ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS
2014
This happens every year about this time - a rash of burglaries where the house does not seem to have ever been compromised. How does it happen? What are "Bump Keys?" Have you heard of them? Bump keys are an easy, Internet-available way for non locksmiths to get into your home. Or most any hom...
12/30/2014
Really? A text? I'm fed up with texting as business communication! It used to be that "text" meant something like this, according to my Oxford Dictionary - Text - noun - the main body of a work or other piece of writing, as distinct from other material such as notes, appendices, and illustratio...
12/28/2014
What you say? Your new house is always what it's cracked up to be? Don't you mean ISN'T what it's cracked up to be? No, I mean IS. When cracks abound that is... And you ask, "How can there be any cracks? It's new construction?" People are told that with the thousands of codes, and dozens of d...
12/27/2014
15
Comments
So, what do you think? Martian writing or carpenter ant damage? That was my question! Here I was deep in the woods. It was a careful investigation of a 40 year old log home. It was quiet out there. It was lonely out there. It was far out there. It was the perfect place for space aliens to ...
12/26/2014
34
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This blog concerns a previous post and could be called A Front Staircase Disaster - A Follow Up. Getting an email from the agent it simply asked my opinion asking, "Do you think the items in this invoice will result in a good deck?" The last thing I said to my clients before leaving after the ins...
12/25/2014
12
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38 degrees 45' 53.5"N by 77 degrees 33' 43.0"W – A Polar Guide According to my GPS device, when I stand on my front porch, that title is the very point on the earth that I am standing. I am home. My refuge. My spot. Where my family is. Where my things are. I am safe. I am protected. ...
12/23/2014
Going into the house it was uncomfortably cool and the thermostat was set at 72F and the clients asked me what was wrong. I suggested the heat pump wasn't working right or the filter might be exceptionally dirty. So we looked out the back window. The heat pump was looking like it was covered in ...
12/21/2014
A front staircase disaster. Lean to the left. Lean to the right. Just looking at it from the car pulling up I knew I was in for some interesting work. And looking around the neighborhood I could see this house wasn't alone. Some houses had similar schlock work (apparently builder done) and oth...
12/20/2014
23
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This is an older log home, and meets the "over the river and through the words song," and while I liked the house I wondered why the staircase was so wobbly... The staircase was the circular kind, and exactly what you would expect to find in a log home. It makes for a fun way to get to the upstai...
12/18/2014
I'm glad there is not a song called Frosty the Freezer. Okay, it just doesn't have the same ring to it. One of the great innovations to the freezer was making it frost free! No more defrosting! No more blocks of ice forming inside! It's frost free! While perhaps not so visible in a photograph...
12/16/2014
Rainmaker
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Jay Markanich
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia
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An experienced home inspector's look at current home inspection events and conditions along with his useful recommendations.