nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Ugly Bug Alert. - 09/25/11 10:47 AM
Nashville Home Inspection - Ugly Bug Alert.
Please look at the picture below. Ever see one of these bugs around your home? What is it and why is it there?
HINT: It looks like a cross between a cricket and a spider. Now that can be ugly.
ANSWER: That's it! It's a spider-cricket! And boy is it ugly. Some people refer to them as cave-bugs, apparantly because they are common in caves. So how did it ever get started? Do you think a spider and cricket got together and, wait, let's not even go there. Suffice it to say they are … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Crawl Space Entry - When is Tight Too Tight? - 09/14/11 10:24 PM
Confined Spaces - When is Tight Too Tight? by Richard Acree http://habitecinspections.com Recently I had a REALTOR ask if there were circumstances when an Inspector would not crawl through the entire crawl space. I explained that sometimes we don't go everywhere in the crawl space because it simply is not possible or safe. I went on to explain that access to some areas of the crawl space may be blocked by debris, HVAC ductwork and/or tight spacing. That did not seem to be the answer she was looking for. But it got me to thinking, when is tight too tight?
Sometimes … (3 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Panel Bonding - 9.9.11 - 09/09/11 09:24 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Panel Bonding
Please look at the picture below. What you are looking at is the inside of an electrical panel in a home. This is a common panel installation. There are many items that a Home Inspector should check while conducting an inspection of an electrical panel. One item they should look for is bonding of the electrical panel. Bonding is a name used to describe when the electrical panel is connected to the grounding components of the electrical system. Look in the picture below and see if you can see if and how the panel is … (1 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Panel Issues - What's Wrong With This Picture? 9.8.11 - 09/08/11 10:14 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Panel Issues - What's Wrong With This Picture? 9.8.11
Please look at the picture below. You are looking at the inside of an electrical panel. It is common to find some insects inside an electrical panel, but there is a reason they are there. Usually food. Sometimes shelter. But anytime you find cob webs inside a panel, you are probably going to find a spider. Can you find one in this picture?
HINT: Think BIG!!
ANSWER: This big boy measured about 4" across the leg widths, with a body about 1.25" long and a stinger there on … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - What's Wrong With This Picture? 9.8.11 - 09/08/11 09:23 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Wiring Conduit, What's Wrong With This Picture? 9.8.11
Please see the picture below. You are looking at the exterior of a house where the house connects to a garage. The house is on the left, the garage roof on the right. Look at the shiny stuff in the middle of the picture. What's wrong?
HINT: Exterior electrical conductors should normally be housed in protective conduit.
ANSWER: Normally exterior electrical wiring should be installed inside protective conduit. This conduit is normally a rigid metal product. Aluminum foil is a poor substitute for proper conduit.
Thank you,
… (2 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Toilet Installation Spacing - 07/30/11 03:37 PM
Toilet Installation Spacing
Did you know there are requirements for spacing when a toilet is installed in a home? Not the most pleasant of topics, I know, but even more unpleasant if not done properly. Look at the picture below. What’s wrong?
ANSWER: Recommended spacing around a toilet installation is a minimum of 15” from the center of the toilet to the next vertical surface on the sides and 24” from the front of the toilet to the next surface in front of the toilet. In fact, the spacing here was only approximately 13” from the … (2 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Tennessee Rated as Number 18 by CNBC Top States for Business in 2011 - 06/28/11 04:53 PM
Tennessee ranks Number 18 in CNBC rating for Top States for Business in 2011! [Tennessee is tied with Florida for 2011]
Each year CNBC ranks each state in the United States for their accessibility and business-friendly environment based on a series of metrics including Cost of Doing Business, Workforce, Quality of Life, Transportation and Infrastructure, Economy, Education, Technology & Innovation, Business Friendliness, Access to Capital, and Cost of Living.
