Chris Bernhardt

I had an odd case once where I indicated in the report that there was no A/C system. The buyer caught it and had been told that there was an A/C system, which was reaffirmed by the seller. When the buyer told me that there was indeed an A/C system, I reviewed the photos I had taken of the furnace in the garage and there were no signs of an A/C installation and no signs of plumbing exposed to view in the crawlspace and nothing I could see from my photos of the exterior. I arranged to go back out to the site and it turned out they had run the plumbing thru the plenum, which they sometimes do, and they had covered the outdoor unit with a box that I failed to recognize and parked behind a storage shed, which obliterated its view in the exterior shots, and I blew off the thermostat thinking the A/C portion was removed/abandoned. It turned out to be an old A/C system beyond its expected service life. If the report isn't the place to record what of the SOP was actually relevent to the home and what of it was actually inspected, then how does the client know what you really inspected? From Oregons admin rules: What I do is list everything in the Oregon SOP that we are supposed to inspect, then line out items that don't exist for the home (as far as I can tell) or items I couldn't inspect. Reading SOP's are so boring, that any normal persons brain goes numb & their eyes start bleeding. Of course inspection reports aren't any better. Chris, Oregon

Oregon's SOP requires us to list/record in the inspection report all of the items of the inspection in the SOP that we inspected and indicate whether or not the item is satisfactory or not. It doesn't add any more time really and it's saved my butt a few times. Chris, Oregon

Thanks Kurt for sharing that. Chris, Oregon

Well, here is my prediction for you old farts, by the way I'm 50 does that make me an old fart? My kids keep saying I'm old. 2 years from now, at least half of us will be writing their reports on the fly on their phones and tablets. Oh, and none of it will be windows based. In less than 5 years from now, desk top computers and laptops as we know them today, will have gone the way of VCR's, CD & DVD players and the Yugo. Chris, Oregon

If you offer some sort of separate IR inspection of a home, you are more likely to become a target and only if you routinely actively charge up the home to get temp differentials in the manner described in their patent. In otherwords, if you use IR non-actively in the course of a home inspection (not following any protocol except that of a visual home inspection), I can't see how you could be infringing upon their patent. Chris, Oregon

Yes, welcome Scott! Chris, Oregon

It's a crack in the earth with a river running thru it and carbon-14 dating is a bunch of malarkey. Just my opinion. Chris, Oregon

You can blame that one on the plumbing Unions. Let sleeping dogs lie, that sort of thing. Chris, Oregon

Either gravity driven water can errode rock in a reasonable amount of time or it can't. I'm on the can't side. There has to be other agents involved. Chris, Oregon

While I have seen damage like that it Darrens photo, I still see no evidence that the flow of water caused that damage. It's more likely to be a result of moss, moss removal by force, or something else. The damage pattern is not consistent with the flow of water. This topic came up a few years ago, and I started investigating further whenever I had the chance. I found it was usually not consistent on the same house. I have even inspected houses in the same neighborhood, built at the same time with the same floor plan/roof etc. and the deterioration was not consistent. My conclusion, there's not enough concentrated flow that can cause that damage on any decent asphalt shingle; it's a result of other factors. Chris, Oregon

Hi Brandon, do you have anything to back that up? I can't imagine that water alone could do anything to wear the shingles in such a short period of time such as 20 - 25 years or more. When I have seen wear in an area like that, it could always be traced to some other cause like moss, etc. Chris, Oregon

I would be sure and let the client know it exists and the cons (no equipment grounding conductor, insurability, and the fact you're not supposed to insulate over it, etc.), but I wouldn't tell them that it needs to be replaced outright if it otherwise appears to be in good condition. Usually these old wiring systems are hobbled by a bunch of DIY taps and splices. Sometimes the insulation is disintegrating or has been muched on by rodents. The problem is usually not the wire, but the insulation. Chris, Oregon

That's a good question and one I have had for a long time, but keep forgetting to ask. We have a lot of basements around here that share stairs to the exterior with a door to the kitchen into the house. I would think that it's just fine, but I don't have confirmation on that. Chris, Oregon

Marc That siding in your pictures is way too thin and the edges too sharp for hardboard siding, it really looks just like a smooth face fiber cement. They stopped making Masonite, what, a decade or two ago? Chris, Oregon

If you like San Fran, you'll be right at home in Portland. Chris, Oregon

It depends on the area. I mostly see gas these days and electric second. There's also oil and propane. I rarely see boilers or hydronic heating systems in my neck of the woods. It depends again on what you like to do and whether you have kids. Don't move out by Jim, he lives out in the boonies. Chris, Oregon

