Dale McNutt

I have seen this type of wear consistently here in Southern California on southern exposures. We have a temperate climate with no snow or ice. In more modest neighborhoods it is quite common to see the south side of a gable newly roofed while the north side is left alone.

Mike Holmes had an episode where a woman and her friend were on a small deck and it came down, a long way. They were badly injured. I don't remember if he took a shot at any inspector for "missing" the lack of proper flashing, but that usually is the culprit. Ledgers without flashing are a major issue that is just not consistently reported among inspectors. I can't find the photo, but years ago I took a photo of a carpenter working on a next-door house. He was installing a wood patio cover ledger over stucco. He snapped a top and bottom line to mark the ledger location and then proceeded to go hunting for wood behind the stucco with his framing hammer. As long as he didn't hurt the stucco outside the line, no one would ever see the demo. Needless to say he found his wood, but what about water that runs between the wood ledger and stucco?

This thread reminds me of a recurring defect down here in Southern California. I'll call it 50/50 dilemma. Let's say you are inspecting a 3700 sq. ft. "McMansion from say like 2000 to 2007. Most of these have two separate HVAC systems. Most of the time, the smaller system, (let's say 3 tons) is for the upstairs. The larger system, (usually 4 tons) is downstairs. When it comes time to install the condenser-compressor units, they drop off a 3 ton and 4 ton and proceed to install. There are two pads, two pair of copper lines and two shut off boxes ready to be hooked up. eeny, meeny, miney, moe.......The result on a number of occasions has been a criss-cross. One unit is going to end up with a smaller coil than condenser. That is why I check the systems separately. The shut-off boxes seldom have fuses lately, so the max circuit breaker size needs to be checked. If you have criss-crossed units, there can be a mis-match there as well at the main panel.

When I saw the roof from my truck, I muttered, "Cemwood"! Not so. Fortunately, I found a pile of the shingles on the side of the house. The only branding is on the back of the shingle. "FF with a combination of plus and minus. "Made in Canada" is clear. These shingles are clearly hardboard. A number of shingles on the roof were cracked. (like cemwood) Color variation from north to south exposures is not consistent. Any guesses? Click to Enlarge 113.44 KB Click to Enlarge 112.19 KB Click to Enlarge 124.87 KB

Your call is of course correct. However, the only type of person likely to call you on it, if you by chance missed it, would be an expert witness doing everything he could to try to frame you as "negligent and incompetent".

Since you say condo, I am leaning toward airborne spray either from landscape or pest control. (HOA contractors)

After building many homes in the Sierra Nevada foothills, (all with crawlspaces) some 25-odd years ago, I would simply offer up, "don't sweat it". We encountered numerous pine and oak roots. The concern was never raised by anyone.

"By the way, I can sympathize with you guys across the rest of the country. The high temperature in Portland today was 68 degrees and I almost perspired a few times." The last time I was in Oregon was August of 2004. It was 105 in Eugene.

Just curious. When I do my next vacant house in the desert and the interior of the building is well over 100, what trick would be the best for checking the operation of the gas furnace? I don't think a thermostat will set above 90. Possibly the the "canned air" sold to clean keyboards and computers? Maybe a good long blast of canned air would lower the thermostat to get furnace ignition for verification? Some of these vacant homes are so hot that the walls, floors and ceilings will radiate heat for many hours.

Concrete tile is very popular in the southwest. Here in Southern California, just about every home built from 1990 to present has a concrete tile roof. During the latest building boom, every cut-up, fancy, cupola, dog house, etc. (like the ones in the pictures) roof was done with tile. In short, some of these cut-and-fit nightmares would leak in the in the first few years, most would not. And therein lies the problem. It is not craftsmanship, it is playing the percentages. Here in CA, the roof can be a visual nightmare, but if it does not leak, there are no damages. "No harm, no foul". That does not dismiss us from making prudent observations. (I walk on the tile if it is not too steep) In reality, it is very tedious for a client to bring in a "qualified roofing expert, capable of repairs". If they can find a good tile roofer that really knows the "craft", it is very expensive.

