Jim Katen

Ditra or backer board. Either one. If he's already got plywood over solid decking then he probably doesn't need or want the extra thickness of the backer board. Ditra will be slightly thinner.

The one thing I wouldn't do is put the tile directly over the plywood. If the plywood gets seriously wet (from a leaking dishwasher, for instance), the tiles will pop loose. Red Gard might offer some protection against the plywood getting wet, but it's kind of a bassackwards way of dealing with the issue. You've been lucky with your floors. Whenever I find tile applied directly over plywood, I *always* find a loose tile somewhere.

I know outlooker only as the horizontal member fastened to the seize (spelling) on one end and the rafter tail on the other. It provides the nailbase needed for the soffit panels.

I don't what's meant by vertical outlooker.

Marc

In this case, outlookers are the boards that support the barge rafters. The outlookers generally start at the first real truss, extend out past the gable-end truss, and project out to support the barge rafter. Where I live, these are generally 2x4s laid flat. I believe that when Nathanial is talking about vertical outlookers, he means that the 2x4s are placed upright instead of flat - to make them stiffer.

The humidifier was a leaker. The brown might be from the paint warming up. I was looking for a ref. saying don't paint single walled vents but didn't find it.

What about clearance to combustibles? Looks to me like the paint is charring.

Looks to me like there are some stains bleeding through the paint that indicates past water leaking and associated corrosion. I always get suspicious of items that have been recently painted, especially stuff that is not typically painted.

I though those were just burning paint.

Does having some soot around the top of a wall heater vent mean that there is definitely a CO problem?

Depends on what you mean by problem. If a gas (it is gas, right?) wall heater is producing soot, then it's got some serious problems. If all of the CO that it produces is going outside, I'm not sure that the CO is really the problem. More of a symptom.

Structural outlookers for this type of a roof are still somewhat of a question. If they are horizontal it makes sense to notch the gable rafter but what if they are vertical?

Either don't use vertical outlookers or drop the gable rafter.

It's basically a temporary power supply.

That house must have lost one leg of its service, so it was only getting 120-volts. This thing connects to the service and temporarily restores 120/240v service. Somewhere on there, it should show a limitation as to how much power it can provide. You usually can't run everything in the house from one of these things.

I believe that to reinfest the wood has to have a very high moisture content. Maybe heat from a heat gun or hair dryer would be enough to kill them in the wood that is in place?

Depends on the beetles. Some will reinfest the same wood that they emerged from, others only reinfest living trees, still others require sunlight. Low moisture content might not prevent reinfestation, but it can really slow down the beetles when they're in the larval stage. Some have the ability to enter diapause and effectively suspend their metabolism for years.

Heat from a heat gun or hair dryer would probably damage the wood before it killed the beetles deep inside. Some years ago, people were experimenting with small handheld microwave emitters for this purpose. The emitters were in the form of plates - like irons - that would be held against the wood. I never heard what happened with that technology, but I suspect that it wouldn't sell very well. People freak out about stuff like that.

Beetles don't emerge at the larval stage, but stay in the wood where they're safe and protected. They also don't emerge from existing holes, but pupate just below the surface and emerge from a new hole as adults, ready to go on dates.

If you've got little worms in or near the holes in the wood, they're probably something else. Have you had a lot of moths in the house lately?

Originally posted by Jim Baird

If I was a dog owner, he'd be trained to sniff mould and he/she would make me rich.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville ... id=1188097

I'm pretty sure the glowing green stuff is kryptonite.

Hah! Don't both with the dropped chord. We'll just notch it. . .

Every truss document I've ever seen always forbids notching the truss even though I would agree that a typical gable end truss is non-structural and notching of the top chord should be a non-issue.

A few of the contractors I work with will usually order the dropped top chord gable end trusses but when its missed they will usually notch the gable end trusses. They say they've never been called out by the inspector on this.

From a strictly technical point of view, a gable-end truss isn't a truss at all. It's just some prefab wall framing.

It looks so authentic, especially at the corners.

