Seattle Home Inspector's Blog

     A common way that defects happen in homes is they simply get done wrong from the get-go.  Improper installations that involve, clearances, types of materials and code violations are all common. 

     Another way that defects happen is when repairs to existing, properly installed, components get done wrong----during the repairs.  This is often the case in areas that involve multiple trades.  For example Uncle Harry knows how to do plumbing----or at least good enough to make water run down hill and not leak---but does not fully understand electrical systems.

     Take for example, this outside faucet repair.  One can see where the wall inside the garage has been opened up and new copper piping has been added, replacing the old galvanized pipe and non-frost free type faucet.  While there are issues with attaching the copper to the galvanized pipe (electrolysis is possible due to the dissimilar metals), at least it was not leaking. 

     To make this repair or upgrade of the faucet however, the house grounding electrode was disconnected.  One can see the disconnected wire at the left of the pipe.  The electrical system was still grounded via the ground rods driven near the meter, but this defect results in the incoming water pipe no longer being used as part of the grounding electrode system and also results in all the metal piping in the home being un-bonded to the electrical system.   This is how we can be grounded and not grounded all at the same time.  Without being overly technical, this condition creates a second pathway to ground.  In the event of a ground fault and a person could become part of the pathway as the electricity was trying to figure out which way to go to ground.  In other words----bad electrical juju.

     Obviously the ground wire needs to be properly reconnected to the water pipe by a licensed electrical contractor.  Not a difficult fix----but certainly a life saving one.

Charles Buell

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     She sits on a red, white & blue green five gallon bucket that says, “drywall-compound.”

     Most of the fingers on her gloves are missing and frayed.

     She wears an army-green trash-bag raincoat that is big enough to cover all but her Nike sneakers.

     Her breathing makes little clouds in the icy drizzle. 

     She is almost always at this particular corner and she always waves when I go by---even though I sense that if the car was empty she would still wave.

     I do what I can to avoid eye contact---but never succeed in avoiding feeling guilty.

     Her haggard cardboard sign says that she is homeless, hungry and that she wants God to bless me.

     For sure----by comparison----“something” has truly blessed me.

     It is more likely that I have merely won the lottery----and that I am just not willing to accept that God would make such choices for our lives.

     The parent in me can’t help but think that she is, or was, someone’s Princess.  Also, I can’t help but wonder what her parents wrestle with every day as a result of what she has become or not become----but then again perhaps they themselves are on a street corner somewhere----or somewhere worse.

     Do they care?

     Can they afford to care?

     On their best days do they merely forget?

     And what does the Princess think?

     Does she care?

     Can she afford to care?

     On her best days does she merely forget?

     Thanks-giving.

     I find it impossible to comprehend my own good fortune relative to what I see in the lives of some others. 

     For the large majority of us in this great country, the current economic “crisis” pales in comparison to how fortunate we actually are.

     The choices we make----that bring each of us to where we are----are not as predictable as we almost have to believe.

    I am sure it soothes our consciences, to think that people like my Pail Princess got to where they are totally of their own making----refusing to accept that we are all closer to our own cardboard signs than we can afford to admit.  We may even be co-conspirators in their presence----if not co-dependent.

     As we gobble our turkey today (or its substitutes), I would like for us to wonder: if we plucked off all our own feathers what would we find underneath?

     Hopefully we would each find the best turkey that we can be----and there would be plenty to go around.

     Let us each dig down deep and muster all the thankfulness we can.

     Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Charles Buell

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     One of my favorite Monte Python segments was the one about the Black Knight in, “In Search of the Holy Grail.”  The story is about King Arthur coming to the Black Night that is guarding the bridge that “No man shall pass.”  King Arthur ends up cutting off all of the knight’s arms and legs but the knight is still threatening King Arthur with biting him to death. 

     I was reminded of this story the other day while inspecting a home when I saw this ceiling fan.

     Then again perhaps it was some advanced version of “She lo♥es me----she lo♥es me not.”

Charles Buell

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     It is bound to happen----that sellers and repair persons and I are not always going to see “eye-to-eye” about the things I find wrong in the homes I inspect.  How could it be otherwise, they have one agenda and I have another----it is an almost naturally adversarial relationship.  I have to say though, that I rarely hear much from either----sometimes I do through the agent on the other side----but really, quite rarely given the number of houses I inspect and the number of opportunities for me to find things wrong that they MUST not think are wrong----or why would they have done them that way?

