Having plenty of hot water is not just a convenience, it is considered a necessity in modern homes. However, there are competing concerns related to having plenty of hot water. On the one hand we want to prevent scalding. On the other hand it is a good idea to keep water hot enough to prevent w
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10/30/2014
Once rodents have gotten established in your home, or should we say, once rodents have made your home their home, it can be very difficult to get rid of them. They can make a big mess of an attic or a crawl space resulting in thousands of dollars in clean-up costs. It is not unusual for all of t
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10/29/2014
When your client has a home inspector at their beckon call, it is best to dot I’s and cross T’s. This is even truer if that home inspector happens to be your father or father-in-law. When my eldest son sent me pictures of the completed exhaust fan installation, that was done in conjunction with
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10/19/2014
Much ado about nothing! OK, what exactly are we trying to do now? This installation accomplishes a few things, but I am pretty sure that none of these things are the real reason for the installation. First of all, it took some money out of a bank account or wallet. Secondly, it uses ele
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10/18/2014
Water recirculation loops are very common in homes. They typically have a small pump to recirculate water from the water heater to remote points of use in the home. Waiting for hot water to get to a distant location can consume a lot of water and use of a pump can theoretically be cheaper th
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10/14/2014
Little Miss Dottie She sat on a pottie Eating? No Way! There came a great mouse, Who sat down in her house, And freightened Miss Dottie away! I am not particularly afraid of mice but I do think that this scenario would give most of us a bit of a start, but at least we would be sitting in th
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10/13/2014
I have always commented in my inspection reports on the termination of upper roof drains at lower roof surfaces. The theory is that directing a heavy flow of water in a concentrated area will produce more wear than the rest of the roof will see. This is in fact what will happen. The fast movin
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10/09/2014
It is obvious that there are correct ways to do things and wrong ways to do things when it comes to keeping the elements from entering a building. Primary among the elements we want to keep out is WATER. Simply put, while we may be uncomfortable if air leaks into our buildings or if heat leaks ou
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10/06/2014
The title of this post is the answer to how to eat an elephant. Sometimes the home inspection itself is like that. Even more often however, the inspection report is like that. The other day I had a 7000 square foot crawl space to inspect. For all of you that know and love crawl spaces you will
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10/04/2014
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