Jim Katen

The pattern looks like it could match sheathing nails. I can't explain why it happened.

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The spacing is too narrow. Assuming that those bricks are 8" wide, the distance between the rust spots is much less than 16"

As a companion to "Rust Spots on Vinyl Siding"

I sometimes see this effect. The light spots are always directly above nail heads. Sometimes, if there's a gap in the fanfold foam, there's a light stripe immediately over the gap.

The first picture is untouched. The second picture is after scrubbing with detergent and a brush, rinsing with water, and drying with a towel.

The third and fourth pics show the surface of the vinyl and what's going on just behind it.

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The positioning of the nails is too even for it to be something that was leaning against the siding, especially since the siding is not a flat surface. I once saw vinyl siding where you could seen marks on the siding from nails behind the siding. It was all over at least one side of the house. The stains were not from rust. I never did figure out the cause (or I forgot).

I'm suggesting that it's a thing that gets leaned against the siding repeatedly, at different heights and positions each time.

I see nail marks on vinyl siding every so often, but they appear as light spots. I suspect that they're the result of different temperatures where the nail heads are. I've tried but have been unable to clean or wash away the light spots.

Rust doesn't bleed through vinyl. Someone leaned a rusty thing against the siding. I'll bet that if you scrub the rust spots with some scotch brite, the stains go away.

It doesn't look like bleed at all. It's just heat from the torch. After a few good rainstorms wash away the dry powdery stuff from the surface, the difference in color will diminish.

I would appreciate any insight to why the pvc roof penetration, in the middle, appears to be capped. I was only able to perform an exterior inspection from the ground. The homeowner was not aware of any issues but indicated that they had problems with the contractor. The home owner also indicated that they had gas forced air heating units. My thoughts were that it might be for combustion air for the hot air furnace. Could this be anything other than a cap? I would doubt that it is a coupling. My other thought was maybe it is some type of check valve fitting that only allows air in, but I would be concerned that it would not work properly in the winter. This is new 2016 construction in Needham, MA.

Thanks

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I saw one just like it today, but was distracted and didn't take a picture.

When I looked at it from the ground, it looked like a cap, but from the roof, I could see that it was a small coupler. The installer had put it there to make a small recessed space, which accommodated a metal screen.

Of course, the furnace instructions said, "Don't place a screen there. . ."

To bolster my point, I offer this poem by one of my favorite poets, Walter Hard, who wrote about life in the small village of Manchester, Vermont, in the early part of the last century.

A Stair Builder

After working along for some years as a carpenter

Henry found himself unexpectedly expanded.

He had become the village's first contractor.

For the first time a house was being built

According to blueprints from an architect's plans

The dignity of the city planner might have suffered

If he'd known what most of the people called him.

They spoke of him as "that fool city architaker."

Hiram had once had some blueprint-reading experience

and he managed to get the new house going.

He was driven to despair by this employer

Who insisted on being on the job, right in the way,

An was forever changing the plans

Involving tearing down and rebuilding.

She also tried to hurry things in spite of the fact

That there were only a few men to be hired in the village

And materials had to be sent for out of town.

One hot summer day when she had been most trying

A stranger came along and offered his services.

He said he was a carpenter but his kit hadn't been shipped.

Anxious to get things done, Henry opened his own tool chest

And told the stranger to pick out what he'd need

To build some stairs to the cellar.

Assuring Henry that he was good at stairs,

The new man disappeared down below.

Henry was too busy to think of him again

Until an hour before quitting time he appeared.

Henry was surprised to find he was almost done with the stairs.

"Got one thing I want t' ask ye.

Do you wan two little bits o' steps to the top

Er do you want one old heller?"

Hello gentlemen,

I'm curious, I inspected a 4 year old house, 2 story with an unfinished basement, when I get to the basement I can see that the stairs were outsourced to a stair and spindle "factory" the landing was not supported by cripple studs. Just one or two nails through framing of the landing into wall studs. I'm thinking that the stair installer expected the framers to finish supporting the stairway and the framers figured it was the installers job. I point this out to my client and then tell him I also have suspicions about the stairway to the upstairs. Now I'm wondering if I should mention "suspicions"?

