wow.. why is this sucker backdrafting..?

[Rob Amaral]

I turned heat on.. to find smoke in the basement... Oy

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One of those 'for cryin' out loud.. ' moments in home inspection..

[David Meiland]

You could shove that into place, grab a coathanger from upstairs for some wire to hold it there.

[kurt]

Yeah, it'd be an easy fix. Here's why I don't do stuff like that anymore....

There's a bedrock principle in English Common Law that says, in effect, "you touch it, it's yours". The actual language is something along the lines of "but for your intervention or action, the chain of events that led to said problem might not have happened".

Doesn't matter if you're the most well intended guy on the planet; if there's some future problem related to the boiler flue and draft, the lineup of who's responsible begins with the last person to touch it, and certainly the person that "repaired" it.

I learned this after having repaired an item I found during an inspection. My customer is a sitting Federal judge at the appellate level; he informed me I ought not to do such things because of....the previously described legal principle.

[Rob Amaral]

I didn't touch it ... you kidding.. I 'shut it down' and did all the due-diligence stuff..

This was a great house though... you guys would have been impressed.. .shingle colonial, unique, 2 family, leaded glass, unique floor plan, two garages.. .. we were hacking our asses off due to the insidious fuel oil exhaust.. Man.. it is brutal..

[David Meiland]

... you kidding..

Yes indeed. Me kidding.

[John Kogel]

Rob, I bet next time you do an old empty house like that, you'll do a little tour of the basement first. []

[Jim Katen]

Yeah, it'd be an easy fix. Here's why I don't do stuff like that anymore....

There's a bedrock principle in English Common Law that says, in effect, "you touch it, it's yours". The actual language is something along the lines of "but for your intervention or action, the chain of events that led to said problem might not have happened".

Doesn't matter if you're the most well intended guy on the planet; if there's some future problem related to the boiler flue and draft, the lineup of who's responsible begins with the last person to touch it, and certainly the person that "repaired" it.

I learned this after having repaired an item I found during an inspection. My customer is a sitting Federal judge at the appellate level; he informed me I ought not to do such things because of....the previously described legal principle.

That principle means that we're pretty much screwed as soon as we set foot in the door. . .

[kurt]

That is correct, but it's balanced out against how many folks are crazy enough to do something about it.

When you get into doing HI's at some volume that will support a lifestyle, and one maintains that volume for 20 or more years, one runs into a few crazy people.

There's the poor guy with the dog thing in Boston, I had the thing with the screwed up breaker/meter socket, I know a few folks that have had similar issues with stupid crap that wasn't "their fault" by any reasonable standard but as the process played out, the crap was laid at their feet.

Since reasonable standards are rarely a component of the legal process, it can get silly.

Thankfully, most folks aren't nuts. Only a few.

[Rob Amaral]

Actually, I was already in the basement when this was turned-on upstairs by the realtor... it was a huge basement and it was at the far-end and we were working the front-r corner and didn't notice it until after a few minutes of operation.. .. ..the other thing was the vent connector.. it had a softball-sized hole in it and was barely connected to the brick chimney..

[kurt]

Cool. Having the realtor be the perp on any device activation fiasco is the sweetest.

My DR light explosion/house fire experience showed how having them turn stuff on is a layer of security.

[palmettoinspect]

I've had a few things happen over the years. A few jetted tubs with incomplete drains come to mind.

I always tell the homeowner "that's what I am here to find out" when they begin to get upset and play the blame game.

While it's a good idea to do a walk through prior to running systems, it's not something I do regularly unless the home has been winterized or in really poor shape.