Seattle Home Inspector's Blog

     At a recent inspection when I was looking across the roof from a porch roof I could see a strange bump with some discoloration around it----just to the right of the chimney near the top.  Can you see it?

     Any guesses as to what it might be?

     Well if you were strange enough to guess the “vent cap” for the kitchen exhaust fan you would be correct.  If not, well I guess you could not have made it up either.

Charles Buell

     When Home Inspectors look at homes, they must have both a “big view” and a “little view” of the home.  In other words they have to be careful to not get so focused on the details that they miss the big things.  They must also be careful to get in close so as to not see just the big things.

     In the following picture we can see the detail of the picture up close but it is only if we move away from the screen a few yards that it becomes clearer----at least a little bit.

     So what is it that you are seeing close up and what does it tell you from far away?

Charles Buell

     I don’t loose many inspections to other inspectors once the call for an inspection comes in.

     I lost one the other day for a reason that has not come up for me before----but it is a reason that is likely to become more common.

     I lost the inspection because the agent recommended me to them.

     While it is logical to see a conflict of interest in agents recommending a home inspector, I really don’t have any experience of this being an issue.  Most of the agents that refer me do so because they know that I am thorough, and will take care of our buyer in a way consistent with their own business model.  Yes I know the old wives tales about agents recommending inspectors that will minimize concerns----but they are few and far between----and again, outside of my own personal experience----more “urban legend” than anything substantial.

     Today’s consumer is way more savvy than home buyers of the past.  They go online and check out all kinds of things about the home buying process-----including finding a home and finding a home inspector.  I think this will be a hurdle that agents, that want to make sure their buyers are getting the best possible service, will have to reconcile.

     As an agent how do you reconcile this issue, or do you feel there is nothing to reconcile?

     I have been on both sides of this scenario now.  More and more I am doing inspections for buyers that have found me online, and I thus meeting the agent for the first time at the inspection.  While this usually gains me a new agent to get referrals from, I often see the watchfulness and concern in their eyes.  As I answer their questions, I get the sense they are making an assessment of me to make sure their buyer is going to be well taken care of.

     When I first started inspecting I learned that the vast majority of inspections would always come from Agent referrals----with the possibility of building a referral base from past clients and friends of these past clients.  As a newbie inspector the best way to get agent referrals was to approach agents that were also new.  The old timers already had their “stable” of people to refer----including home inspectors.

     After the “bubble burst” and many of these newbie agents did not survive, the referrals from these agents naturally dried up as well.  For me much of this slack has been offset by increasing contacts from the internet.  These contacts would not be happening if I was not blogging consistently here on activerain.  This is not a “direct” translation of:  “Post + Call = Inspection.”  It works more like: “Blogging + Calls = Inspections.”  It takes time.  By consistently blogging, and by posting content that people are looking for, you will get found by the search engines. 

     The more you get found the more you get found.

     Google is like a giant “Lost & Found” in that respect.  If you don’t let Google know how lost you are----you stand very little chance of being found in a timely manner.  The more of “yourself” you can donate to the Lost & Found----the more Google----or Bing----or Yahoo, will like you.

Charles Buell

     I am sure we can all remember looking at clouds, pretending to see shapes of things in the clouds that were not really there----either chemically induced or not.  From our earliest times, humans have tried to find patterns in what they see.  I mean, does anyone really think that there is actually a “Big Dipper” a real “Bear” or a live “Virgin” up in the stars?  (Leave a goat herder alone in the wilderness for a few months at a time and no telling what they will come up with.)  

     And that is exactly what happened, because, once upon a time, some lonely goat herder smoked some funny-stuff and was able to “connect the dots” and did find “patterns" in the stars.  Then all he had to do was convince all his friends that they could see them too----which worked to distract them from wondering what he was really doing with the goats.

     Does anyone actually think that Elvis would grace the swirls of a pancake, the shape of a birthmark, or the mark on a calves’ forehead with his likeness?

     The human eye loves to find patterns in the world it sees, and the joy of finding those patterns is expressed in art, whether it is painting, photography----or other art forms.  Sometimes we “ritualize” the patterns in brush strokes to create patterns within the patterns.  Other times the patterns need no embellishment and “blow us away” all on their own.

