Everyone likes to cuddle with something furry and fun!

     Anyone that has read my blog knows that on any overly hot day you will find me curled up for a nice nap in some cool crawl space somewhere. 

     Everyone likes to cuddle with something furry and fun!

     The other day when I was NOT napping in a crawl space, I came across many seismic straps and bolts that had not been used, and it got me scratching my head for answers----maybe it was actually the bottle flies in my hair----but I was thinking, I swear!

 

     Did some engineer 30 years ago give the “go-ahead” to NOT use these straps and bolts?

 

     Was something else done to compensate?

 

     Was the Jurisdictional Inspector taking a nap that day?

   

     Good questions----the answers of which I have no clue----as a Seattle Home Inspector I have no choice but to call in a structural engineer to make the determination.  I have a feeling someone is not going to be very happy----but odds are that the original contractor isn’t alive or is in another country that doesn’t have building codes.

     Part two of this story involves Mr. Fuzy Fixrotrus.  There was a long-standing leak inside the wood-framed chimney chase that had rotted out the floor under the fireplace.  Fuzy Fixrotrus was called to repair the damage.  As you can see in the picture the patching is obvious along with the new decay rot that has occurred since Fuzy did his repairs.  Instead of figuring out how the water was getting into the chimney and fixing that, he merely fixed the decay in the floor system.

     Looks like job security to me.

     At some point in the process of completing the repairs, old Fuzy Fixrotrus must have had a conversation with himself about this seismic strapping that I mentioned earlier.  One of these straps ran right up through the middle of his repairs.  I can just imagine him saying to himself: “What can possibly be the harm in just getting rid of this one?  There are so many others.”

 

     Well he was right about there being many others----but what he could not have guessed, was that when he cut off the strap there were others that were not connected either.

 

Charles Buell, Seattle Home Inspector

 

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