Leighton

Unless I see something to make me suspicious at the actual stairway, I don't speculate about things like that. In my area, the basement stairs are rarely built to the same standards as the 2nd-floor stairs. It seems like there's an unwritten rule that says it's ok to skimp on stairs to an unfinished basement.

I appreciate everyone's response- I just see the shower spray nozzle being shot up at the exhaust fan and then there is a major problem. The shower head is not fixed- it has a flex hose so the shower head can be removed- other items in the house seems to be non professionally installed- Like HVAC foil tape over a gas furnace flue pipe connection,

No argument here. I generally advocate learning as much as you can about the rules and instructions and then stirring them up in your brain and making a recommendation that makes sense to you.

That is, if TREC will allow you to do that.

I don't google clients, but many of them seem to google me and golly don'tcha know it does, indeed, build rapport.

On the other hand, it can sometimes be a little bit too much information. I once arrived at an inspection where the realtor lady was waiting for me. After I introduced myself, she held her hands up over her ears. When I looked at her questioningly, she explained that she didn't intend to contradict anything that I said and would I please not grab her by the ears, smack her forehead onto the table, and leave her in a pile on the floor until the inspection was over. It seems that this was a technique that I had endorsed on this very forum a few days prior. . .

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to open a discussion about ethics... yes right and wrong. Sometimes the line is blurred (most times in a real estate transaction it is...) I am generally always on the side of my client. Yesterday I did an inspection for a divorcing father. I am known to be thorough and he was a very detail oriented client. (ie: anal) I spoke with him today and he tells me he managed to renegotiate 40K off a home that, in my mind, was in pretty good shape for it's age. It was owned by an elderly couple going into a home. I am not a seasoned vet but not wet behind the ears either and I am just reflecting on some of the finer details that I openly talk about during my inspection. I'd hate for a problem that I think is minor for me become an issue down the road because I neglected to include it in a report, so for me, everything goes in the report. This time, it cost an elderly couple 40K.

I don't see an ethical question here. At least not for the home inspector. We can't be modulating our commentary based on second guesses about how negotiations between two other people will turn out. It's about all I can do to control my own actions; I can't be worried about attempting to control the actions of others.

I don't see a problem with it as long as you're able to maintain a line-of-sight with the disconnect while positioned to remove the cover on the j-box serving the screen apparatus. You have to be able to see that the switch is off as you remove the j-box cover.

Marc

Isn't he saying that there's no switch?

Why not just install a lockout device on the breaker?

Hello, I'm new to this forum but looking for a little help- I inspected a remodeled 1920's house in Texas- in the bathroom with the tub/shower insert there was a ceiling mounted bath exhaust and light combo- it doesn't look like it should be over the tub/shower- the electric motor for the fan is subject to spray from the shower head- the ceiling height above the tub once your standing inside the tub is below the 8' recommendation- I looked over the 2012 IRC 4003.11 but the ceiling height does not fit. any suggestion on writing this up would be helpful. Thanks Trent

4003.11 doesn't apply since this isn't a cord-connected luminaire, a chain-, cable-, or cord-suspended luminaire, a lighting track, a pendant, or a ceiling-suspended paddle fan.

Most of those ceiling fan/light kits allow installation above a shower or tub but when they're installed in that location, they require GFCI protection. To know for sure, you'd need to find the installation instructions.

I think that O'Handley once said that he had narrowed it down to 1990. Before that, it could contain asbestos. After that, not so much. I've lost the reference.

It's one of those things that's interesting to me, but I see no need to put it in a report.

Methinks Florida Power and Light understands resid AC far less than the average AC tech.

Very little water remains on the coil at any point in time. It drains away long before it becomes a substantial amount of water.

Marc

I did a short little test on my ac system today just to measure moisture output from the system fan running versus not running. The results were very interesting. Do you want 55% moisture air pumped into your for over an hour?

More info. What kind of tool did you use and what, exactly, did you do? What were the moisture levels when the AC was running? What were they when it stopped running? Could you plot both the temperatures and the RH on a chart?

I find it difficult to believe that you'd get moisture evaporating off of a coil for a solid hour.

When I pulled a register damper from the main floor I could see a cross section of the laminated planks. I should have took a picture because it was clearly three pieces of 1x6 pine laminated together with tounge in groove cut in to lock it all together.