For 2011 Tennessee ranked Number 18 overall! Tennessee ranked Number 2 for Cost of Living, Number 5 for Infrastructure and Transportation, Number 8 for Business Friendliness, and Number 9 for Workforce. According to the CNBC rating … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Lintel Plate Installation - What's Wrong with this Picture? 6.25.11 - 06/26/11 11:52 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Lintel Plate Installation - What's Wrong With This Picture? 6.25.11
HINT: Lintel Plates are the metal strip that should be installed across the top of exterior doors and windows. Lintel plates should extend into the exterior surface above the door and/or window they protect. Look closely at the lintel plate as it crosses above this door and window installation at a rear porch.
ANSWER: The purpose of a lintel plate is to provide structural support for the exterior surface, in this case brick veneer, above an opening in the shell such as a door and/or window. … (3 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Installation - What's Wrong With This Picture? 6.11.11 - 06/11/11 10:39 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Installation - What's Wrong With This Picture? 6.11.11
HINT: If you can see the romex cable at an exterior installation, it is probably a mistake.
ANSWER: Actually, two things are wrong. First, this electrical circuit probably is not designed to handle whatever additional load is place on it by the additional component at the other end of this romex cable. And it is true, if you can see the romex at an exterior installation, because it is unprotected, then it is probably a mistake, as it is here, a mistake.
Thank you,
Richard Acree
… (2 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - HVAC Vent Pipe Clearance - 6.11.11 - 06/11/11 10:02 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - HVAC Vent Pipe Clearance - 6.11.11
Look at the HVAC furnace vent pipe below. What's wrong with this picture?
HINT: Duct tape can burn.
ANSWER: What you are looking at is a double wall B furnace vent pipe penetrating an attic floor. Double wall B Vent pipe requires a minimum of 1" spacing to combustibles. The spacing at the wood looks OK, but what is wrong is the wrapping job done on the vent pipe in the attic. Combustibles include insulation (under the tape) and gobs of duct tape. They were probably trying to accomodate a … (2 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Service Conductors - What's Wrong With This Picture? - 05/26/11 09:25 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Service Conductors - What's Wrong With This Picture?
Look closely at the electrical service conductors in the picture below. What's wrong?
HINT: Service conductors carry a lot of current. What protection does it offer?
ANSWER: The composite coating over the metal conductors is there to offer protection should the conductors (wires) come in contact with objects like ladders or people. If the insulation becomes deteriorated due to weather, it loses that ability to protect. Look how frayed the insulation is. These conductors need to be replaced. Now take a look at another picture below of the same … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - What's Wrong With This Picture? 5.26.11 - 05/26/11 08:33 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - What's Wrong With This Picture? 5.26.11
Look at the picture below of a residential front porch with a downspout coming down from the roof above. What is wrong in this picture?
HINT: Stains anywhere on a house can be an indication of a malfunction.
ANSWER: Clearly the dark stain behind/around the downspout is an indication of something gone wrong. This is a water stain on the brick. Why did this happen? What do you think you may find if you go up on the roof? An overflowing gutter? Absolutely. But what you might be surprised to … (4 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Wires - What's Wrong With This Picture? 5.5.11 - 05/05/11 09:29 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Electrical Wires - What's Wrong With This Picture?
HINT: If plastic gets hot it can melt.
ANSWER: Have you ever had an iron tip over and burn something? Who hasn't right? So imagine if this iron is set down and accidentally tips over and lies on the the Romex cable in the background. How long before it burns through? Then what? Then we have a metal object lying on exposed wires. OUCH! So the message here is that the Romex cable should be in protective conduit. This wiring bundle was part of a renovation and new … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Poor Roof Installation - What's Wrong With This Picture? 4.16.11 - 04/16/11 08:06 PM
Nashville Home Inspection - Poor Roof Installation - What's Wrong With This Picture? 4.16.11
HINT: Actually there are three things wrong. One involves metal, one involves wood, and one issue involves proximity. Please see the picture below for the first issue discussed, the metal issue.
