seattle home inspections: Can you remember the last time you sent a text message while having sex? - 05/28/10 12:03 PM
Raincamp in Bellingham yesterday was a hoot.
As always there was too much information to absorb and hopefully some of the stuff thrown at us will stick in some fashion.
One of the statistics that was interesting was that 10%-12% of people under the age of 25 say it is OK to send text messages while having sex. I am all for social networking and think that it is important in both business and our personal lives. I can’t remember whether the slide said 10% or 12%, and I guess it really doesn’t matter in relation … (45 comments)
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seattle home inspections: The House that Nicodemus Built-----i.e. Sleeping with Mrs. Brisby! - 05/27/10 08:24 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)
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seattle home inspections: Time to roast some good friends on my blog. - 04/08/10 10:03 AM
These friends shall remain nameless----but I have probably spent as much “awake” time in their house, as I have in my own house over the years.
We have survived several different remodeling projects together----back in my previous incarnation as a general contractor in the Seattle area.
I was originally referred to them by someone in the Seattle Symphony who I had done a big remodel for. Between these two clients I can probably trace back, like a family tree, most of my Seattle building career----which included a fairly decent percentage of other members of the Symphony----and friends/families of … (21 comments)
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seattle home inspections: New Inspector-proof Electrical Receptacles! - 03/21/10 08:29 AM
A while back I did a post about the new Tamper Resistant Receptacles that are now required by the most recent electrical codes.
In recent inspections of new homes I have started seeing these receptacles.
Not only is it now more difficult for children to make their hair stand on end or wet their pants by sticking pointy metal things into the receptacles, it is difficult for grownups to stick anything into them either.
Well it really isn’t quite that bad, but there is indeed a bit of a learning curve with the devices and one … (21 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Wordless Wednesday in the Bog - 03/03/10 09:10 AM
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seattle home inspections: Seattle Home Inspector looking for the Big Picture in the Little Picture. - 02/26/10 07:08 AM
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 … (32 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Wordless Wednesday in Shoreline WA - 02/24/10 10:04 AM
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seattle home inspections: Do you advertise in the Lost & Found? - 02/23/10 09:54 AM
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 … (26 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Termite Jenga - 02/08/10 10:22 PM
Think about how termites eat wood.
Munch, poop, munch, poop, munch, poop, munch………
You get the picture.
They like to dine on all the softer grain of the wood leaving the harder layers to rot and decay from the moisture absorbing frass (that is poop to the lay person) packed in their excavations.
I was thinking about this the other day after inspecting a deck. At some point the ability of the wood to support its own weight eventually must succumb to the decay/rot and ultimately to perhaps one last bite by the termite.
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seattle home inspections: Wordless Wednesday in Florida - 02/03/10 10:38 AM
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seattle home inspections: Crawl Space Storage Facilities----still expensive at half the price. - 01/02/10 09:41 AM
The ever growing scourge of self-storage facilities around the country is a testament to our having too much “stuff.” They sprawl across the landscape like mausoleums----their rolled barb wire fencing winking in the sunlight.
These storage units, on a daily basis, devour millions of tons of stuff that is destined to never to be seen again.
Perhaps one of the more bizarre stories to come out of (or go into) one of these storage units was the Seattle man that murdered his wife and two kids. He successfully hid the bodies in the unit for 12 years before … (35 comments)
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seattle home inspections: The Pail Princess! - 11/26/09 08:15 AM
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 … (14 comments)
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seattle home inspections: When the inspector foams at the mouth….. - 02/24/09 06:37 AM
Welcome to the, “Twilight Zone”……..
It is a great feeling when we as home inspectors call for repairs by qualified repair persons, that we can go to sleep that night after we send out the report, knowing that the repairs will be in good hands----to sleep well knowing that our buyers will continue to be as well taken care of by the repair person as they have been by their agent and their inspector.
It is great to know that when we are called back for the re-inspection of the repaired items, that the best part will … (31 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Why is there a garden in my attic? - 02/16/09 09:23 AM
I have posted in the past about attic ventilation and how there are many ways to achieve good attic ventilation. Ventilation can consist of passive means that utilize soffit vents, roof vents, gable vents and ridge vents. Sometimes mechanical means are utilized with the installation of wind driven turbine type vents, and sometimes electrically or solar powered vents are installed. See these three links to past posts to learn more about roof ventilation:
When the trades don't talk to each other, @#$% happens!
What is Giovanni Venturi doing in my attic? Not all "short-circuits" are … (19 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Does anyone think you are cool? - 01/01/09 12:16 PM
That ActiveRain has a lot of features is a bit of an understatement. It seems like they are always tweaking and adding new things. Often these things are left for us to "discover" or not----other things are introduced with much fanfare.
However, recently something was "taken away" that I miss----the ability to see who is on the site and how many are on the site. I don't even have a good reason for knowing this information----it was just fun. For example I could check and see if Steve and Nutsy were on the site----and if they were I could … (38 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Wordless Wednesday in Seattle - 12/31/08 07:59 AM
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seattle home inspections: Don't let the North Winds blow your house away..... - 12/29/08 09:40 AM
Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a little town called Runathemill where the Naunows lived.
In Runathemill everything was----how shall I say it? Well----run of the mill. Even the local sawmill was run of the mill. Even the annual Runathemill "fun- run" was----run----of the mill. No one could muster anything past mediocre----even the colorochreprevailed. Everyone lived in ordinary little houses that had the same problems as everyone else's ordinary little houses. No one expected----or suspected anything else. Every once in a while a fierce wind would blow in from the North … (21 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Wordless Wednesday in Seattle - 11/19/08 09:09 AM
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seattle home inspections: The "I canduit" conduit! - 11/17/08 10:43 AM
I have done posts in the past about improper wiring to disposals. It is a defect that I see so often that repetition is warranted.
Anyone can go to the Big Orange Tool Box or similar types of home maintenance stores and buy a garbage disposal. How difficult can it be to hook up a disposal?
The part of the installation that I find wrong the most is the electrical hook-up. This is especially true when there is no plug-in type cord, and instead the disposal is "hard-wired." All "hard-wired" means is that the unit can't be … (19 comments)
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seattle home inspections: Somebody is having a "pipe dream." - 11/09/08 12:22 PM
Since I can be a bit of a "space case" myself, I am pretty forgiving of others when they are forgetful. Often times some of the errors and omissions home inspectors find are related to forgetfulness. Sometimes one might even conclude that it was the result of what was being smoked in a pipe.
Take this plumbing vent for example. If you look closely at the following picture you can see how the pipe runs down hill toward the point where it goes up, increases in size, and then goes through the roof. It has sagged down because the … (27 comments)
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