David Meiland

I saw a couple of guys frame a partition wall down the middle of a house. One guy had his end of the plate on one side of the chalk line, the other guy was on the other side. They had it nailed down and were nailing studs when I walked by. Maybe that's what happened here. It's really hard to frame something that badly out of square. You're making all these square cuts and none of them fit and you're going WTF? It takes something special to persist once you notice a few bad cuts.

Was removing carpet in a slab-on-grade bedroom addition and found the wood debris in the attached photo in a couple of spots. Looks to me like someone's been tunneling the PT bottom plate. Found a couple of possible culprits as well. Can anyone ID?

This stuff is in the attic of a 100-year-old house. It's batt-like with large fibers that are a medium-brown color. At first I thought it was sawdust, but it's formed into batts. Click to Enlarge 39 KB

Leaking AC unit? What is it leaking? Is it possible it's defrosting in heating mode and that's what you're seeing?

What was the foam sprayed against? Concrete wall?

Are you being asked for a fixed price? A single visit to capture a point in time, or multiple visits to establish a baseline and then followup to look at trends? As a starting point, I imagine somewhere in the range of $100-200 per hour plus travel and expenses. Are they going to provide a licensed electrician to open equipment? Might need to look at how that works before committing to a price. There used to be good discussion at the Snell Group forum called "IR Talk" but it appears they don't maintain it anymore.

I was wondering about that. There were no laundry machines installed (they are being replaced), but the connection for the dryer vent looked poor, and I suspect a fair amount of the exhaust air ends up in the room.

Saw this today in a 2004 house. The copper has aged to an odd color, especially the flex connectors. Washer and dryer are in this room, which is in a walkout basement. Any explanation for this? Click to Enlarge 82.23 KB

Looks to me like 100-amp wire protected by a 400-amp breaker. Is there possibly an exception allowed because it's only traveling a foot or so?

I haven't seen it but was told its a comp roof. Apparently part of the house is round, and the installers cut the shingles in thirds to crib them around the curve. The problems start but to do not end there.

Sorry for the title... not enough characters allowed. Got a dousy of a call from a homeowner, a large, badly failed, expensive, brand-new roof. Need someone who can come here, inspect, report, assist attorney with damage claim. Any names? Thank you in advance.

How tall is the wall in question?

The issue is that the air gap above the insulation communicates with the rim joist around the entire perimeter of the floor. When it's cold outside, a lot of heat is lost at the perimeter. I can't remember the DOE's exact numbers, but insulation with an air gap above it suffers significant performance degradation.

It would take a serious project to redirect all of that water, and it would probably need periodic maintenance. Can you discharge all of that water downhill of the house at the property line? If you can get a screaming deal on the place, and there are many other wonderful things about it, then it might be a good move. Question is, how many guys do you have on speed-dial that own excavators, skid steers, loaders, and dump trucks? This is not a project you would do yourself with stuff from Ace.

I have a customer whose home has hybrid stucco cladding. Most of it is (I believe) two coats of cement stucco with a third coat of acrylic that also serves as the color, total of about an inch thick, with chicken wire. The details around windows, door, columns, etc., are built up using styrofoam and appear to have only the color coat over them. There are signs of failure, and the owner asked me for an opinion. My opinion is that a specialist in this type of cladding system needs to be the primary, and specify all of the repairs. This is in zip 98250, between Seattle and Bellingham. Anyone come to mind? Click to Enlarge 11.83 KB Click to Enlarge 115.63 KB

Agree that you would start with a visual inspection and then proceed with removing some drywall in key spots to inspect cavities, but if you find what you think you're going to find, the stucco will be coming off soon enough... will it not?

I agree, skip the assumption about no longer backdrafting. It looks like there was a huge amount of exhaust gas spillage, possibly because of a negative pressure situation in the garage, or perhaps a dead squirrel blocking the vent pipe. It could still happen sometimes, and needs to be ruled out by not you.

What damage is this humidity doing? Is there mildew or other moisture-related damage occurring in the crawl space? Are the humidity levels in the house elevated? Also, it helps a lot if you give the temperature as well as the relative humidity reading, and include the outdoor readings at the same time.

It doesn't seem like copyright is a valid concern, but rather some way of preventing a client from passing the report to anyone else. I've been in many situations where a buyer hired a HI to inspect a house, gave a copy of the report to the seller as part of the negotiations, and then the seller gave it to the next buyer, who then didn't hire a HI because the report was fairly recent (and, in our market, there aren't more than a few HIs anyway).

They can compel you via subpoena to testify as a witness of fact, meaning you will confirm that the report is yours and that it says what it says. You don't need to prepare, just walk in and answer yes/no questions. If they hand you something while you're on the stand, you look at it and answer more questions. Seems very likely that at least one side will want you to provide opinions, in which case they need to hire you as an expert, and you don't have to do that... but of course you could if they pay your price. Calling you in to testify in court instead of deposing you first is a little odd. How they got your report and how they're using it would have to be the basis for a separate legal action. Seems plain that your client gave the homeowner at the time a copy of your report, and it found its way forward to the new owner. As a contractor I have dealt with many owners and buyers who had copies of reports that were prepared for earlier folks who are no longer part of the picture. People hand them around.

People will squirt that foam on anything.

To add to the confusion, some of the newer fans do not start immediately when power is applied. They have a sensor built in that varies the fan speed to account for static pressure in the duct. The last Panasonic I installed takes roughly 15 seconds to get going, and it confuses pretty much everyone who turns it on.

Google "concrete snap ties" and take a look at some of the images. Looks like whoever did those walls did not bother to break off the ties after stripping the forms (or used a type not designed to break off). They're still sticking out, so they smeared some type of sealant around them.

Wild guess... that looks like a paint issue to me, perhaps applied too thin, without primer, to siding that was wet, possibly defective product.

Sorry for being unclear about my question. Looking for confirmation that this is NOT a heat pump for heating and cooling, and is only for cooling. If so, probably the only one in the county (except at the grocery store).