     I have, for a very long time, had my own personal crusade against pretending to "see things" in the patterns I see----not wanting to risk diluting or limiting my experience of the patterns.  It can be very easy to end up never seeing them for what they “actually” are. 

     On a societal scale, when we accept the visual interpretations thrust upon us, it homogenizes our collective experience and makes us more “controllable” by whoever feels they need to control us----whether it is a government or a religion.  We have learned to not trust our senses----we can no longer simply enjoy what we see without judgment, analysis, prejudice or fear. 

     From a survival standpoint, there was a time when it was very important for us to be able to pick out the tiger in the camouflage of the jungle in order to not become dinner.  We now have more freedom than our ancestors in that respect----or at least we can entertain the “idea” of having more freedom.

     Pretending there is a tiger in the woods when there is none may result in our not allowing ourselves to enter the woods at all.

    It is no wonder we are not out of the woods yet. 

     It is the ultimate freedom to enjoy things the way they are----as opposed to the way we wish them to be, want them to be, need them to be-----or even imagine them to be.  The human eye (and the brain it interacts with) has an incredible ability to find and enjoy patterns in all things----whether it is the stars in the sky, frost on a window pane, sands at the beach or numbers on a spread-sheet.  When we allow ourselves to see the patterns around us, endorphins are released and the world becomes a beautiful place.    

     The key is “trust.”

     The language of patterns is “built-in”----there is nothing to download, tweet, upgrade, repair or re-boot.

     Will someone pass the Maple Syrup please? 

Charles Buell

     Kitchen ranges have always had safety issues associated with them----whether they were old style wood or coal burning units or modern gas and electric units.

     Back in my “hippy days” my first wife and I lived, for four years, in a Ferro-cement dome-house-----a quarter of a mile off the main road----without electricity.  Our means of cooking and heating the home was a stove much like the one pictured on the left.  You could cook just about anything with the thing----there was just a significant “learning curve” is all.

     One safety concern that often gets overlooked with kitchen ranges is making sure that the surface of the range is higher than the surrounding countertops----especially when those countertops are made of materials that will burn and/or melt.

     The idea is that if the top of the stove is lower than the adjacent countertops any big pots or pans that extend past the edge of the stove can come in contact with the countertop surface (as can be seen in the picture below).

     This next picture shows a gas stove.  

     One can see where the flames have spread out under a large pot or frying pan and have charred the countertop.

Charles Buell

     Well actually, the Craft Man’s Ship has not “sailed” anywhere----it may be that only our “focus” has changed.

     Way back before the Internet was invented, before there were home inspectors poking and prodding, before “This Old House” and “Fine Woodworking” magazine were around, and LONG before “A Day Without Mexicans,” houses were still built poorly. 

     Builders cut corners, and “professionals” butchered the work of other professionals.

     Just look at the inspectors that post regularly here on activerain.  The vast majority of posts are about the myriad of defects that they find----the more bizarre the better.  Readers want to read about the bizarre and “unbelievable” more than they do the mundane.  Look how many more comments these posts get.  People would much rather read about how much easier it would be to “row” instead of “crawl” around a crawl space as opposed to how exceptionally neat and clean it is.

     As bloggers, we like to FOCUS on the sucker punch. It is blogging “cleavage” so to speak.  If we can not “titillate” we will gross out, shock or awe the reader through to the end of our post.

     Very often the comments that follow these tales are variations of:  “Where has pride in workmanship gone?”

     The question implies that there was a time when things were much better. 

     Since I did not live in any other time than my own, I can only go by what I see in my own time as well as what I can infer from what I find----from times previous to my own. 

     I routinely find defects in houses older than I am, that were created in those homes long before I was born or even before anyone reading this was born.  Just because there was no one blogging or filming at the time the defect was created, does not mean that the person that did it was a better craftsman, or cared more about his job.

     People will point to the great old mansions that are remarkable testaments to incredible levels of craftsmanship and extrapolate that quality to the lack of quality sometimes found in today’s tract homes.  Well the reality is that the homes we should be comparing to the tract homes have long since been bull-dozed, burned, rotted away or rebuilt.  Just because the ones that are left standing, from times gone by, are “exceptional,” one must realize that being exceptional is part of the reason they still stand----not because of generally higher levels of workmanship at the time.

