home inspections connecticut ct: Despicable Flashers
- 09/09/10 12:47 PM
No, no, not that kind of flashers gutter brain. Roof flashers or roofers who put flashings on stuff that pokes through the roof like this chimney. What a fine example of how not to flash a chimney. Man do I wish I owned stock in roofing tar and caulk. I'd be rich contractors use the stuff so much. This fine and lovely example of counter flashing is going to leak, leak and leak some more. Which means more tar will be slopped on to stop the leak until it begins to leak all over again. The instruction on the roofing tar … (17 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Glass Walls Are Not Only in Glass Houses
- 09/08/10 06:55 AM
Glass has to be one of mans greatest inventions. It has so many great attributes, but at the same time has many weaknesses. By far and away the largest and most notably use for glass is windows. Can you imagine what homes and building must have been like before window glass? The biggest weakness of glass is that it's weak or more accurately brittle. It breaks very easily and has marginal strength. I often joke about glass not being structural, but apparently someone hadn't heard the news. I found this wall of glass on a recent inspection. The glass is a … (9 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Is All Mold Testing Necessary?
- 09/07/10 05:28 AM
Mold and more importantly testing for and the remediation of mold have become pervasive in my state of Connecticut. At least once a week I receive a call from someone inquiring about mold testing. I believe the reason for these mold related calls is because my web site has a mold information page and also undoubtedly due to the sites good SEO. I often talk a good portion of these callers away from testing. I performed mold sampling for approximately 2 years. I took a "mold certification training course", 2 days long, and was given my certificate stating my mold sampling knowledge. … (18 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: A Lurid Tale of Cutting and Hacking
- 09/05/10 01:29 AM
A Lurid Tale of Cutting and Hacking, sounds like the description of a low budget horror movie or just another day in the life of a Connecticut home inspector. Power tools have sure made construction easier and more efficient...if used correctly. Because they can be almost effortless to use, simply switch them on and go at it, this leaves ample opportunity for the tool user to do some interpretive construction design. Stop and think about it; Back in the days when all someone had was a handsaw or drill, the individual wasn't inspired to do much more than the task immediately … (8 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Seeing the Forest Sometimes IS the Answer
- 09/04/10 08:58 AM
How often is the answer we seek right in front of us? We are looking so hard we can not see the obvious. Finding this little fern growing out of the foundation of this house was to me an obvious sign that the gutter drain was clogged. The flora is saying to me; this spot is nice and wet. We love it! This is going to be too bad for the little fern because its exclusive source of water will soon be drying up. Sending roof water through leaders into pipes that discharge into the city sewer system is a practice … (7 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Experiments in Roofing
- 09/03/10 01:10 AM
As I have spoke about before everything in a home has a general life expectancy. With some things that expected duration carries some weight. The roof is a great example. This would include small roofs over say a porch like this one. The house is 9 years old. The little roof should therefore be nine years old. It should then be nearing the end of its life since it is a flat roof. Getting up on a ladder and taking a look at the little roof revealed that it had already been replaced. When I say replaced I use the term … (13 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Bathing in the Modern Age
- 08/31/10 12:41 AM
At some point in our evolution someone, probably a woman, noticed that her mate was a bit shall we say fragrant. Not his usual mildly tolerable scent, but just plain stinky. This guy needed a bath. So off to the river, stream or nearby pond he would have went to wash away the dried yak blood and his accumulated manly scents. Bathing or more to the point the ritual of bathing has progressed through history, but the apparatus of cleansing has remained basically unchanged, a tub or shower. We now live in an age where gadgets have become commonplace. The microchip … (35 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Does Age Matter?
