It is a good thing taking one’s own blood pressure is not as difficult. One of the first things I do around the exterior of the home is test the water pressure at the first outside faucet I come to. They all get checked eventually. At a recent inspection the first faucet had a pressure of 120
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03/31/2011
There are tons of simple maintenance items around the home that if neglected will cost more to fix than it would if they were regularly maintained. I am not talking about big maintenance items like keeping the house painted or the roof repaired etc. I am talking about the really simple stuff li
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03/29/2011
One day the King called his son, the Prince, to his bedside. “Son,” said the King, “As you know I am dying and soon all of the kingdom will be yours. But first you must find a Princess and marry her.” The Prince knew this would be no easy task as he had already turned down several options the K
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03/27/2011
I have done lots of posts about flashings that seal around the pipes that go through roofs. At a recent inspection there were no flashings at all on any of the pipes. On this roof there were three vent pipes, one electrical mast and one improperly vented exhaust fan---no flashings at all. Ther
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03/26/2011
We all get too many emails. Of course with the recent activerain issues I have not been getting nearly as many as I used to. I would love to see that issue resolved, as I think that it really interferes with the normal “conversations” on our blogs that we have all grown accustomed to. But that
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03/25/2011
Let’s play a game. The home pictured below is a fairly common and normal looking ranch style home in the Seattle area. However, something is not quite right with it. While there are other things that one could point out in the picture, there is one thing in particular that is quite unusual. Reg
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03/23/2011
The Standards of Practice that home inspectors operate under are “minimum” standards. It is important to understand that most home inspectors in order to provide better service to their client will go beyond these minimum standards. Some home inspectors would have the world believe that the ins
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03/19/2011
Inspectors are always playing “detective.” In fact, in some countries detectives are known as “inspectors.” We know the usual suspects. Every home has the usual suspects. They are not always guilty, but we have to check them out none the less. We never want to discover that some crime has been m
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03/14/2011
The Doors had it just about right in their 60’s song of the times. It was not just the drugs and rock and roll----then again, maybe that was part of it. Even in construction we saw things done that could only be described as “strange.” Interior and exterior designs of buildings became popular
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03/11/2011
The first thing I saw when I entered the attic was dozens of little ¾” holes peppering the yellow fiberglass insulation. There were urine stained, and feces studded, trails from many of the holes. I was in mouse heaven. It is nasty enough crawling around in attics, so when they are vermin infes
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03/09/2011