     The other day when inspecting a newer automatic garage door opener, I noticed that the sensor beams were not where they should be.  You have probably seen these devices with the little red and green lights mounted near the floor at the bottom of the door track that are designed to extend the lives of the nation’s ever growing population of cats.  If a cat were to lie in the sun in the doorway, the door would not operate because the sensor beam would be interrupted by the warm body of the cat.  The same would hold true for a dog, a child or Billy Bob passed out at 3am in the morning.

     These things function because they have to see “eye-to-eye” in order for the door to function----unlike homeowners and inspectors.

     This homeowner or handyman came up with a way (which I see about 3 times a year) that guarantees the sensors will see eye-to-eye. 

In this case the cat is NOT going to be happy----and neither is the inspector----whom cats seem to like a lot.

Charles Buell

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     Yup---I am going to blog about breakfast cereal!

     OK----if you have kids you know what it is like to go to the kitchen cupboard and find the cereal box empty----and most of you will appreciate that I did not say “gone.”  (Don’t pretend you don’t eat the kid’s cereal when they aren’t looking either.)

     Well, the kids are grown and they are not around much to eat the cereal anymore---but that still doesn’t mean there is always plenty of cereal.

     I can still go to the cupboard and discover that there isn’t any. 

     There is a solution.

     “Toast cereal.”

     Yup.

      Just take some of your favorite whole grain bread---even raisin bread----especially raisin bread----and toast it up all nice and dark and then let it get hard in the toaster.

     When it has cooled off, just crumble it up into tiny pieces----add sweetener and/or sliced fruit----add milk----and you are all set.

     This method actually has advantages over boxed cereal.  It is cheaper.  You will never get caught adding sugar to the pre-sweetened store bought cereal again.  You are also less likely to run out.

     I don’t even buy boxed cereal anymore.

Charles Buell

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     In Seattle there are a lot of older homes with partial basements.  The rest of the house will typically have a crawl space under it.

     Ever since we started putting basements under houses people have wanted to use these basement spaces for all kinds of things.  Typically they started out as a place for the furnace and other utilities.  People quickly realized these spaces would also be a great place to put the laundry.  The next obvious thing to do with these spaces was to turn them into living spaces----rec-rooms, bedrooms, work-shops, grow-ops----you name it. 

     The various transformations of these basement spaces were more or less successful depending on several variables.  There might be height considerations, light considerations, egress considerations and moisture considerations----to name a few.  Often these changes of use would not meet current standards, and some represented serious safety issues.

     This post is not really about all of these considerations----I will save them for another time.

     The space between the basement area and the crawl space was often simply open to the basement----at least orginally.  There sometimes would be a little short wall to hold the dirt back where it stepped up to the crawl space height.  Other times it was just a gradually sloping earthen embankment as the basement area transitioned to the crawl space.

     Finishing off the basement required dealing with this slope.  Sometimes people would dig away the slope in the crawl space area and build a wall to retain the dirt.  This increased the size of the basement space while providing a means of retaining the dirt.

     Some of these walls were more satisfactory than others.

     Often, the masonry or concrete retaining walls would not be tall enough.  On top of these walls people would build a wood wall to close off the basement space from the crawl space area.  If the foundation wall does not go high enough, the un-retained dirt wall inside the crawl space, over time, collapses against the wood wall----resulting in decay/rot and places where wood destroying insects can “party-down.”

     I think you can get the idea from the next couple of pictures.

     The solution?  Proper retaining walls and clearances need to be created, and the solution would vary with the installation.

Charles Buell

 

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     Can anything really “spiral out of control?”

     It sure seems so.

     What do we mean when we say things are “spiraling out of control?”  I am sure there are times when the concept of spiraling out of control has validity----like the circumstances that led to the Titanic not having enough time to turn before it side-swiped the iceberg.  In the physical world there are all kinds of examples like this.  But if we dissect these events they are merely playing out natural forces like: "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

     I am talking more about the “non-physical” areas of our lives that seemingly spiral out of control.  Sometimes these circumstances have a physical component, but generally, “spiraling out of control” means that things are not going in the direction we want them to----or are used to----or the way we "expect."

     But isn’t it all a matter of perspective?  Sometimes it is ALL about perspective.  Examples of this can be seen in individuals that do not see that their circumstances are merely different sides of the same coin.  When people find themselves spiraling down this kind of drain, they simply have to “act” to change the spiral (assuming there is no physical component like Crystal Meth).  Take for example this spiral stairs.  Whether you look at it from above,

or from below,

it is all a matter of perspective as to which is better. 

