? Oh, right, because you say that you're the best.

Question 1: If you can find a technician who wants to keep the system going, there's nothing you've described that would prevent that from happening. Someone just has to work toward that goal instead of the goal of selling you a new system. Question 2: Personally, I think it would be worth it. Question 3: Robben & Sons does good work on these systems. They're in Clackamas, though, so I don't know if they'll go to Corvallis. You're a bit outside my area, so I'm not familiar with the contractors down there. Question Final: Depends on your tolerance for risk.

With a little luck, yes. But this one wasn't and won't.

If the downspout's rain drain were connected to the pipe in the crawlspace, you'd see extensive signs of water just below the end of that pipe. I think someone was trying to drain water out from below the garage slab.

So I couldn't bathe on Tuesday because a bunch of dames were using it then? Brings me back to my question. Why so symmetrical?