     One of the things that irritates me the most about this perceived lack of craftsmanship or pride in workmanship is when it is used as a means to put down non-English speaking populations that make up a huge percentage of today’s construction work force.  As a builder I never found that to be the case----in fact quite the opposite and can attest to numerous occasions where more WASPY workers would game the system from one L&I check to the next, call in sick when they would rather be doing “anything” else----or just hung over.

     Craftsmanship----pride in workmanship----is a personal thing and is not restricted to any time and/or place, gender, race or place of national origin.  It is available to anyone that chooses to take it on.  It was both present and missing in my Grandfather’s time and his Grandfather’s time-----as it is in our time.  It is everywhere and in most houses to one degree or another.

Charles Buell

     I think one of the key requirements to being a Home Inspector is to have a sense of humor.  If we could not get a chuckle out of the stuff we see in homes, we might be forced to work at rendering plants, empty porta-potties, or become bikini waxers.

     I find it ironic that the same licensed professions we often call to make repairs to the things we find wrong are the same licensed professionals that create what we find wrong to begin with. 

     While today’s example will require repairs by professionals other than the ones that created the problem----they will, I am sure, get their turn in due time.

     It is very common for Licensed Plumbers to just plain not give a damn about the structures that they are running their pipes in.  What plumbers do in homes, reminds me of termites that just keep eating and eating until all the structure they are living in collapses around them in a pile of wood-mush and squished termites.

     Usually the destruction of the framing comes from free-for-all cutting of wood structural members with a sawzall----the tool plumbers should be required to be licensed to use. 

     Sawzalls don’t kill houses----plumbers kill houses.

     In this case, a hammer or axe was used to remove one side of the metal hanger that supports the end of this 12’ long floor joist.  The plumber figured his pipe was more important than the metal hanger.  While not a huge structural concern (the house is not going to fall down), the joist should be adequately supported.  In this case, adequate support can likely be achieved by bolting a ledger onto the foundation under the joist.

Charles Buell

     You might as well start itching and scratching right now.

     Roll over mold----you can’t begin to compete with household dust----except in the sense that you are part of the makeup of dust.

     On a recent inspection I had a crawl space that was the first crawl space that I probably should have refused to enter because of excessive “cooties”----“household dust.”  For years the central vacuum has been improperly exhausting into the crawl space and from the looks of the crawl space, the unit must have had no filter installed.

     The predominant component of household dust is:  SKIN----human skin.  Next comes dust mites and dust mite feces---because human skin is food for these cooties. 

     After these components comes hundreds of other irritants, carcinogens, pathogens, viruses, cigarette byproducts, fabric fibers, sand/soil, plant parts, insect parts, mold spores, pet dander, rodent feces, pollen etc.

     I would love to know how anyone could ever figure this out, but supposedly, the average human looses between 50,000 and 100,000 skin cells every minute!

     You can continue to itch and scratch now.

     I think I need to go take another shower.

Charles Buell

     One of the things I like to do when I am inspecting a Condo for a buyer is to find the unit’s electrical meter and verify accessibility.  Many meters are in locked utility rooms and it is important for the buyer to know what the Condo policy is on providing the unit owner access to their Meter and Main Electrical Disconnect.

     I also like to verify that the main disconnect breaker rating is proper for the wire size run to the panel and is properly sized for the panel within the unit itself.

     I thought it might be fun to show my readers what one of these electrical utility rooms looks like.

     When they look like this it can sometimes take a lot of time to find the meter that supposedly relates to my buyer’s unit. 

     I am sure glad there were no mirrors on the floor and ceiling-----it might have been REALLY hard to find the “fairest one of all.”

     Sometimes they are numbered sequentially----other times----as was the case here----there was absolutely no obvious logic to the order of the meters (over 200 of them).  It took me, the agent, and the building superintendent considerable time to find the correct meter.  Of course if the meters are not labeled at all----that is important information in itself----and repairs should be made.

Charles Buell