everett wa home inspector: Why is water running out of my electrical panel? - 09/19/10 04:27 AM
     In the following picture we can see the electrical service to a home.  The large grey box marked “A” is a utility company junction box.  The utility company wires run underground to this box, where power is then distributed to panels “B” and “C.”  This set up is common in residences with large electrical services and are considered “double 200 amp” services or “400 amp” services.  There are also “sensors” in this box that send signals to the electric meter as to the amount of electricity being used.

     Just outside the garage door opening one can see the … (25 comments)

everett wa home inspector: The House that Nicodemus Built-----i.e. Sleeping with Mrs. Brisby! - 05/27/10 01:24 AM
     Far across the road……..
 …….over the stone wall and under the Rose Bush, there lives a group of beings with powers equaled only by humans.  One could argue that both they and humans are competing for the low rung on the ladder, as far as mammals go, but I will leave that for you to decide.  There is plenty of hard evidence to support both positions----and I have not yet made up my own mind.  I am leaning toward the Rose Bush however. 
     While we may have never been promised a rose garden-----wouldn’t it be nice to at … (20 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Why was Moses in my attic? - 05/25/10 02:18 AM
     I can imagine that whoever had to move all this insulation wished they were Moses, and that they could have parted that Yellow Sea of Insulation as easily as Moses parted the Red Sea. 

     Moving all that old dusty insulation---especially the underlying layer of rockwool insulation----by simply raising their hand in the direction of the insulation, would have made their day.  Personally I would take the pursuing Pharaoh and his chariots any day----over touching rockwool insulation (metaphorically of course----I am not too big on arrows and stampeding horses either).
     Looks like someone forgot to raise their … (21 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Did you ever have that sinking feeling? - 05/22/10 04:15 AM
     There are a couple of obvious things about concrete.
     It is heavy and it cracks.
     Once the material is laid down, unless you do what is necessary to stop it, it will continue to go down.  Like I said---it is heavy.
     It is very common, when building houses, to fill around the foundation with materials that are either not easily compacted or can’t be compacted at all----except over many, many years.  Architectural drawings in the past---back when blueprints were actually blue----use to call out for all fill to be “puddled.”  Most builders today probably don’t even know … (24 comments)

everett wa home inspector: I had bad gas at a recent inspection! - 05/20/10 02:14 AM
     No----not the elevator or the under-the-covers kind.
     Take a look at this picture.  This is new construction.  Can you tell what is wrong?

     A properly adjusted gas cook-top burner will be a nice even blue----with NO yellow.  In this case the entire flame is yellow.
   Why?
     Actually the answer is pretty simple.  This is a Natural Gas cook-top running on Propane----someone forgot to change the orifices is all----a pretty easy fix and the correct orifices may have even been included with the unit.
 
Charles Buell

 
(36 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Grandpa could be a cantankerous! - 05/17/10 01:23 AM
Grandpa could be a cantankerous at times.
I can still see that cane waving in the air.
Grandpa was crippled with arthritis since his 30’s and lived into his 90’s.
I would be cantankerous too.
Actually----I recently discovered that he didn’t die.
Somehow he came back to life after my dad died.
You see, I used to see my dad in the mirror.
Now it is my grandfather that I see.
Of course my dad is always there too.
Or should I say, I just can’t tell them apart any more.
For some reason my grandfather looks the same age as … (25 comments)

everett wa home inspector: I know-----you use MAGIC! - 05/16/10 04:29 AM
     Take just a moment and see if you can guess what this is a picture of?

     At the bottom left of the picture is my flashlight face down on the floor.  It is lighting up the space behind this heat register to reveal a fabric filter installed under the register.  Filters in registers are common.  However, a forced air furnace with an adequate filter will not need filters at the individual registers and they become just one more place that people will forget to maintain adequately.
     If you “need” filters at the registers, you really need a … (16 comments)

everett wa home inspector: My own, private, Deepwater Horizon. - 05/15/10 09:12 AM
    At first glance the staining at the corner of this foundation looks like it could be dark from moisture.

     But instead, this is a one of those nasty dark marks that the inspector would not want to miss.
     The pipe visible in the shadow to the left of the corner is an oil tank vent pipe.
     Yup.
     Now I have no way of knowing how extensive the saturation of the soil is, but this kind of information puts off most buyers. 
     The kinds of “unknowns” that ride along with these visual indications usually … (14 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Missing downspouts? Missing rain barrels? - 05/13/10 03:05 AM
     When it comes to outdoor wiring there are additional “rules” and “methods” that must be followed that are quite a bit different from wiring that is run through the interior of the home. 
     Because there are not hollow walls to run the wires in, there are requirements to protect the wiring from the elements as well as special boxes to keep out water and critters.  If the wire is not in conduit approved for outdoors it will have to be a type of wire rated for exposure to sunlight (not necessarily direct sunlight either).
     In the following … (26 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Whoops! But no worries----I’ve got you covered. - 05/07/10 02:34 AM
     Sometimes the construction trades just aren’t on the same page.  I guess we should be grateful if we can get them in the same book. 
     At a recent inspection, it was apparent that the bathroom exhaust fan was not pulling any air.  A simple test to see if a fan is pulling air is to see if it will eat a piece of tissue paper.  In this case it would not----not even a little bite.
     In the attic, the duct can clearly be seen terminating at the roof.

     But, at the exterior, up on the … (19 comments)

everett wa home inspector: What are you digging for Rover? - 05/06/10 02:33 AM
     The other day at an inspection I found this cast iron Black Dog digging under a rock.
     Nothing like folksy art I thought to myself.