I lived in the Seattle area for a couple of years out of high school. I hated it there. People complain about Portland getting a little dreary in the rainy season, Seattle is far worse, and the traffic? I'd rather be in LA any day of the week. I lived on Long Island, NY, for a couple of years; I had a great time over there and playing in NYC. But, given the chance to move anywhere else, I would rather stay right here in Oregon, even with our high taxes and high unemployment. Chris, Oregon

Either sundown or dawn will work. I haven't experimented doing both. I wonder if one is more useful then the other depending on whether it's winter or summer. It appeared that the flat roof guys were picking some time in the middle of the night that was creating the best temp diff. I haven't gotten into looking at flat roofs. I'm imagining that theres lots of thermal capacitance that they get to rely on, so they pick the coldest time of the night or morning to check the roof. Thanks David for sharing your heat source tip. Chris, Oregon

Tip 9: Don't make the mistake of expecting to find all important anomalies just by scanning with your IR camera. Always, always, always, include a careful scan with your eyeballs and a powerful flashlight. Some of my most important finds, I missed on my initial IR scan. The reasons: Either I was too far away and the anomaly was relatively small for the resolution of my camera The camera autoranged at an inopportune moment due to heat source like a light fixture, heat register, or just about anything, which obliterated the anomaly. The anomaly has come to equalize with room temp and won't show up until you step the temp in the room Tip 10: You don't always need the big temp diff you've heard about. I suppose if I was doing whole home IR evaluations, I would make more of an effort to get them, but in performing just a regular home inspection, I make no attempt to create them. Just stepping the temp by a degree or two by turning on the heating system can create dramatic results in the winter; think thermal capacitance. Tip 11: Best time for looking at the exterior is shortly after nightfall on a windless night. Tip 12: When trying to find 2nd story plumbing leaks, always scan the ceiling first carefully noting the presence of any anomalies even scanning them with your moisture meters, then go and run water, then later rescan the ceiling for changes both IR and verify with the moisture meters. Plumbing near the surface of the drywall can induce an anomaly in the ceiling assembly and if it's near enough, you'll even pick up the capacitance of the pipe or even the water in a trap with a moisture meter. In other words after the piping cools or heats, an anomaly is induced, but because you already had scanned suspected areas with your moisture meter and the fact that the moisture meter is indicating no significant change means it's probably not a leak. In some cases, you might not initially know where the piping is. As you run water, scan the ceiling with IR and take a moisture meter reading to establish a basis upon any anomally you see developing. Later at the end of your test, you can then rescan the anomalies for any significant changes from the initial basis that the moisture meter indicated. Tip 13: Other uses - After I have been running water in plumbing fixtures for a little while, I'll check visually for leaks, but as many of you know leaks might not show up right away, so at the end of the inspection I might go back and scan around the toilets and in sink cabinets with the IR camera quickly. I have on some occasions found leaks that had escaped detection of my eyeballs. Chris, Oregon

Anomalies are relative. There's no particular range and span to find stuff that I know in normal HI work. Like I said, I run around with the IR camera set on autorange and then only take it off autorange when I find an anomaly that I want to analyze further. Grayscale can sometimes give you better contrast, but I prefer to use the iron palette on my IR camera. In other words, I normally run around with it on the iron palette, then I might switch through several other palettes when I'm studying an anomaly. I can set alarms on my camera, which I have found marginally useful sometimes when I'm looking for potential condensation points in the winter. The thing to understand is that the IR representation is highly relative; don't think of it as absolute in HI work. You are not going to be standing there trying to analyze the image. You don't have the time, at least I don't and my camera doesn't have that level of resolution anyway. Instead I scan fairly quickly around to find anything interesting. Then my process of analyzing an anomaly includes: Look at the thing without using the camera by using your eyeballs. Try and glean any possible clue that you can use in future work. Consider the assembly and materials of what you are looking at. Understand the limitations of how moisture or the defects you are looking for are typically represented. To know this stuff takes a deeper consideration as to the science of it all, perhaps this is what the non-specified warnings are based on, I don't know. Use any of the other tools at your disposal to characterize the anomaly. For example, with drywall I usually start with the Tramex (high sensitive scanning moisture meter), then if it indicates something, I switch to my GE Aquant (less sensitve scanning moisture meter), and if that indicates something, maybe switch to a protimeter (pin type meter moisture meter). I might try and charge part of the anomaly with my hand or another heat source, then stand back and use the IR camera to watch how the results decay/fade; moist/damp/wet assemblies have more thermal capacitance. One particular scary thing is that perfectly looking roofs may actually be leaking. If they are, I can usually find them during the rainy season with IR even though my eyeballs can't. But, during the summer, I can't know for sure if the that roof leaks or not. What I realized in my second year is that the envelopes of a building leak. They all leak. The concern is whether the leaking is problematic or not. Any one assembly can handle a certain moisture load, but understand this that the variables are huge. In other words, you can't go to school or take a class to teach you rules that will guarantee results. And again, maybe this highly relativeness of using IR is the basis of the non-specific warnings. I think the problem is some folks come at the HI thing thinking that all they have to do is learn a large set of absolutes, and then they can kick back and be successful. That's what I love about this biz, it's full of relativities, and that seems to drive some folks crazy. Chris, Oregon