     One shows the way to go down----the other shows the way to go up.  Neither is better than the other----and equally useful at one time or another. 

     However, other times, it is more the case that one person’s misfortune is another person’s windfall.  I think it is pretty logical to have issues with people that are able to manipulate circumstances so that they seem to have “control” over the lives of others.  We see this every day all around the world as our current economic situation makes “adjustments”----or worse.

     Ironically, the total amount of money on the planet has not changed dramatically----not counting what is being printed every day, because that money should “theoretically” increase the total amount.  The problem appears to be that it has been distributed to places where it has “solidified”----frozen like that iceberg that the Titanic hit.

     In fact the money supply can in many ways be equated to the earth’s total water supply.

     The total amount of water on the planet doesn’t change much (All 336 million cubic miles of the stuff).  Some areas have too little and other areas have too much----these are “distribution” issues----people generally can move from areas that have either too much or too little.  Historically this does happen, and civilizations have come and gone or relocated based on water supply---either from too much (New Orleans, hint, hint)----or from too little (Acoma, hint, hint).   Much of the  water on the planet stays liquid----oceans, rivers, lakes, rain etc----and circulate around the planet in an endless cycle of evaporation, rain, puddles, evaporation, rain, puddles, evaporation etc.  Some of this precipitation comes down as snow, which builds up and forms ice---which sits there---sometimes for tens and hundreds of thousands of years.  When this happens distribution has been GREATLY s l o w e d   d o w n.  During the ice age tremendous amounts of water becomes trapped.  This water may still be slowly evaporating and melting---but not at a pace necessary for adequate distribution to where it is needed.

     Isn’t this a bit like what is going on now with money?    Isn’t the glacier actually getting larger?  Isn't the next Ice Age coming?  Is even the little bit of the iceberg that is melting and evaporating still not going where it is needed?  Instead it is being sponged up and taken away by the few people lucky enough to have ice melting equipment.

Charles Buell

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     When we bought our house----long before I was a Seattle Home Inspector----and started making it livable, I was heavily influenced by a couple of fun movies playing at the time:  Jumanji and Jurassic Park. 

     The house had wall-to-wall shag, puce-green carpeting----if one could really call it carpeting.  There probably was a microscopic Jurassic Park of critters living in the thing.  The carpet was more reminiscent of one of those cat clawing poles that people have in their homes. 

     In the dining room, there was a 2’ x 6’ runner on top of the carpeting.  This runner covered over a humongous hole the sun had burned through the carpet.  This runner had been nailed all around its perimeter with roofing nails----an inch apart----kind of like the nailing pattern you might see on the underside of an upholstered chair or like the rivets in a jet wing.  The nail heads were all shiny from wear----quite attractive and “sparkly.”

      Most of the rooms had wood strip flooring under this carpeting that did re-finish quite nicely.  The hallway however was another matter.  It had been patched numerous times and covered over with linoleum.  The adhesive was not about to be removed either.  So I decided to do a “painted rug” to deal with the matter.  Here is a picture of what it looks like. 

     I think you can see the Jurassic Park influence.  I took actual ferns from the garden and rolled them in paint and then pressed them onto the floor----bunches of different colors----bunches of different layers.

     I had another Jurassic moment on an inspection the other day---or perhaps it would be more correct to say the chimney was having a Jurassic moment.  Hopefully a bunch of manic monkeys, two hundred pound mosquitoes and raging rhinos are not going to come flooding out of it----like in Jumanji.

Charles Buell

 

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

    Little Billy Breaker was 15 and had a job.

     Quite a simple job.

     A total “trip” really.

     A perfect job for a teen like him.

     All he had to do was sit there.  Whenever someone sent too much stuff his way, it was his job to just shut the line down----giving everyone working along the line a chance to catch up and for things to cool off a bit.

     For a whole week----seven days in a row----he did his job, just like he was supposed to do----shutting everything down perfectly----and still----everyone was mad him.

     In fact it seemed to him that the better he did his job the madder everyone got.

     They would just come right up to him, get right in his face and make him get back to work.

     This confused Billy to no end. 

     He could not understand.  If it was his “job” to shut things down, then why wouldn’t anyone let him do his job?

     One day, he came to work and found that he had been replaced----no notice or anything----with a bigger, version of himself ----this replacement was 30, “at least”----and totally full of himself.

     Well, this was not good. 