     Yard art like this is very common, and it never occurred to me that this Black Dog had ulterior motives.
      After several trips around the house trying to find the oil tank fill pipe, it occurred to my buyer that perhaps the dog had eaten it.  As I grabbed the dog’s tail it reminded me of the time I pulled my own dog out of the wood pile by her tail----with … (63 comments)

everett wa home inspector: When you’re hot you’re hot and when you’re not you’re not! - 05/04/10 02:03 AM
     It is totally normal that people at times are NOT going to see eye-to-eye on politics, religion, food, sex----and any number of other things.  Sometimes, even when they do see eye-to-eye they might simply be “enabling” each other.  Just because two people agree with each other, following each other over a cliff might not be the healthiest thing.  On the other hand, being on the same page when it comes to sex usually produces better results.
     Take these sensor beams for example.  They are DESIGNED to see “eye-to-eye” and yet when installed in this location they are pretty much … (28 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Getting together with old friends can be exhausting! - 05/03/10 10:19 AM
 
     Tom, Dick, and Harriet were “joined-at-the-hip” classmates in kindergarten.  They had not seen each other in 30 years.  Reconnecting with each other on Facebook had started out innocently enough, but like all relationships that come to an end, they soon discovered that the reasons that separated them, all those years ago, were still as valid now as they were then.
     For inexplicable reasons, they decided to arrange a meeting between the three of them once it was discovered that Tom & Dick lived in the same area and Harriet was coming to their area on business.  Perhaps it … (25 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Bob says, “Everybody must get stoned!” (A story within a song) - 04/29/10 06:20 AM
    Everyone should feel quite-right at home
     Everybody must get stoned  
     Sometimes, the only thing that makes any sense, in terms of what I find on inspections, is that homeowners are deliberately trying to "entertain" this Seattle Home Inspector----and it really is not that hard----and they really don’t need to work at it as hard as they do----I entertain easily.
    They’ll stone you went you’re walking on the roof
     They’ll stone you when the fire place goes poof
     They’ll stone you when you pause to have a meal
     They’ll stone you when you crucify … (13 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Hot! - 04/26/10 04:02 AM
     I am old enough to remember boiling water on the stove to make hot water.    
     Now that we have all the hot water we could ever want----whenever we want----we must still be careful to not let it get TOO hot.
     I am impressed with the narrow range of temperatures that the human skin can deal with without being damaged.  Normal skin temperature is approximately 91 degrees.  According to the CPSC there are more than 3800 scalding injuries and 34 deaths per year from tap water that is set too high.  Most of these accidents involve children under … (25 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Major Plumbing Breckthrough! - 04/24/10 12:38 AM
     Traveling salesmen and saleswomen have always been around----whether roaming around the country in horse drawn wagons,  in “Pink Cadillac’s,” or going door-to-door as, “Avon Calling.”  Their stocks of toilet waters, potions, and lotions were considered snake-oil by some and worth more than gold by others.  I am sure the horse and buggy guys, hawking their wares, would have loved to have had the option of today’s Lingerie Parties in their bag of tricks. (Sorry guys----I know you were hoping for a “live” link.  And, how come I have never been invited to one of these parties yet?)
     These potions … (37 comments)

everett wa home inspector: When you gotta go----you gotta go! - 04/23/10 01:34 AM
     On a recent inspection my buyer asked me what this pipe sticking out of the side of the garage was. 

     Based on the washed away area (impact mark) on the ground under the pipe, I said that it was likely a drain for the flat roof.  Because the roof had sagged a bit, and was holding water, a drain had been installed in the low spot to aid in draining the roof. 
     One of the interesting things about ponding water on a flat roof is that water is heavy. 
     The weight of the … (34 comments)

everett wa home inspector: Help me out here---but doesn’t this seem just plain wrong? - 04/20/10 10:08 AM
     In 1972 I had not yet built my first “real” house.  I had up to that point fooled around with various tree houses, underground forts and Ferro-cement domes.  It was not until 1976 that I designed and built one of the first passive solar houses in Upstate New York.  I get thinking about these roots whenever I encounter a house built around those early years.  Of course the tree houses and underground forts go back to the 50’s while the Ferro-cement domes entered the picture around 1971.
     The other day I inspected a house built around 1972 with perhaps … (35 comments)

everett wa home inspector: 1941----the women were “HOT!” - 04/18/10 07:11 AM
     On the heels of my last “ground broken,” “heel breaker” post (a post that proved that most of my male readers wear high heels), I have decided to continue on with the theme just to prove that one can blog about almost anything-----much to the chagrin of the captive reader.
     Many blog posts test or at least provoke one’s power to “click away” to find something of more interest.  Other posts captivate, and suck one in with seductive titles and promises of meaningful content----or at least prurient content.  Everyone knows that sex sells, so even if you have something … (19 comments)

everett wa home inspector: In my mind----you look as good naked as you did 45 years ago! - 04/15/10 01:31 AM
     One of the many things that is quite impossible to do, is to do any sort of “double-blind” analysis of the decisions one makes in life.  We are mostly left with sorting out, and reacting to, or recovering from the “results” of our decisions.  For these decisions we get to be both "saints" and "sinners."  With good information we can sometimes make what turns out to be better choices than some other choices we might have made.  Regardless, we will still have to deal with unexpected input from all manner of forces outside of ourselves----or at least seemingly outside of … (26 comments)

 
Charles Buell, Seattle Home Inspector (Charles Buell Inspections Inc.)

Charles Buell

Seattle Home Inspector

Seattle, WA

More about me…

Charles Buell Inspections Inc.

Address: Shoreline, 17123 22nd Ave NE, Shoreline (Seattle), WA, 98155

Office: (206) 478-7371

Mobile: (206) 478-7371

My blog is intended to provide information related to home inspections in Seattle, surrounding communities and anyone else interested. Sometimes I will provide information that has nothing to do with home inspections. Enjoy!

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