Nolan Kienitz

You will find them at the Toyota store.

Check IRC: 3102.1 and the UPC: 906.1 That is the baseline and it goes from there. States that the vents must be through the roof and a minimum of 6" above the roof. I should have added Bill's comment ..., but he beat me to it. I'm not believing it, but then again doesn't surprise me. I was raised on a farm in NE Montana not terribly far from Minot, ND.

I'd be writing it up for B-type flue pipe.

No distribution panel means less cost to plumber/builder and ergo ... more $$ in their pocket. If only they would make dang sure they install all the fittings, connections properly and NOT use the products from the big box stores.

Check out the EZ Therm products. I know a couple of HIs in the DFW market who have them. Much higher resolution than some of the more highly advertised products. EZ Therm I've also noted some postings on the IR boards where there are some IR cameras coming up for sale as HIs (or someone) is getting out of the business or comments being made that the "IR market just didn't develop in my area." Some of the IR forum postings also caution about HIs using for general home inspections ... mostly I think due to lack of understanding of the product and the ability to adequately read the image. It is an educational process to say the least and I'm soaking up all I can before I put this tool in my budget plan.

Contact me via e-mail and I can give you some roofing companies that you can review/interview for your roofing work. I'm in the Dallas area. Nolan@NolansInspections.com 972-922-2111 - Direct

You can also check with State Farm. They do write coverage in Texas. And as noted above $100K is not what you should consider as most companies don't write that coverage ... save for many offering "now" in Texas for the TREC HIs ... they have devised a special $100K plan. By the time you pay the premium for that you are only a little ways away from pay for $1M coverage.

Dan, Thanks so much for your input and research. I've used your documentation for years to help educate my clients. I also appreciate the ability to link to your website for information from mine.

Dan, I have to agree with Erby.

Here is a chart I was provided some time back and have been using as a guide to help "tweak" my website. SEO - Search Engine Optimization. Since I've made many/most of the changes my website has gone from page 5 or 6 up to page 1 on Google. Yahoo SE is also moving up and I've not tested MSN recently. This is all organic and not pay per click. Most of my inspections are coming via my website over the past 1-1/2 years and continuing. Image Insert: 66.2 KB To get a printable copy of the file use the link below. It's also been uploaded to the file library under "Building Your Home Inspection Business - Targeting Your Sales. Download Attachment: SEOBasics.pdf 34.37 KB

What a shot!! Back when I was a smidgen over 30 ('bout 28 years ago) I fulfilled a Walter Mitty dream to jump out of an airplane (on purpose). Did it twice and that was enough. I was an 'exec' with The Associated Press at the time and my VP found out about it and said: "no more". I didn't argue. Main reason I didn't continue jumping was watching another fellow's main chute fail and (thank goodness) his reserve opened and he was safe. Watching that was just a bit traumatic. One of my assistants told/asked me that only two things fall out of the sky: 1) Bird$hit and 2) A$$holes. Which one are you? I just grinned and bought him another beer. It's a great thing to reminisce about, but too 'mature' to try it again.

Humm ... another niche http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bus ... 07852.html

Depending upon the attic structure and access installing radiant barrier under the roof decking (between the rafters) is very easy/simple. I did my attic (~2000 s.f. home) in a single-story home about a year ago. I used Polar Ply ( http://www.polar-ply.com/ ) and spent only about $300 for the product. BTW - I see you are in Katy and you can get the product from the regional Polar-Ply offices/warehouse in Spring near Beltway 8 and Hwy 290.

Define "outside" if the exhaust pipe is dumped in the soffit area that is NOT "outside" of the building envelope. Soffits are air "intake" for attic circulation. I get to argue that with here in TX all the time with builders as well as local building officials. I've seen situations where there is plenty of mold/mildew on the bottom of the roof decking due to the moist air that is 'supposedly' being sent out of the building envelope is actually being driven back into the attic due to the precise purpose of the soffit vents as air "intakes".

Excuse me WJ but we say bassackwards down here in Ga. Just a little trivia.[}] Walter is just probably keeping it "alphabetically" in sequence.

I posted the TX TREC draft 7A-0 form as well. NEK

Draft forms are available for download (Word docs) here and here. Due to be presented to the full TREC committee in February. NEK

Likely way too much clothing. [:-angel]

Mike, You're in his neck of the woods ... let him build a new house and we will all recommend you get the inspection call. [] Now that would be quite a gig!! [:-slaphap When I was living in Colorado (Denver) years ago I was working on a project with AT&T Labs and we were having special Colorado stone cut for a very special floor on the executive level of an office building that a (very proud of himself) VP wanted. I went tooth/toe-nail with the architect more times than I can count. I finally won when the jackhammers cut through the post-tension cables in the pre-stressed concrete beams that made up each floor. They were trying to "thin out" the top coating of the beams to allow the "special stone" to be set without changing elevation as you got off the elevators to enter the VP's area. When that 'event' hit ... I called the architect and the VP and told them both to get their "as$'s" up to the quarry and hand-pick the tiles to not exceed "my prescribed" depth to keep the darn beams from crashing in. Anyway .. it was an adventure and that architect and I never again worked with one another ... THANK GOODNESS! All that being said ... the quarry in Colorado we were working with was also working on some special stone for Bill's new house (under construction at the time) and they had shipped several stone pieces for various locations that just didn't work or plans changed and they didn't notify the quarry or ... and on it went. The quarry guy was having a helluva time with the project from his portion ... I could only imagine trying to PM the whole thing. [:-bigeyes

Scott, I did some dancing around the site this morning and it is crisp and clean and the forum is quite nice. A big change from the former.

... and then there are or will be the questions about verifying if the property has "meth" residue or was a "meth factory" in the past. There has been some conversation locally with inspectors at meetings here about that issue as well. After the local EDR presentation some months back we asked the rep about "meth" and (if I recall correctly) that information is not currently available for these reports. I shared a sample report with some clients and was just asking for feedback and they said they did not know what they would do with such a report or even why they would want it ... more importantly my sample survey clients said they would not pay for such additional information.

Aaww ... come on Chad. Just one more time [:-slaphap

All the time. I think the electricians down here (Texas) do all they can to minimize the number of cutouts they have to remove in the panels. []

If you used MS Frontpage / Expression Web (I'm sure many other web development products) you can build and test all without having the live application published. Reach out to Michael Brown (DevWave) for support as well. He posted above some good data. He can't work for free, but he is good and helpful.

When I was inspecting in the Houston market I experienced a local community college CE class on electrical. Was taught by TREC licensed HI who also was a licensed electrical person. He made a very strong point to "never" remove the deadfront cover for a HI. Questions flew left/right, but he held his ground, but he never gave a good reason why. He kept saying to refer all electrical to a licensed electrician. We figured he was on that side of the fence more so than an HI and he could make more $$ there. Just additional anecdotal information. []