Well, that's old world craftsmanship for you.

I'm pretty sure it's Sta-Wet Brand Stone.

Hah. I was going to call it Tetris Stone.

Does anyone happen to know the manufacturer of this stone veneer product?

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Hah! Don't bother with the dropped chord. We'll just notch it. . .

I haven't chimed in because I really don't know the answer.

In 1947, the receptacles would not have been grounded, so I doubt that anything about this system was designed or intended to provide equipment grounding.

When the three-slot receptacles were installed, there would have been rules about what was and was not considered a proper equipment grounding conductor. Whether or not the rules at the time allowed the steel framing to function that way is an interesting question, but it would require some time to look up. And even then, it really wouldn't be meaningful to anyone but a code historian.

The real question is whether or not the steel provides an adequate fault path and the answer is, "no one knows." I think that I'd advise the buyers to have new cables installed at those locations where they want to have nice, reliable grounding. Otherwise, the grounding is a crapshoot.

I suppose that someone could pay to test the resistance of the ground path at each receptacle, but it seems like overkill.

what is the term , in referring to the metal top cap on a chimney "cap", that describes the practice of putting a slight raised crimp(s) or bent up crease into the top metal to make it slightly higher such that it will drain (rather than it being flat??

Thanks

It's called a cross break or a cross crease. It's not really done to cause the cap to drain as much as it is to stiffen the metal.

Whether or not those are garages is kind of beside the point.

In our climate, I'd probably be more concerned with the existing condition of the panels, which is likely to be a clue to how they'll perform in the future. I'd also pay attention to the compass bearing. In my region, those panels would get soaked regularly if the opening faced south or west. On the other hand, they'd never get wet if the opening faced north.

What is the size of the breaker? Seems like a large gauge to be held down properly by that pressure plate type terminal.

Most of those lugs are listed for #14 through #8.

The question was, is this solid conductor aluminum ok for the installation it was used for. I never see the stuff its always stranded if aluminum. Thanks for the answers!

Sure. Solid aluminum #8 is fine these days for any lug or connection that's appropriate for aluminum.

The one place where you should be careful is at electric water heaters. Every one that I've seen has copper pigtails in the wiring box and you shouldn't run aluminum wires into that box. There's usually a warning printed right there on the water heater. So if this cable - or even stranded aluminum cable - runs to a water heater, it should stop in a wiring box and transition to copper before going into the water heater. The transition to copper should, of course, be done with connectors listed for aluminum and copper in combination. Split bolts are usually the most common type.

Hello, I came across this aluminum wiring labeled Alcan AA-8000 AL type SE style R today in a home with a panel that was updated to 200 amp in 1998. From what i found online 8, 10, and 12 gauage wire with the AA-8000 designation is allowed, but i couldn't clarify as to why. Is this indeed allowed and if so can you clarify as to why? Thanks in advance!. . .

The AA8000 series of alloys have proven to be pretty good performers. I find the #8 SE solid-conductor cable used quite often in my area and I can't recall every seeing a problem associated with it.

While #10 and #12 might be allowed in theory, I can't recall having ever seen or heard of any in the wild since the 1970s.

What, exactly, is the question?

Look at the last paragraph i.e. 1970 and later, a letter followed...

It's back to 'First four digits of serial...'. at least since 1998.

Marc

I see.

Actually, that section is missing several other iterations of Carrier serial number from older units, though they're probably getting pretty rare these days.

That's cord, not cable. It's supposed to be used for a few very specific purposes - mostly when you need to have flexibility or when you need to feed a machine that vibrates a lot. It's not supposed to be secured to the building and it's not supposed to be used as a substitute for fixed wiring. If you have access to the NEC, you can read all about what is and isn't allowed in 400.7 and 400.8.

The installation in your picture is absolutely and without question wrong.

I've been seeing Carrier labels with info saying that the first 4 digits of the serial number represent the week and year of manufacturer. I've seen this going back as far as 1998.

Who keeps the Chart updated?

Marc

Isn't that what the chart says in the first paragraph under Carrier?