Jim Katen

3 hours ago, Marc said:

That too.  What I meant is that the 'I' is missing at the beginning of the sentence, otherwise you're not recommending something, you're telling the client to recommend something.

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It's a pox built into the very DNA of most inspectors. Or, perhaps, some natural law compels home inspectors to abandon whatever they once knew about composing basic sentences. 

23 hours ago, Marc said:

The measure of the surge suppressor is the number of joules of energy that it can safely pass to the earth without becoming destroyed.  The product Jim K linked uses 3 varistors rated 360 joules each.  A higher joule rating means more protection but costs more.

It would take one hell of a joule rating for me to let go of 10 bucks every month, probably more than I would ever need.

Me too. I'd have to look at the value of the items that could be destroyed by a really big surge and weigh it against the cost of the suppressor. I installed a Siemens one in my service panel in 1992 and we've never had a surge that's taken it out yet. I'm glad that I only paid about $40 for it at the time. If I'd been on Jim Baird's POCO program, I would have paid over $3,000 by now. 

I agree with most of what everyone else has said. 

My overall impression is that it takes way too much space to convey way too little information, and the information that it does convey is confusing. The report has no regard for the reader, who has to comb through giant haystacks to pick out the needles. This is a good example of a report that's more concerned with covering the inspector's butt than the client's butt. If I had paid for this report, I'd ask for my money back. It's simply not readable. 

I doubt that I could give effective advice to this person without meeting him or her first, so maybe what I'm about to say is out of line: In general, confused reports are written by confused minds - that is, people who are not accustomed to organizing their thoughts and presenting information in a way that makes sense. So without meeting him or her first, my best advice is to start by learning how to organize and present information in a clear manner. Everything else will flow from that. 

In the meantime, dicking around with minor improvements to this reporting system will be a waste of time. 

As you've written it, the subject of the paragraph is mold. I'd rewrite it to be about moisture : 

Humid air from the house has been leaking into the attic and allowing mold to grow on the underside of the roof. Hire an energy retrofit contractor to thoroughly seal the attic floor, ensure that all exhaust fans discharge 100% to the outdoors, and provide proper attic ventilation. If the presence of mold bothers you, hire a contractor to remove it - but be aware that it'll just come back again if you don't fix the moisture issue first. 

I'd deal with insulation and humidifiers in separate notes. 

https://www.amazon.com/Siemens-QSA2020SPD-Protection-Circuit-Breakers/dp/B0052MG5K0/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1508980874&sr=1-1&keywords=QSA2020SPD

Yes. Exactly. This case is the poster child for the subject of your blog. 

6 hours ago, Jim Baird said:

I looked up Herner and noted there that the realtor was the "customer in fact" of the inspector, so that the realtor paid him.

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Absolutely not. That's the whole point of the suit. The Herner's paid the inspector. The judge found that *despite that,* the inspector provided a report that made the realtor the "customer in fact"

HernerVHousemaster.htm

On 10/21/2017 at 6:05 PM, Marc said:

All good points indeed.  I do write with too much haste most times and this topic needs more planning than most because it's breaking new ground.

I've just got to point out that you are most emphatically *not* breaking new ground. This topic has been hashed to death for the last 30 years. 

As for benign, I'd use the word that the judge used in ruling against Housemaster in the Herner vs Housemaster case: Pabulm. 

It's exactly what you describe. Even with the thermostat, I usually tell people to put a timer on them so that they only circulate during those hours when people want their hot water to appear instantly. 

Anyone else find an unusual number of knives at the bottom of these air shafts? 

I haven't fired up my gas detector for nearly a decade now. 

Hey, Denny. Have fun and enjoy the important stuff. 

It means that the regulatory body keeps account of you: can keep track of you, fine you, or take away your license. 

Whether it does so with wisdom is an entirely different discussion. The point of licensing is to keep track of the licensee, not to ensure the licensee's competence. It's exactly the same with a driver's license. 

Licensing (of drivers, home inspectors, hairdressers, etc) doesn't ensure competence, it provides a means of accountability. 

And now that I think about it, it's probably older. The plate has a check box for manufactured gas. In my area, manufactured gas was gone by the mid 50s. 

I'd say it's from 1963 or earlier based on the abbreviation of Illinois. Pre-63 was Ill, Post-63 was IL. 

Don't try to decode the serial number. They tended to just be sequential in those days, without any specific encoding of dates. 

On 8/31/2017 at 6:10 AM, Jerry Simon said:

After 20+ years, I decided to revise my inspection agreements.  I consulted an attorney (the one who markets to ASHI and the like, claiming to provide bullet-proof agreements), and my current two-page agreement would be changed to a three-page agreement if I take all of the attorney's advice.

I've attached copies of my current agreement and the proposed revised agreement.  Any thoughts?  I'm asking because, while certainly filled with more protection for me (*legalize*), the revised one seems like it's over-the-top and over-whelming.  Again, any thoughts would be appreciated.

Current Agreement.pdf

Revised Agreement.pdf

My opinion is that an attorney's advice is utterly worthless unless it's the attorney who'll be representing you in the event of a suit. If that's the case, then use the agreement that he's written because he's written it to go along with his defense plan. If this attorney won't be representing you, then chuck his advice. 

That can be easily fixed with one good earthquake. 

1 hour ago, mjr6550 said:

I have seen similar failures that occurred when a suitable gap was not left below the windows. As the framing shrinks the window sill presses down on the brick veneer. This sometimes causes the sills to crush and other times displaces the brick. 

I've seen that as well. In severe cases, it results in a depression that allows water to funnel into the wall. 

Yeah. On this one, the floor supported 2" of concrete, in which was embedded copper tubing for radiant heating. It was a nice house. 

I guess they don't believe in handrails in Cornwall. . . 

In the structures that I've seen, the wall framing doesn't support it at all. The loads all run through very large beams and posts. On this house, the walls are just infill. 

In a few of the NLT construction articles that I've read since Bill's post, I see that some buildings use laminated timber walls to support the laminated timber decks. Also, most interestingly, crews are set to begin constructing a laminated timber high rise in Portland this year. I'll definitely be checking it out as it goes up: 

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2017/06/timber_high-rise_planned_in_pe.html

Thanks. That's it. And, yes, it's certainly robust. 

I see it on most of the small bridges in my area and it's pretty commonly used as decking for elevated garage floors on steep-slope sites, but this was the first time I'd seen it used on a house - for both the floor and the roof. It was, well, robust. 

Is there a name for the floor framing system in which you have large girders every so often and span between them with 2x6 boards, oriented vertically, and nailed next to one another like a ginormous horizontal glulam? 

Very common. 

Heck, Rheem/Ruud made the entire draft inducer assembly out of plastic throughout the '90s. . . oops. Bad example. . .