Sounds like a creative carpenter. If you stack and glue them you could just offset the center one to make both tongue and groove, no?

Yes, but be careful not to glue the tongue & groove joints or you'll have an expansion/contraction nightmare.

What brand opener?

I know that Liftmaster has tweaked their safety features lately.

Looks like it. What makes you think that the 2x6s are laminated?

Traditional construction around here is girders every 3 or 4 feet with 2x6 tongue & groove "car decking" between them. No joists.

That usually forms the subfloor though. Very few people use it as a finished floor - although it's like that in my house.

. . .

From the Florida Power and Light website:

Another reason to keep it on ?auto?

Setting your A/C fan to auto also helps provide better dehumidification. Have you noticed how moisture from the air condenses on the outside of a cold drink on a humid day? Your A/C unit captures moisture the same way, helping your home feel more comfortable. When the fan cycles off using the auto mode, moisture has a chance to drip from the cold cooling coils into the condensation pan and then drain outside. However, when the fan runs all the time in the ?on? setting, less moisture has a chance to drip and drain outside. Instead, some gets blown back into the air again.

FL power & light wins the award for the most stupid paragraph I've read all week, and it's been a week full of stupid paragraphs.

I will agree that it is a simpleton paragraph but the facts are correct. We likely all know the owner of an HVAC company. Just ask him or her. The answer will be do not run the ac fan in the on mode during the cooling months.

It's incorrect for all of the reasons that Marc & Jim L already explained. HVAC techs are as susceptible to myth and folklore as anyone else.

How much water clings to the coil at the end of a cycle? Two ounces? Three? Even if all of the clinging water were to evaporate back into the house (where it came from in the first place), that added volume of water pales in comparison to the pint or more of water that's removed in a cycle.

Even if there were no purge cycle and you stopped the blower as soon as the cooling cycle stopped, that water would still sit there, clinging to the coil and waiting for the next cycle to start, whereupon it would evaporate into the air anyway, until it got cold enough to start condensing again.

. . .

From the Florida Power and Light website:

Another reason to keep it on ?auto?

Setting your A/C fan to auto also helps provide better dehumidification. Have you noticed how moisture from the air condenses on the outside of a cold drink on a humid day? Your A/C unit captures moisture the same way, helping your home feel more comfortable. When the fan cycles off using the auto mode, moisture has a chance to drip from the cold cooling coils into the condensation pan and then drain outside. However, when the fan runs all the time in the ?on? setting, less moisture has a chance to drip and drain outside. Instead, some gets blown back into the air again.

FL power & light wins the award for the most stupid paragraph I've read all week, and it's been a week full of stupid paragraphs.

Have you tried zone control dampers? Three separate zones AND continuous blower operation. Blower sucks air from return in one or more locations and pushes it ONLY to the floor in need, maybe even two stage thermostats at each level, stage one is blower only, stage two brings on a/c but only goes where it is needed. . .

Be sure to always use a bypass with those dampers.

They'd make things better, but not a lot better. Even if you're only delivering AC to the upper floor, that cold air is still going to want to fall down to the lowest floor.

On the radical side, have you considered a radiant cooling system?

Here's an interesting case on the matter of copyright and fair use, for those who are interested:

http://www.creativity-law.com/wp-conten ... asier_.pdf

. . . As for Copyright violation, you cannot win that one. From what I understand, the only way you are entitled to compensation is if you had registered the report with the Copyright office.

My lawyer assures me that's not at all true. Registering is *not* necessary. The issue here is that the report is being introduced as evidence in a trial. That's (generally) considered fair use - the court doesn't need to obtain permission to copy the report.

The pictures all show rot, not ant or termite damage.

That said, I'd be surprised if carpenter ants *weren't* in the house somewhere. You don't need to find the nest. Most treatments these days rely on the ants, themselves, spreading the poison back to the nest.

Call a pest control contractor and write him a check. Easy peasy.

Back in the day, I was a home inspector in the great state of Oregon.

A client walked from an inspection I did due to a list of defects. (4-5 years ago). After my clients walked, someone else came in, hired their own inspector, and purchased this house.

Not his client, not his inspection. How is he a witness to anything?

He's a witness to the condition of the home at the time in question.