Jim Katen

I have a 3yr old home. When I built it contractor told me code wouldn't allow him to insulate the attic it unless I was covering it with drywall or no paper. Now that I'm in it I want to insulate it,my question is it a fire hazard if I leave the paper on like from the heat in the summer? Because I don't want to drywall it .

Are we talking about insulating the floor of the attic, the exterior walls of the attic, or the ceiling (underside of the roof)?

Yeah. Ma La. *La* is hot like red pepper hot. Ma is the numbing electric tingle. Ma La is that hot pot tingle thing. There's a lot of hua jiao...at least 4-5 types, or so it seems.

Maybe sand ginger. I just made friends with Peng Jie, whose husband is from Chongqing and is claimed to be an expert hot pot chef. Ms. Jie, miracle of miracles, teaches English at a small university in the mountains, and speaks perfect English. . I may have found the Rosetta Stone.

That sounds promising. I thank you in advance for any and all information you can gather from these folks.

. . . There's this other stuff I can't figure out; it looks like deer antler, but it's got this strange gingery taste with a little galangal root thrown in.

Perhaps sand ginger (sha jiang)?

. . . 3-4 kinds of red hot peppers, and the Sichuan flower pods...hua jiao...the red one's and the red with little green flowery sheath ones. Not the black or green ones.

I have red & green ones (The green ones, have, I'm convinced, an electrical charge. When I chew on them, it feels like I'm touching several 9-volt batteries to my tongue.) but I've never even heard of red ones with green sheaths.

. . . I was hanging out in Portland OR back in the early 80's to 90's (I was in the first wave of windsurfers discovering the Gorge) when they first adopted their completely radical urban planning model. The oldster biz modelers, mineral extraction types, and libertarian's were all screaming it was a complete and total disaster and commerce and industry would grind to a complete halt. Not. If anyone's been to Portland recently, they'll see what intelligent community planning and execution gets you. It gets you a pretty nice city. . . .

I agree. But to expand a bit, intelligent community planning and execution didn't just happen. The *only* thing that made this possible was establishing a "regional" elected government to conceive and execute that planning. As far as I know, there's not another government organization like it in the US. This government, known as "Metro" is immensely powerful and serves 25 cities in and around Portland. It consists of only 7 members and has control over land-use planning, maintains the "urban growth boundary," determines where and how growth will take place (including a required 20-year growth plan), oversees the regional transportation systems, manages parks, operates hazardous waste stations, oversees landfills, and actively acquires land to serve as natural buffer zones and future parks and public lands. (And since its inception in the late 1970s, it's come to own a *lot* of land.)

Without Metro, there's just no way that 25 cities could ever have agreed on a plan, let alone cooperated to execute it. In short, the Portland metropolitan area's urban planning success is largely due to the public's willingness to submit to a "people's republic of Portland" where land use and planning issues are controlled by 7 people.

Two different outlets light up my cheap tester, but won't power a corded light fixture? Plug the light into a nearby outlet and it powers up. How does that happen?

Cheap testers have their uses, but they occasionally lie. When you get this kind of contradictory response, pull out a basic tester, like a Wiggy, to see what's really going on.

I suspect that you were getting some kind of phantom voltage lighting up your cheap tester.

This post links to a blog about planning and urban design. Despite its title it does not violate TIJ taboos re religion, etc.

Let's call it anthropology, but it rings very true to what I o bserve every time I go into the urban megalopilis nearest me, Atlanta.

https://granolashotgun.com/2016/10/13/o ... -religion/

The topic is, indeed, interesting. But that blog is worthless blather. He reasons like a 9-year old.

Thanks Jim.

Aren't there usually a flood coat on top of the paper? I don't usually see those seams on the few that I look at. More often tar, gravel, and moss.

I think that they figured the Snow Coat would take the place of a flood coat. On better jobs, they'd use 4 plys instead of the 3 that you've got and on really nice jobs they'd include a granule-coated cap sheet or a layer of rock ballast.

My neighbor who had his fixed said the contractor said it was installed with regular nails instead of wood screws.

That, in itself, is not a problem. I suspect that there were, in fact, too few nails and that they were poorly placed.

Looks like a regular built-up roof with Snowcoat or something similar on it. Crappy install.

Shouldn't the builder be held accountable for this?

After 11 years, that's a philosophical question with no real point. You're not going to get blood from that particular turnip.

Focus on fixing the problem, not assigning blame. Otherwise, you're just going to tarnish your chi.

If they've "collapsed," then they certainly were built wrong.

In order for these walls to work properly, you have to have proper coverage on both sides. Just fixing the drywall on *your* side won't have much value.

I'd get the board to hire a contractor to fix all of them. It should end up being cheaper for everyone and the work will be better if it's uniform.

Tried, can't get YouTube here...my VPN is down.

It's a 23-year old Frank Z on the Steve Allen show. He's so awkward and self-conscious - so very different than his future self.

On another tack, there is a brand new Chongqing Hot Pot in the 'hood, I'm gonna crack the code on the spice.

I appreciate your sacrifice.

All hot pots are good, but the Chongqing stuff is just wild.

This made me think of Darren Miller:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MewcnFl_6Y

Seen it yet?

Just curious...

I've seen problems with single wall pipe, but has anyone ever seen problems with double wall (B vent) piping closer than 1" to combustibles? Honestly, in 17 years I can't recall that I ever have.

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Adjacent to a vehicle drive are would require bollards in my area.

Would that be the case even if the conduit hugged the wall until it reached the ground?

In our area everything on the supply side of that meter box is the utility's turf, and all installation approvals are up to them.

It's the same here, but why should that make a difference to a home inspector? The potential problems in the original post are real and there'll never be a better time to fix them.

How come no sleeved conduit to accommodate movement/settlement?

I don't know, but I suppose it's because settlement is rarely a problem for the conduit. They do require a sleeve around the conduit where it passes through a concrete slab or pavement - but no one ever installs it.

Interestingly, I find such settlement problems in bunches. I'll go years without seeing it and then find 3 or 4 houses in a row with cracked or distorted conduits or conduit fittings.

In my area, the electrical utility publishes an "Electrical Service Requirements" document. Most utilities do the same.

Mine includes several very handy illustrations.

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First letter, "Z" is 2001.

I've never seen it happen.

As I understand it, one of the resid sprinkler designs available integrates sprinkler water with fresh water supply and keeps the sprinkler heads near the path to plumbing devices to minimize the chance of stagnant water. If the Watt's return path is near a sprinkler head, it could affect it. The concept is there but I wonder if it's practical for that to happen.

Marc

But the hot water is in its own pipes and in a dedicated return pipe. How would the hot water get into the cold water pipes?

I would advise against a watts system if your house is new enough to have a potable water sprinkler system. Domestic water temps can be very close to sprinkler head activation temps.

How would the potable hot water get near the sprinkler heads?

I'm just wondering conventional tank or on demand heater.

Will an on-demand unit work without power?

Probably not, but will any of the newer tanks? I thought they had all transitioned from a pilot light to a piezo igniter??

Nope. Old fashioned pilot light.

I'm just wondering conventional tank or on demand heater.

Will an on-demand unit work without power?

Personally, I'd add a conventional LP water heater along with an LP cook stove. That way, when the power goes out, you can take a shower and cook. Generators are a pain in the butt and they never seem to work when you need them.