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shoreline home inspector: No one really knows why farm kids live---Memories of My Childhood Home. - 08/03/09 08:44 AM
Growing up on a dairy farm in “rural” Connecticut in the 50’s was a hoot---at least as I look back on it (our adult perceptions of the past always seem to be more forgiving doesn't it?). It is odd now to think of anywhere on the East Coast being rural, but in fact, growing up in the small town of Eastford, with it’s 900 inhabitants that was growing smaller every year, it did indeed seem rural. There was a story that was told when I was a kid that at one time everyone in the town could trace their lineage … (36 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: Stair glissading anyone? - 02/11/08 08:54 AM
Stair glissading anyone?
Did anyone have to look that one up?
More here.
A couple of weeks ago I did a blog about icy sidewalks. Leaking gutters can create many problems but one doesn't often think about them as safety hazards. Leaking/overflowing gutters can lead to erosion of the ground around the home as well as lead to deterioration of wood siding materials----creating conditions conducive to wood destroying organisms----insects and rot. When gutters are installed, the corner and end joints are sealed with materials that can fail over time. These joints have to be routinely re-sealed to prevent leaking. Leaking … (3 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: Hey---Keep it quiet down there! - 02/07/08 11:17 AM
I love telling nasty stories about rats! They are so much fun to pick on----don't we all need something (someone) to pick on that is smaller than us? Maybe as a planet if we would focus on picking on something as ubiquitous as rats we would have less time to pick on each other. What a thought:). When I am inspecting I like to look down shower drains to make sure there is water in the trap. No water and I have some questions that need to be answered. Is there no trap? Has the trap dried out? Is the … (16 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: Does the right hand know what the HECK the left hand is doing" - 02/07/08 09:52 AM
Yesterday in Is that MOLD on my Sub-Floor? I talked about the "compartmentalization" of construction and how that can lead to quality control issues. Today I am going to show pictures of a couple of quality control issues. One is primarily a nuisance issue while the other I would consider a safety issue. In this first example this drawer can only be opened if the adjacent cabinet door is opened first---definitely a serious nuisance. This situation most likely happened because the installer and the designer were not on the same page---or the designer hadn't had his morning coffee yet. The … (13 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: Is that MOLD on my Sub-Floor? - 02/06/08 11:31 AM
Quite frequently, during an inspection I am often asked what the grey discoloration that is sometimes present on floor, wall and roof sheathing in a home is. Sometimes it is due to concerns that the home might be inhabited by mold. But the discoloration I am talking about is nothing more than staining from concrete (or mud)---indicating that these boards had been used to pour the foundation for the home and then re-cycled and used as the sub-floor, wall and roof sheathing. It takes a lot of boards to make the forms for both sides of the foundation, and at … (4 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: Get the Lead out! - 02/05/08 06:28 PM
The other day in my blog about "What would impress the Romans?" I touched on the subject of Lead Poisoning. I think lead paint is a serious concern in our homes today, but 100 years ago it would (should) have been lead pipes. I am sure many of our ancestors---even our parents---had health concerns related to the use of lead pipes in homes. According to Werner Troesken in The Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster , even from the beginnings of the use of lead pipes, doctors and scientists warned of its dangers----as early as the mid 1850's. Governments were slow to … (10 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: It WORKS----how can it be wrong? - 02/05/08 09:49 AM
I think one of the interesting things about electricity, and something that makes electrical defects more of a safety hazard than other types of defects that we look for as inspectors, is that there are so many ways to wire things so that they "function"-----but that are still unsafe. For example "Reversed Polarity"----that is when the hot wire is where the neutral wire is supposed to be and the neutral wire is where the hot wire is supposed to be. Now--- anything you plug into that device is going to work just fine, but in the case of a light … (8 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: How was I SUPPOSED to get the wire there? - 02/05/08 09:40 AM
I think a big part of what makes this job so interesting is seeing all the ways that people can come up with to "solve" a problem. The example I am interested in today is the challenge of getting a wire from a satellite dish on the roof to the interior of the building. One could go through the wall and up and over the roof, or one coulddrill into the sewer vent pipe and run the wire to the roof through the vent pipe. This method avoids having to seal around a hole through the roof or unsightly wires … (2 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: It was about what was NOT visible. - 02/04/08 11:40 AM
There are a couple of things going on in the following picture. First, and obvious, is the sidewalk (flat-work) has been poured over the siding and trim. This is very common in New and Old Construction. The house gets built and the siding installers make no provision (proper flashings) for installation of the concrete that would leave proper clearances to the wood siding. These materials will deteriorate over time---maybe a year, maybe in 25 years, maybe in 100 years depending on the exposure to the weather. The fact remains that this is a condition conducive for rot and wood destroying … (2 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: Fun at the DUMP! - 02/04/08 11:29 AM
I went to the dump today and was reminded how they aren't what they used to be. In fact, does anyone but me call it the "dump" anymore. I think, at least in our area, it is called a "transfer station." What a nice euphemism. Now this isn't a blog about "the good old days." It is more about how as we "improve" as a society we have to let a lot of things go. I know the old style "dumps" created a lot of problems----like leaching all kinds of stuff into the ground water and nearby streams, and many … (3 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: What would impress the ROMANS? - 02/03/08 12:23 PM
Ever since I started building in the early 70's I have played a game in my head (and with anyone else I could torture) called: "What would the Romans be impressed with?" Think about it----of all of the incredible advances we have made on the planet since the Romans ran things, what would impress them? While a lot of our advances seem obvious, they might not be the ones that would impress them the most. For example many of our advances in indoor plumbing would most likely be seen as merely "improvements" on systems they already had. Big buildings?---they … (15 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: We all are in HOT WATER now! - 02/03/08 12:00 PM
How hot is too hot for the water at your taps? Manufacturers and the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) recommend that water temperatures at the tap not be higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Water hotter than this can lead to serious injuries to persons depending on how much hotter it is. (For a more detailed list of the effects of hot water on human skin see: Scald Hazards by Bill Warner posted here on Active Rain the other day.) I often find the temperature set way too high. This picture shows one of the higher readings I have found and it … (7 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: What is Giovanni Venturi doing in my attic? - 02/01/08 12:55 PM
Michael Thornton posted a blog on his "Photo of the Day . . .that reminded me of another problem associated with the venting of attic spaces. Most older gable roof style homes have gable vents (which under most circumstances are adequate). Older homes may or may not have soffit vents. Current standards require soffit vents in conjunction with roof vents or continuous ridge vents, and the amounts of each is a specified amount based on the size of the space being vented. Typically, by today's standards (with exceptions): The total net free ventilating area shall not be less than 1 to … (4 comments)
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shoreline home inspector: The Abstract Art of Home Inspection - 12/25/07 07:06 PM
I have always been fascinated with the beauty to be found in ordinary objects---objects with conditions that as a Home Inspector I would most likely be calling defects. The insides of furnaces, failing paint surfaces, and the patterns made by wood destroying organisms can all have a beauty beyond their being indicative of potentially serious problems. Just one of many of life's paradoxes. Here are a few pictures of such conditions that I would like to share. Enjoy.
… (9 comments)
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Charles Buell, Seattle Home Inspector
Seattle,
WA
More about me…
Charles Buell Inspections.com
Address: Seattle, Shoreline, Everett, Lynnwood, Bothel, Kirkland, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Edmonds, Renton, King County, 17123 22nd Ave NE, Shoreline (Seattle), WA, 98155
Office Phone: (206) 478-7371
Cell Phone: (206) 478-7371
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