I forget which BB the story came from, but my most memorable story of squirrels goes something like this......... The leather sofa and lazy boy were chewed up. There was general destruction and mayhem in a house that was unoccupied for a long period of time. The investigation concluded that it was squirrels. How did they get in? They looked and looked and found no definitive clues. Eventually, they concluded that it had to be the chimney. In what sounds like desperation, they laid the blame at the feet of the home inspector. The reasoning? If the inspector would have recommended a proper spark arrestor assembly, the little buggers would have never made it in. After reading this thread, it sounds like they are capable of chewing their way in at a number of possible locations.

After inspecting many larger apartment complexes, I found something noteworthy with FPE. A 90+ unit complex featuring "stab-lok" sub panels had a high incidence of breaker replacement. Since I like to take photos of each accessible panel in each unit, it was not difficult to notice. The replacement FPE breakers had white numbers. (vs original orange) Just to double-check, the white-numbered breakers were "shinier" and newer looking than the orange. The point is, most apartment sub panels are hardly even looked at, let alone messed with. At some complexes, 30-40 year old panels (such as square D) looked pristine and identical. This is hardly a controlled, technical study, but it left a big impression on me. FPE stood out from the norm.

An A/C system vs higher humidity translates into lots of wasted money. The A/C system is constantly trying to displace humidity in order to cool the living area. Some folks here in the southwest don't understand this when they run swamp coolers along with A/C devices.

The Pacific Northwest is beautiful to be sure, but there is a reason it is so green. Because of that reason, I have performed many inspections in the Palm Springs area for folks living in Seattle and Vancouver. (Alaska Airlines still has non-stops from Palm Springs to Seattle) The most recent buyer from North Vancouver told me he had not seen direct sunlight in 2 months. On the other hand, the last time I visited the Northwest, the temperature was in the mid-90's.

By any measure, the damage in the two photos is EASILY greater than 2 grand. If there was no permit, that eliminates much of the documentation of the original damage. If there was a permit, there would need to be a responsible party (owner builder) or licensed contractor. It is the licensed contractor's responsibility (by law) to construct properly. (not the jurisdiction's job to tell him how to do it) I think this is important to note because it is very possible that the client could decide to sell in a few years. If the next buyer's inspection does not see things the way you see it, it may come back to bite. I don't think it is a good idea for for a home inspector to vouch for the performance of roof framing that features a charred member(s) sandwiched between newer rafters. (not the way I would do it) Also, there is no encapsulation paint anywhere. I don't know if it is a territorial thing, but in So. Calif., almost all of the fire damage jobs I have seen have been painted to help contain the carbon and carbon smell.

It doesn't really matter if it's fire damage or water damage. If someone doesn't make it "like it never even happened", the next buyer down the line is going to ask, "what happened? Since most folks don't want to get that meticulous in the attic, documentation better be at the ready. Snohomish County says you need a building permit if the repair damage is in excess of $2000. I think it's important to remind the client to do the paper chase to see if there was some kind of documentation to provide closure on the condition. (either the building official or the contractor verifying whats left is acceptable)

It's right there. (weep) Remember when patching....."paper to paper and lath to lath". The curse of paper-backed lath is/was leaking. This is why during the last building boom, most SoCal tract builders went back to the old 1 1/2-#17 stucco wire and furring nails. Too many cracks and too many leaks in the past. Click to Enlarge 248.11 KB

Mike, I am sure you are correct about the grounds for a lawsuit. At age 27 with a wife that was tired of the snow and two small kids, a lawsuit was the furthest thing from my mind. Besides, I had 3 jobs "shelled in" for the winter and clients that were constantly pressuring me to get done. Hell, I made mistakes back then in building that I realize now as an inspector. I would not never trade what I do now for what I did then, but the experience was invaluable.

Here is a photo update to this 2+ year old topic. In fire-dangerous So Cal, Cemwood, Cal Shake, Masonite, etc. were hawked by salesmen cashing in on the wood shake/shingle roof scare. If you stand on a roof in some of the more exclusive, hillside homes, you can see that many neighbors installed the same product. Cemwood was a big seller. It is junk. Click to Enlarge 90.8 KB Click to Enlarge 116.48 KB BTW, the California wood shake hysteria was especially frustrating for me. In 1979 I built a home in a heavily forested area in CA. The HOA where my lot was located strictly enforced the CC&R's. The CC&R's only permitted medium or heavy cedar shakes. I wanted to go with comp. I tried to reason with them but their big retort was, "if we all did it, then you should too". After closely reading the CC&R's, there was also a clause in there that said you could not sell your property to a "colored person". Another lesson in life. Read the stuff you agree to. Six years after I built it, they changed the roof requirements. I moved just before that.