My use of IR so far has been primarily to find plumbing and roof leaks. I don't get worked up with the insulation anomalies, as there's always some in my neck of the woods. However, the IR camera is great for finding the missing insulation in vaulted ceilings in new construction. I also haven't gotten in to looking at the electrical system with IR. I was hoping that Jim Katen has or will and can give us some pointers. Chris, Oregon

Sorry, it means to advertise. Chris, Oregon

There's lots of non-specific warnings out there with respect to using IR in a home inspection. I'll start with a few easy pitfalls, and I hope others will join in and add to it or tell stories. Tip 1: Be careful when your camera is set to autorange. I'll usually start out with it on autorange, but autorange can make an anomaly with insignificant temp differerential look like some big deal. When you find a curious anomally, take the camera off autorange, and read the indicated temps on and around the anomally. Often times, what appeared to be some big time anomally has no significant temp differential. Tip 2: Always, always, always verify the anomaly. To do that in normal HI work, you'll need more than one moisture meter. The GE Surveymaster isn't sensitive enough to detect water pooling on the back of ceiling drywall. You'll need a Tramex ME+ or someother brand that sensitive. Tip 3: When you start out, I recommend that you have a GE Surveymaster and a Tramex ME+ and if can swing one, a Tramex Wet Wall Detector. Every anomaly that you are curious about, scan it with the Tramex and the SM and then probe it with the SM in pin mode. I don't know how you can make a verification of an IR anomaly without carefully scanning it and sometimes even probing it with your moisture meters. When I find a bona fide leak, I'll make more effort to study how the camera correlates with what the moisture meters say and what my eyes say, etc. Tip 4: Conduct your own experiments. Get a piece of drywall, siding products and other building materials and even make up mock assemblies and simulate leaks and scan with your IR cam and moisture meters etc.. If doing this doesn't make you an expert, I don't know what will. Tip 5: At least for me, my IR cam is an order of magnitude more useful in the rainy season then in the summer. In the summer, I'm mostly catching leaky 2nd story plumbing fixtures. Tip 6: Be aware that your moisture meter may be pegging on the damp swollen floor around the toilet and the IR cam sees nothing. For those times when there's no heat flux, experiment with a heater to create some flux and then get a cool image of the outline of all the moisture damage. I use a hand held hair blower. I would like to know what others have found useful for inducing a flux quickly. Tip 7: Play around with the palettes. Now, I haven't found that one palette is necessarily better than another for this thing or that thing. If anyone has, please let us know. Changing palettes can sometimes be useful at indicating the difference between moisture and insulation anomalies in the ceiling assembly before you have time to go and drag in your ladder, to go up and scan it with your moisture meters. Tip 8: Use your IR camera. Don't leave it in the case. Make it a point in every inspection to do a quick scan and try and learn something. That's all I have time for, for now. I hope others will add to this. Chris, Oregon

When I started using IR, there were no handhelds. You rolled the unit around on a cart and you had to dump liquid nitrogen into the thing to make it work. That was only 15 years ago. About 5 years ago when handheld IR cams finally got down around the $12K area, I got the hots for them, but even then there were fellas warning of unspecified pitfalls,dangers and liabilty issues, which was strange to me since I was already familiar with and had used IR equipment when I was an engineer. As far as I can tell, there's been a number of bozo's making unsubtantiated calls. None of the ones that I'm aware of were due to some mistake in interpreting some fine detail difference in the image. They appeared to flat out misinterpret the gross image they were looking at. There's enough HI's out there now using them that you can get the skinny on what to look out for and what the limitations are. If your intention is to hang out a shingle to perform some sort of add on whole home IR evaluation, then even I would take the expensive classes to get the silly certification. Instead of these non-specific warnings, let's be specific about what the problems are. Chris, Oregon

I'm so sick and tired of MS word 2010. I'm in the process of rewriting my report writer in Adobes Flex 4/Actionscript 3 which will port to everything that can run flash, the web, even my droid phone and all of the android tablets starting to hit the market, which are a lot cheaper then the iPad. I think ol'apple shot themselves in the foot with their no flash crap, android(Google) is about ready to give them a wooping. I too use Carbonite. It's saved me already several times. Also I use Jpegsizer everyday when writing reports. Chris, Oregon