It is kind of obvious if you think about it: Water runs down. So, when protecting against water intrusion, that is the direction it is most likely to be coming in from. Obviously there are times when wind-blown rain might be an issue too. This photo is not unusual. It is the south side of a beac
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08/31/2007
Inspecting log homes is a specialty in itself. In fact, there are specialists in that field. In our region of the northwest, even with mountains and woods there are still not that many of these homes. So such inspections ore only occasional things. A problem with logs is that the pests can love
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08/30/2007
In the Pacific Northwest, where we have so much rain, gutters are a pretty important part of a home. They control the rain and runoff water. Around here, when you see a house without gutters and downspouts there is almost always a big pile of mud under the eaves, caused by the falling water. Mis
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08/29/2007
A common problem in crawl spaces is the plastic vapor barrier being out of place or missing altogether or at least missing in some areas. The photo below is a crawl space that is very damp, as you can see. As a result of that the insulation fell down and that soggy old insulation is the pink you
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08/25/2007
When a home inspector sees crawl space insulation that has fallen, such as this, it usually means one of a couple things. In this case, the crawl space is wet and the moisture has evaporated up into the insulation and it is heavy and no longer supported. The little metal rods that hold it in plac
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08/25/2007
When a home inspector sees tar around the chimney are the vent stacks, or roof vents, it usually means one of two things: The roof leaked there and this was a repair or that the person who did the roof was not a professional and trained roofer. A professional roofer might, on occasion, use tar m
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08/25/2007
Registration is now open for the home inspection training course that will be offered at Bellingham Technical College the end of October. This is a regional class, designed for Washington state, in that a number of students will be coming in from King county, Snohomish county and other areas of
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08/24/2007
Below is a photo of the main breaker at a condo. Inside a condo, people see an electric panel and assume that it is like the main panel inside a home. Usually that is not the case. At condos the panel inside is usually a distribution or sub-panel. The main breaker will be outside by all the meter
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08/24/2007
Metal roofs, over recent years, have developed a good reputation. There is a catch however. The metal roof that is generally considered to be high quality is the standing seam metal roof. This popular roof is durable and has a minimum of exposed screws or fasteners. That catch I described is that
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08/23/2007
The photo below is something seen a lot when inspecting older homes. This is an old galvanized system of drain pipe that is now beyond its useful life. You can see the moisture around the threads and there was water on the vapor barrier -- a conducive condition. Whenever such pipes are seen, one
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08/23/2007