Fortunately, there was enough inventory in this area that they found another home almost exactly like it and I inspected it as well. I'm sure there are many homeowners that get intimidated by "steaming piles" and very few actually hire a lawyer. Since these folks were just in the escrow phase, it wasn't worth it to buy it knowing what was wrong and then wrestle with the builder. BTW, in California, nearly every inspector is sued for "negligence and incompetence". That is as specific as it needs to be to generate a lawsuit and go to deposition. Once you get to deposition, it's a total shakedown of any entry in the report. The window of liability is 4 years. We also have third party liability. For four years, you are responsible for findings that a third party may discover, even though you never met with the people. Also, if your client sues the seller, the seller can turn around and sue you, even though the seller is not your client and has not signed an agreement with you. Slight thread drift, but that's CA.

"It's always bothered me that these inspectors don't reconcile their position with the fact that the cable guy, Cat V cable installer, telephone guy, plumber, electrician, satelite installer, alarm system guy, HVAC tech and any number of other tradesman, who are paid far less than they are and are not considered to be "experts," are easily able to move through those areas without causing damage or endangering themselves. It's quite the contradication." True story from the trenches: I am up walking on a flat, concrete tile roof. (one story building) There is a huge dip or wave in the appearance of the roof. I am immediately thinking about what to look for in the attic. In the attic, I see one roof truss (36' span at the bottom cord) that is disconnected at a number of it's gang-nail plate locations. (web components) I had to pull away about 12" of loose-fill in some locations to see some of the plates. Naturally, I reported what I found and made the appropriate recommendation. The client asked me "how much will this cost"? No way to offer a guess. Since this was a bank-owned property, it was viewed by the lender as an "as is" condition. I mentioned to the client that in California, we have a 10 year liability window for many structural components on newer homes. (this one was 5 years old) They called the builder's representative at Beazer Homes and reported the defective truss. The representative at Beazer told my client that by walking on the roof and walking on the bottom cords of the trusses in the attic that the builders liability was voided from the inspector's actions. (me) It's crazy. This state (CA) has become a say anything, do anything legal jungle. Deflect, deflect. Deny, deny. Hasn't changed my behavior, but I can see why many inspectors do not walk on roofs and do not go in attics. They don't want to make waves.

Do you happen to know if it's intended to be used in lieu of sheathing over the entire structure or just at the gable-end triangle? - Jim Katen, Oregon I am used to seeing the newer homes wrapped with kraft paper and rolls of "stucco-mesh" and the triangular gable sections done with the sheets of "K-Lath". (paper-backed lath) However, here in SoCal, homes that were constructed in the seventies and eighties are known to have been wrapped entirely with 8' sheets of paper-backed lath. This was often a problem if the lather did not install the paper-backed lath carefully. Many a leak and "cold joint" are attributed to not tucking the paper in properly and making sure the mesh overlapped on top of each other. (paper to paper and lath to lath) It ain't rocket science, but you would be amazed at how much this got screwed up on buildings.

The photos are of a product commonly referred to as "Stucco-Rite" or "K-Lath". It is very common to find 28" x 96" sheets of this product on gable ends. As long as the sheets were fastened properly, the cement plaster stucco will "key" into the wire. Click to Enlarge 450.79 KB

I have a Fluke Ti-30 (Raytek) I bought it from the distributor in Portland in 2004. (no sales tax) [:-slaphap I have used the camera mainly for my commercial clients. It's a lot tougher to get what you are worth with residential use. The same basic arguments against IR were used 10 years ago with digital photography. There will always be those who are anti-camera. I think it has something to do with the phrase, "vague is good". Good pictures be they regular or IR are very compelling in an inspection report. It really cuts down on the use of the word "appears".