I have been taking the photos off the camera this morning of our latest job and shaking my head at what we are finding. As we have been doing the demo work on this project in Snohomish (technically, but it is closer to Woodenville) and are finding some great examples of what not to do.

The first problem we found was the exhaust for the range hood. At first blush you might think that it was fine. But you may notice that it is taped up with paper tape. That must not have stuck or sealed well enough, so someone went over it with plastic packing tape at some point as well. Sure sounds like the materials I want on the inside of a vent pipe that is over a stove.

The reality is that it probably never would have to resist fire, but I wouldn't want to chance it, and I know for a fact that it wasn't doing its job of moving all the air up and out! Plus, to add insult to injury, I am betting it vents straight into the attic space

As we pulled the old flooring up I noticed that the threshold for the front door was loose. That is going away anyway, so I pulled it up to find that all of the wood underneath it was just gone! Someone had installed the door over particle board with no caulk or flashing, just some tar paper to protect the wood from any water that seeped in underneath the threshold.

Luckily we got to it in time and the floor joists are still pretty well intact. But we will need to cut the floor back and replace the wood in the entry way. Which is always a load of fun (please note the sarcasm.) The lesson here is be careful of who you get to do work on your home. I would bet that most of this work was done by a previous home owner, but the BIG boo-boo with the roofing that I will cover later this week was done by a professional roofing company. While the cheap road may sound attractive when you are getting work done, the money saved will be outweighed by the cost of fixing problems like this down the road a few years!