1930's cottage

[Chad Fabry]

I inspected a 600sf 1930's cottage yesterday. As one might expect, the environment is target rich. I'm still writing.

It's one of those rare occasions where the fee exceeded a dollar a square foot and it still works out to like

12 bucks an hour.

#whatawaytospendsaturday

[kurt]

Just curious......

How many of the conditions you found are, not duplicates, but similar conditions as one might find on other houses? Boilerplate isn't where I'm going, but efficient report format and software interface is. There's ways around this....though sometimes we just get ****ed.

[Chad Fabry]

It's ten feet from the road and 6 feet below the road. The retaining wall that holds the road up is failing. The cottage is built into a steep hillside. It rests on concrete filled whiskey barrels. Gravity has used it's nefarious charm to seduce the structure down the hillside-on its way to a watery grave.

The house reminds me of someone who is struggling to stay on their feet after tripping while running downhill.

If the structure was anywhere else it'd be a no brainer to tear it down.

[Jim Baird]

"...sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes..."

[kurt]

I see.... OK, you're ****ed on this one.

[Jerry Simon]

Gravity has used it's nefarious charm to seduce the structure down the hillside-on its way to a watery grave.

I truly like that; wish I could/would have used it a couple years ago. Instead, I wrote an elaborate report noting all the signs and evidence of the house movement and poor soil contributing to such.

Client asked me at the next inspection: "Why didn't you just say the house was sliding down the hill?"

[Erby]

Ah simplicity. A wonderful thing. It's broke. Fix it.

[kurt]

I agree. Most "problems" with report writing are linked to inspectors making things more complicated than they need to be. Whenever I find myself struggling, I put myself in the customer's head...what do they need to hear? It's usually something very simple. Often, the most messed up places are the easiest to describe, and the repairs even simpler.

[Tom Breslawski]

I agree. Most "problems" with report writing are linked to inspectors making things more complicated than they need to be. Whenever I find myself struggling, I put myself in the customer's head...what do they need to hear? It's usually something very simple. Often, the most messed up places are the easiest to describe, and the repairs even simpler.

This is the stuff that I read TIJ for.

[John Kogel]

It's ten feet from the road and 6 feet below the road. The retaining wall that holds the road up is failing. The cottage is built into a steep hillside. It rests on concrete filled whiskey barrels. Gravity has used it's nefarious charm to seduce the structure down the hillside-on its way to a watery grave.

The house reminds me of someone who is struggling to stay on their feet after tripping while running downhill.

If the structure was anywhere else it'd be a no brainer to tear it down.

That is a pretty good report summary right there.

[kurt]

This is the stuff that I read TIJ for.

I appreciate that.