     No one bigger than he could do his job as good as he could---he was sure of it.   He knew that when it came to his particular job---bigger was certainly not better.  

     Changing the job description would surely result in disaster.

     WHAT IS THAT SMELL?

     Do you smell it too?

     Billy's protests fell on deaf ears as he asked, “Don’t you guys remember when the same thing happened to Frankie Fuse?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      I swear I smell something burning!

Charles Buell

 

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

 

     People sometimes ask me how I come up with all my crazy ideas for blogging (well they don’t actually say “crazy”---but I know what they mean). 

     First of all there are a couple of techniques I use to keep myself focused.

#1. The total number of blog ideas is infinite.

     #2. When you have the cojones to think that #1 is not true---reread to #1.

     I think an important component in coming up with fresh ideas is more about being “receptive” than is about “giving.”  If we have our eyes and ears----and all our other senses open----things will come to us.  But if we start with the notion that we must hunt and find something to give away, it will be very difficult indeed----especially after one has been blogging for awhile.

     Rather than offer a list of ideas that one might try, I instead will share some of the specific things I do to “encourage” the flow of ideas.

     Think of your brain as “Google”----your own personal, caffeine (or chocolate) powered, 24/7, search engine (yes---even while you are sleeping).  Your total life experiences are “tagged” in infinite combinations so that even a single word, song, picture, cloud, dream, color, or even a smell can trigger an idea. 

     When that idea floods in----all you have to do is start playing with it.

     Sometimes I will let the idea float around in my head for days (marinating so to speak---some might say fermenting) as I fiddle with different ways to “Dress it up,” to make it interesting, palatable----or sometimes even “plausible” to a reader.   Also I like to conjure some way (if possible) to connect the idea to my activities as a Seattle Home Inspector or the real estate industry in general----otherwise I just toss it out there anyway.

     In conjunction with the whole business of coming up with ideas, is the conclusion by some that what I do must take an incredible amount of time. 

     Well----sometimes it does (like this one).  More often than not though----they do not take as long as one might think.  Much of the post is written before I sit down to the keyboard.  It is written in my head or on a napkin while waiting in a restaurant.  Others get written while waiting for everyone to arrive for the inspection, stuck in traffic, driving here and there, sitting on the toilet (come on you know I had to say it), standing in the shower, -----WHATEVER!  The point is, that there are lots of times when whatever I am doing will not prevent me from working out ideas in my head before I actually get to the keyboard.

     Here is another rule:  All ideas are OK----they will lead you “somewhere.”  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that some ideas are more valid than others.  And remember----you have very little control over what you think.  Even “bad” ideas can be transformed into “good” ideas.  Think of ideas as being like “seeds” that you can plant and nurture and watch grow----and then PRUNE, espalier or compost as deemed appropriate.  Every thought that runs through your brain and everything that stimulates your senses has the potential to trigger some tag in your brain----we just need to pay attention. (Man this post is going to need some “Roundup” before I am done)(Where the heck did that tag come from?)

     NOW: about “Dress-up.”

     Doesn’t everyone like to play dress-up? 

     Steve Smith does. 

      So, once you have this “great idea”----what kind of clothes are you going to put on it?  You can’t just send it naked into the blogosphere (and trust me----I have tried). 

     Dressing-up, IS your own personal voice. 

     This is where we make the post appear as if it is about “sex, drugs and/or rock-n-roll”----things that people can relate to.  Think of it as cake.  People like cake, but if you put the kind of frosting on it that they REALLY like, they will eat it up like crazy.  Lately I have been having a lot of fun dressing mine up in children’s stories. 

     How you dress-up your idea will be what makes your idea look different from everyone else’s version of the same idea.

     Not only does an idea trigger tags in your brain, but the words you write will trigger other tags which will trigger other tags----thus making the process even easier.  This is where it all starts to be actual fun.

     And this brings me to perhaps the most important point I can share.

     JUST START—

             stuff

              will

            follow.

     Pretty soon, if you practice these simple steps, you will notice yourself letting ideas go floating though your consciousness without doing anything about them---without jotting them down---without taking their picture.  Then you will find yourself in the unfortunate position of beating yourself up because although you can “remember” that you had a great idea to play with, you now can not recall it to save your neck.

     Not to worry---like any good drain, another idea will float on by soon enough.

     All that remains is----are you listening?

 

P.S.

     The original “seed” for this post was, “What are you smoking?”

Charles Buell

 

 

Click on the Rose to check out:  AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

 

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.