- 08/27/10 03:26 AM
What's that old saying? You're as young as you feel or age is a state of mind. Some days we feel young and some days we don't. The cold reality is we all have a certain number of years on this earth. We have a "life expectancy". The same is true with man made things; they are expected to last a certain number of years. As we know a life can be cut short by unexpected circumstances. The same is true of building components. As an inspector a lot of weight is given to the age of things in the home … (14 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Making an Impression
- 08/26/10 04:41 AM
Most people when they read the title will think of making a personal impression on someone they meet. Instead I'm taking about being impressed and physical impressions on objects. Sure not as potentially informative as the other subject, but I was impressed by what I found the other day during an inspection. This year in Connecticut we have been experiencing unusually hot weather. Our spring was early and not warm, but hot, hitting 90 plus degrees on a few days. The summer weather has been similar with obviously more sustained higher temperatures. One result of all this hot weather is an … (18 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: I Should Have Listened
- 08/08/09 12:05 AM
That's the words I heard the other day from a friend of mine. I went to over his house the other night to hang out. When I arrived he says to me "you're not going to believe this, I think my water heaters leaking." This was somewhat a little more significant than usual because he is in the process of getting ready to sell his house. Talk about bad timing. I said "let's go take a look at it and see what's wrong." I was hoping it was a dripping TPR valve a quick, cheap and easy fix. It wasn't, the … (26 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Who is The Contractor Hiring?
- 07/29/09 01:02 AM
Yesterday I talked about homeowners and professionals both doing repairs or renovations that were best described as creative. The common thread was the work was done incorrectly. To take that theme a step further; what happens when a professional contractor performs work that should be done by a tradesman. Tradesman would be specialists such as electricians, plumbers and HVAC contractors. These are licensed trades that require extensive training both in the classroom and in the field. In addition competency testing is a part of this process. A license in one of these fields requires years to obtain. A contractor or home … (15 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Home Owners Are Not Always to Blame
- 07/28/09 02:36 AM
Being a home inspector I find a lot of goofy stuff. Usually this silliness is done by a home owner or a "handy" family member like ol' Uncle Bob. Home owners are the brunt of many jokes to do with home repairs and renovations, BUUUUT to be fair professionals are just as often the culprits. What's disturbing about shoddy or unsafe work done by someone who is a professional is they are supposed to know how to do it right. A home owner has at minimum the excuse it's not their regular every day job. Take for example this drain pipe … (15 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Hard To See the End
- 07/26/09 01:44 AM
Competent home inspectors will always attempt whenever possible to get up on the roof. Often it is not the roof or more accurately the shingles that are of interest, but various other areas that require scrutiny. For example masonry chimneys especially need a thorough looking over inside and out. Any penetrations through the roof and associated flashings need to be examined. Seams where the roof and home join are always of importance. And don't forget those gutters. Arguably some of these "hot spots" can be examined from the ground through a pair of binoculars or the edge of the roof. But … (16 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Beer Cans and Electricity
- 07/17/09 03:22 AM
I wonder how many people remember the old drink cans with the pull tab tops. The tab comes completely off the can and has to be thrown away. Anyone old enough to remember that has probably stepped one of those tabs and gotten a nasty cut. Those old cans were made from steel. Then along came the new and improved aluminum can with various types of non pull tab tops. Aluminum has many desirable properties which make it great choice for making cans and many other products. One product it is used to make is electrical wires. Many homes have at … (8 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: Who's That in My Pictures?
- 07/15/09 11:49 PM
I take a lot of pictures during an inspection. Photos are my notes for later when writing the report. Once I get back to the office I down load the pictures and scan through them. So I am sitting at the computer looking through my recent inspection pics and I notice something odd in the photos. I didn't recall seeing this at all during the inspection. But never the less there it was just edging into the photo. Do you see it in the first shot from under the range hood? It looks like a mini hat! I thought that's strange. … (13 comments)
home inspections connecticut ct: The Love of Nails
- 07/14/09 09:33 AM
Installing roofing on a home is basically a pretty simple process. Which may explain why there are so many roofers. This may also explain why bad roof jobs are one of the most prevalent consumer complaints. The roof shingles are the most obvious component of the roof, but what about that shiny metal flashing. Flashings are used to shed and repel water from around penetrations through the roof. Almost without exception every roof is going to have at minimum a plumbing vent and or a chimney. The thing about flashings is they aren't supposed to be nailed. At the very least … (11 comments)
No, no, not that kind of flashers gutter brain. Roof flashers or roofers who put flashings on stuff that pokes through the roof like this chimney. What a fine example of how not to flash a chimney. Man do I wish I owned stock in roofing tar and caulk. I'd be rich contractors use the stuff so much.
;)
;)
;)
