mridgeelk

The cold water feed is on the right side of the heater, it comes up from behind the heater. The picture will help explain it better. This plumbing is all retrofit, none of it is inside a wall. The picture also shows that the valve on the right leaks. Click to Enlarge 39.13 KB

Other than this being an uncommon way to plumb a washer, is this method of coming off the water heater to supply the washer noncompliant? I did note the reduced TPR pipe as a safety issue. Click to Enlarge 34.34 KB

The initial time I tested the GFCI it showed the incorrect reading, I tripped and reset the GFCI three times. The first two times it showed the correct reading when reset, the third time it showed the incorrect reading again. So I think it must be a partial reset as you suggest. Being that the GFCI does trip when the reverse reading is indicated, does this reading indicate an actual safety issue? The first thing to do is trip the GFCI and reset it again. As Jim said, some of those GFCIs behaved like this when you tripped them and then only lightly pressed the reset button -- you'd get this hot-ground reverse reading. I don't know why but when you reset them firmly, the "problem" went away. If the problem remained, I'd do a Billy Bob said. - Jim Katen, Oregon

Is this hot/grd reverse caused by the GFCI being the second one on the circuit or something else? Thanks, Ed Click to Enlarge 31.71 KB

Most of the piping is installed up against the subfloor with foil backed insulation below. Here is another picture of the sloppy manifold work Click to Enlarge 42.55 KB. I will recommend that a qualified heating contractor evaluate a way to straighten this mess out including insulating the exposed piping. Thanks for all the information.

This is the first time I have seen this piping. It is marked for snowmelting and for in-floor heating. I thought my pictures would be clear enough to identify the manufacturer and type, not so. Anybody familiar with it? Also this is the first time I have seen the manifold piping installed in this manner in an unconditioned area, the crawlspace. Any opinions about this installation? Thanks, Ed Click to Enlarge 49.2 KB Click to Enlarge 43.97 KB

Thanks, Bill, I assume that the carbon block filters don't fit into into the same casings as the typical 10" filter does. Ed

At our home we get our water from a roof collection/cistern system. We have a UV purifier and two filters. I just added the second filter because we were having trouble with grit keeping the valves in the toilets from closing. We had been using just a 10 micron. Is a 5 micron filter small enough to stop the problem? Is there a standard regarding this? Thanks

I just read John Dirks post from this past January and I think the boric acid idea is correct. If that brown stuff is ant waste it must mean they have sphincters shaped like a rhombus or some other polygon.

I saw no evidence of insects, ants whatever.

Today in a crawlspace of a 1973 home there was this brown granular stuff that appears to have been placed on the stem wall footer and the interior pads. Any ideas what it is? Also should this amount of scaling/spalling of the concrete along with the efflorescence be of concern? Click to Enlarge 56.48 KB Click to Enlarge 37.08 KB Click to Enlarge 37.36 KB Click to Enlarge 34.39 KB Click to Enlarge 56.21 KB

Jim, Is there a cricket in the valley to the left of the picture?

In my area a 1981 home has a Federal panel, factory radiant heat in the ceiling and anodized aluminum windows all of which need to be replaced. The walls are covered with some form of masonite siding (with the lower edges moisture damaged) placed over Thermax foam insulation without the proper airspacing and the subfoor is Redex that squeaks covering a poorly vented crawlspace. quote]Originally posted by Jim Katen Alright, dammit. What the hell is it with 1981? Every single freaking house that I've inspected that was built in 1981 is freaked up the freaking wazoo. What the blazes was the matter with builders that year? Where they all high? Drunk? Being impersonated by freaking aliens? What the heck inspired them to do all of the stupid crap that they did? As of tomorrow, when someone calls for an inspection of a house built in 1981, I swear I'm going to charge them double.

