Steve and I kid a lot about our infamous home inspection Assistants, Nutsy and Raven. The other day I actually did have a home inspection assistant of sorts. It is pretty unusual to have any company in the crawl space with me. In fact, I really discourage it because of the liability invo
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11/30/2008
To state that we see a lot of moss on the roofs of houses in the Northwest would be an understatement. One of the recommendations to reduce the amount of moss growth is to install zinc strips to help control the moss. This sometimes seems to work while other times it seems to have almos
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11/29/2008
Last week I did my first of what I hope will be occasional, ongoing picture quizzes----if I can figure out a way to make them "psychometrically" valid. Actually that isn't really as important as everyone having fun and learning something----myself included. I expect that the ins
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11/28/2008
I thought I would try a little bit different sort of contest----sorry no prizes----hopefully just a little fun. This is about seeing a picture of something and then identifying which other picture "goes with" that picture the "best." First of all I will present 6 pictures numbered "1" throu
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11/24/2008
In the Bellingham Technical College, Residential Home Inspection Course (which I, along with fellow Rainers, Steve Smith, David Helm, and Rick Penn, teach part of) one of the things we continually hammer home to the students is to: "document, document, document." Even when something seems
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11/23/2008
A "Poli-sophical" Rant----and tribute to Wordless Wednesday's "Balloon Girl" Given these extraordinary economic times it is sometimes difficult to step outside of ourselves and look at the big picture. After all, when things get tough it is more than natural to focus inward in self intere
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11/20/2008
I have done posts in the past about improper wiring to disposals. It is a defect that I see so often that repetition is warranted. Anyone can go to the Big Orange Tool Box or similar types of home maintenance stores and buy a garbage disposal. How difficult can it be to hook up a di
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11/17/2008
Now I am sure this will be easy for all the inspectors out there so I would appreciate it if they would all refrain from commenting to give everyone else a chance to have some fun. So the question is: What is wrong in this picture. And let's see who can come up with the most "creative" ex
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11/15/2008
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