ANSWER: Hopefully the metal issue jumps out at you. For locators, you are standing on a ladder looking at a 2nd floor corner of a house where the roof joins the brick veneer. Look at the metal flashing. Look at the cracks, or gaps, in the flashing caulk as it comes around the corner of … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Question - How Much Water in the Crawl Space is Too Much? - 04/12/11 06:47 PM
Question: How much water or moisture in the crawl space is too much? For instance, is the moisture indicated by the picture below too much?
ANSWER: Yes! When the mushrooms start growing in the crawl space, that has to be too much moisture. I am not aware of any numerical metric to declare a crawl space too wet or not, but this has to be over the limit. You can also see the very wet condition of the soil, and unfortunately, you can clearly see the wet soil, which should be covered by the moisture barrier.
Surely, despite all our best … (2 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Vinyl Windows - What's Wrong With this Picture? - 02/19/11 05:50 PM
Nashville Home Inspectors - Window Locking Hardware Issues - 2/19/11
Everbody loves vinyl windows, right? Look good, won't rot, energy efficient. You might think they are perfect, right? Not quite. Look at the picture below. What's wrong?
HINT: A window lock usually involves two components, one on the lower sash and one on the upper sash. A locking device needs to engage the two components together.
ANSWER: The curved locking arm you see extending out to the upper sash has missed its mark. Normally this component swings into a slot or under another component to engage the upper sash and lock … (5 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Channel 4 Announces Lasko Space Heater Recall - 02/09/11 08:56 AM
Space heater recall announced by Nashville TN Channel 4 TV. Channel 4 informed viewers in Nashville on Tuesday, February 8, 2011, about a recall of space heaters announced by Lasko Products. Over 100,000 Lasko and Air King space heater units have been recalled because they can melt. For the complete story please see the article at http://www.wsmv.com/news/26795929/detail.html .
Thank you,
Richard Acree
http://habitecinspections.com
Comments in this blog posting are the copyrighted intellectual property of Richard Acree, President, HABITEC Home and Building Inspections, LLC, and contributing members of the Active Rain Real Estate network, and are intended to educate and otherwise assist home … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - "Ready for Inspection", What Does That Mean? - 02/05/11 02:26 PM
One of the phrases we use as Home Inspectors is "Ready for Inspection". A home that is scheduled for a Home Inspection needs to be ready for inspection. What does that mean?
In a nut shell, ready for inspection means all utilities are ON and the owner/occupant has granted permission for the Inspection to take place. If the home is occupied the business of "ready for inspection" is usually not an issue. If the home is not occupied, this can be an issue.
HUD homes, or any banked owned home, presents a special challenge for the Home Inspector. HABITEC has inspected HUD homes, … (0 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspector - Roofers Gone Wild - How to Mess Up a Perfectly Good Roof - 12/25/10 09:38 PM
Nashville Home Inspector - ROOFERS GONE WILD - HOW TO MESS UP A PERFECTLY GOOD ROOF
by Richard Acree
http://habitecinspections.com
At HABITEC Home and Building Inspections, LLC, we sometimes see situations during a Home Inspection and we wonder just what were they thinking. It seems like they did things wrong just to say they could. Look at the picture of the roof shingles below. What's wrong?
HINT: Water flows downhill, and this picture was taken from a roof top.
ANSWER: Actually this is wrong from whatever angle you look at it. In any condition, whether in a valley … (6 comments)
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nashville home inspection: Nashville Home Inspection - Attic Access Issues - 11.11.10 - 11/11/10 10:05 PM
Attic Access Issues
by Richard Acree
http://habitecinspections.com
Attic access. How hard can it be? You'd be surprised how attic accesses can be messed up. Read on. Almost all home inspections involve an attic staircase. What's wrong with the pictures below?
HINT: Both staircases are in the same home. In the pic below the ladder seems a bit short.
In the pic below the ladder seems a bit too long.
ANSWER: Hmmm! Could it be that they installed them in the wrong locations??!! As in … (3 comments)
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