Your contractor adding that much water to a 9 cy load, which is 70% of a typical mixer drum volume, will reduce the strength well below 3000 psi on a 28 day break. The aggregate will segregate to the bottom of the forms because it will be at a 8-9" slump (if that is possible to measure). Air entrainment, time in the drum and allowable revolutions of the drum are effected by this practice also. That mix is essentially flow-fill, of not much structural integrity. I went to school for stamped/ stained concrete alogn with other decorative concrete work, and what I was taught was that water shrinks. Shrinks make cracks, not pretty in finish work. Heres a few things I learned: The more water you have the less PSI strength the concrete has. The more water added the more shrinkage. Multi size gravel/rocks means less voids(rocks are a lot harder than cement). When in need of low slump concrete, (I dont know any reasons you would need it) SuperCizer5 is a powder reagent that reacts with cement to make it wet, there are more chemicals if its to wet and you want it dryer. SuperCizer5 can be mized with dry concrete mix, with Zero water added to make it wet, you woudl never know that no water was in the mix when working it. I think the place i went to was in Oklahoma City. The stamp store. is the place. First name of the owner is Doug, im sorry Doug, i cannot recall your last name as it has been a number of years. In Texas every footing I have seen is monolithic pour with the slab itself, right after moving to Oklahoma I have seen this method in action. What the contractor told me was he orders 5,000 PSI mix and dumps 40-60 gallons water on top of the 2" slump already in truck, and says the strength is relative to 3-3.5k psi mix. The troweled the top of the footings and left no rebar sticking up, I would think if you are not leavign rebar sticking up to tie into, it would atleast benefit to leave it rough top to give it a little bit of gripping surface area atleast. Very interesting construction method though, easiest footers I ever seen to pour, no floating forms etc =P

Hey, Luther, what is this purpose of this black pipe on the left? Click to Enlarge 33.33 KB

22 calibre birdshot is safer and makes less noise. Also, using it in a pistol is better than a rifle.

Thanks, Mike, I'll pass this on to my client.

Thanks for the info, Jim. The only slope of the surface was caused by settling and what is likely an overspanned double LVL. There are several elastomeric deck coatings. Many of them are approved for use over living space. They break down into two general classes, water-based and solvent-based. The most common one in my areas is Gacodeck, but you might have run into Spanex, Procor, Polydeck, Dex-O-Tex, Slatex, or any number of other competing brands. These products are supposed to be recoated every few years. If they become damaged, they're easy to repair. There are, however, two overarching concerns with them. They absolutely, positively must have 1/4" per foot of slope to a drain. If water ponds on them, they will fail. Also, when you apply the original coating and when you apply subsequent coatings, the deck must be dry, dry, dry. If it's wet, the coating will fail.

This is a flat deck over a garage that has been covered with either the color coat that was applied to the stucco or an elastomeric paint. It appears that Tyvek or a similar product was applied to the sheathing first. I can't find any product that is rated for this use. Anybody know of any? Yes, those drains are about an inch higher than the lowest point of the deck. Click to Enlarge 38.18 KB

It is vented through 4" B-vent into a CMU chimney.

This furnace is the first one of this type I have seen. It is likely 44 years old and has had furnace cement applied to it in several locations. I recommended that it be removed or replaced due to age. I could not find any specific warnings or recalls regarding this model, does anybody know of any? Thanks. Click to Enlarge 33.57 KB Click to Enlarge 54.28 KB Click to Enlarge 38.48 KB

Was your new meter set the same day that your old meter was last read at its normal interval? If not the reading would a combined one and a math error might be involved also new meters have several zeroes in front of the metered usage and may have simply been misread. 001700 could be misread as 017000. Locally, most rural domestic water companies extend a one-time grace period, I would try to work that angle even though you are dealing with a municipality. I don't think so. With a house full of Energy Star appliances (my washing machine consumes 11 gallons per load on it's thirstiest setting) , a low flow showerhead, and newer low volume toilets, I have trouble believing I use the 107 gallons a day my average bill translates to. The new bill reflects more than 170 gallons a day beyond that. Speaking of toilets, the water dept. monkey suggested that the increased usage was likely due to the tank valve leaking down into the bowl. This infuriated me because to move that volume of water would turn the entire volume of the tank every 20 minutes on my oldest toilet. Like no one would notice that the toilet ran constantly. I dyed the tanks anyway, after 4 hours the bowl water was still clear. He did come out and take a new reading, and it is far more consistant with my 100 gallon a day norm, leading me to believe that the new meter read 15-18,000 gallons when it was installed and not the 99,990 that he insists it read (10 gallons below zero). Tom

http://www.ilevel.com/literature/TJ-4000.pdf pages 8, 12 and 13 agree with you, Bill.

Does this switch need to be on a GFCI breaker? Click to Enlarge 28.54 KB

For another home with flush board siding: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianbruce/1316973524/