ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS
2012
61
Comments
It was a dark and stormy night, um, it was a very nice morning and a terrific couple buying a house. The husband had called me a couple of days prior to the inspection with some very circumspect questions. This was a house with a lot of "remodeling," but he was told that the "$100K or so" put ...
02/28/2012
"The guiding purpose of the government regulator is to prevent rather than to create something." Alan Greenspan Gubment doesn't create anything - not jobs, not economic activity, not wealth. But it can go a long way toward PREVENTING all those things from being created by a free market economy. H...
02/27/2012
27
Comments
Consistency counts. If you want to zap something, zap everything! Looking up into a back yard I noticed a bug zapper on a tree. I don't see those very often, but they are fun! They are electric so they have to be plugged in. What they plug in to is important though. And not dangerous! Oh well...
02/27/2012
19
Comments
Older house, two-story ranch, where on one half the roof was raised, a third floor, with a perpendicular two-story addition, built off of one end. The house is now L shaped. The new section has no basement. Outside there are two AC compressors. That usually means one system is in the attic, bu...
02/26/2012
54
Comments
It probably isn't a good sign to go into a master bedroom and experience bouncy, bouncy wall support. Entering the bedroom, from the windows, I noticed that the bathroom door was not squarely in its surround! Interestingly, the door itself was level, the wall was not! And under the door was a b...
02/25/2012
34
Comments
Missing Furnace Vent Cap - NOTE TO SELF. That's what I thought walking around this house. It had been inspected by a relo company, another home inspector pre-listing and then by me. From way in the back yard I noticed an odd furnace vent. It looked like the cap was missing. Looking at it with m...
02/24/2012
83
Comments
Creativity never ends! But you never want to hear: Wood pellet stove chimney - up periscope! Of all the things to play fast and loose with, wood stove and pellet stove chimneys would not be one of them! The pellet stove is in a bedroom! No protection against the wall, no hearth on the floor, ki...
02/23/2012
32
Comments
One problem many people may be familiar with but not know why it is happening is called GFCI receptacle phantom tripping. GFCI receptacles are placed near water sources to interrupt a ground fault. Ground fault is a fancy way of saying "shock!" If that could be interrupted, it would be a good t...
02/22/2012
"When the government is involved in business, it’s hard for private companies to compete. The Chinese government is smothering the private sector. The usurping of private enterprise has become so evident that the Chinese have given it a nickname: 'guojin mintui.' That roughly translates as 'w...
02/21/2012
41
Comments
This photo is the masonry foundation repair of the front wall of a 45 year old house. It is one of many techniques that can be used for such a repair. The masonry foundation had been suffering from horizontal cracking. Around here a big factor contributing to this problem are expansive clay soil...
02/20/2012