Drainage Nazi, The Remake

Anyone who has ever hung around me on an inspection knows I'm a drainage freak. I have adopted the term "Drainage Nazi".  I hold to this term like a baby monkey holds onto monkey mama; Now lest there be any mistake among us Gringos, Baby Monkeys hold tight - here's why: let go, and you're snake food. The same applies as relates to drainage. 

Here's Why - Again

Clay and water make a train through the kitchen 

So I was at a home in Spanish Fork yesterday. A Realtor friend had called me out to take a long hard look at things in her basement. The drainage pattern in the back yard wasn't what it should have been, and then - a rainstorm. That's all it took. The clay soil washed into the window well, then flowed into the basement kitchen, giving the floor the kind of polish it's never had.

$10 Fix or $10,000 Fix? Pick One
I talk a lot about how home inspection issues can result in a 10 dollar fix, or a ten thousand dollar fix, depending on what you know. This is yet another example of that. A little bit of grading may have done wonders. Instead, now it's time to do mold remediation. The cost of that? Priceless. Somebody's getting a big payday.

But She Can Just Call the Insurance, Right? 

So in this home is a mom, living in the basement of her daughter's place. The daughter lives in an other state. She's "taking care of it'. But this is  no problem, right? Can't she can just call the insurance?

Nope. 

The insurance company told her they think it's not an overland flood, hence, she's between a rock and a hard place. Either she gets to eat this cost which she certainly can't afford, or pass it on to her daughter.

The train continues under the bookcase and rug

Yeah. The daughter who is letting her live there out of kindness. That daughter. Dumping that on your own family would be absolutely inhumane.

The Inevitable Moral of the Story

Drainage can be brutal. If you haven't read my Home Maintenance Guide yet, please do so asap. It can be found at www.homeguidez.com/ebook.htm.  It outlines all the ways you can get hammered by drainage issues, and lets you know how to deal with them. In this case, a simple berm, or swale, could have performed miracles. Don't let this happen to you. 

About Greatness and Its Recognition

So this is a web site about home inspection issues, atrocities and otherwise. Perhaps I can put this one in the wisdom area. It really has nothing to do with home inspections, but much to do with atrocity and wisdom.

I was at a Utah Home Makeover after-party last night - they had great food and a great musician. Dude's name was Stephen Nelson I think. I saw him talking to his girlfriend from behind a keyboard. I am a Jim Brickman fan, so I asked him to play something. He just knew it. Not only could he play Brickman, but he could do it impromptu, never having seen the notes on a sheet.

That was the warmup

As he began to play for the crowd toward the end of the evening, I found that his artistic skills were boundless. He could not only play Brickman, but he did a great Billy Joel and his other stuff had endless heart. He played with the heart that he wrote his stuff with. I was awed by this kid, and his skill in his craft. The dude is already amazing and he's 20-something.

What got me is that only myself and 2 or 3 others really noticed the guy. Of a crowd of 20-30, nearly all just kept yacking - loudly. Kids were flying around the room while this picasso of the piano practiced his masterpieces.

Greatness isn't always noticed

This was my second lesson in greatness recently. The other lesson was very similar, but from both I have learned one clear lesson. Greatness is not always recognized. In fact, it's usually not recognized. Picasso, Lincoln, Moses, any of them could show up as a fat guy in a t-shirt and be largely ignored today - at least by the masses.

Moral of this story

I'm not sure what to take of this. I've been searching for greatness in my own life. Perhaps I learn that greatness in myself or in others is great in itself, and does not need to be validated.

It's definitely more fun to be noticed though.

Fall-through is different than follow-through

So I was working on the Heart2Home project today, and pretty much tired of doing my official duties as volunteer coordinator. While parking my hiney on a chair is something I often do exceptionally well, today I was in the mood for something else.

What? Me Work? 

The projects going on at the time were an addition for Presley's new room (more info about this room at www.heart2homefoundation.org), relocating the power to the home, and stripping off the tar & gravel roof. So I got up on the ladder and went after it. We peeled the roof off like an orange.

Now, I've never been a big fan of tar and gravel because it's one of the most uninspectable roofing types that there is. The whole thing can look great, but if a small area is not covered by the gravel, or somehow becomes exposed, you get cracking. Then you get leaking.

It Happened

The whole roof deck was a mine field of places you couldn't step. Soft deck here, very soft there. Scrambled eggs over there. Stripping off the tar was more than an adventure, because you had to pay lots of attention to where your feet where, and where you put them next. Finally a buddy of mine did it. He went through. No injuries gratefully - except a sizeable assault to his pride.

The Moral of the Story

But here's what I'm getting to. Tar and Gravel? Not Good. This roof had rotted for many years because water was getting in from everywhere. As I do inspections in the future, I plan to relate this story often. The surface may look OK, but there may be minute cracks. Even if they have been covered, there may have been minute cracks, and leaks, and rot, in the past.

Save Yourself from This Terror

If you can avoid tar and gravel on your sloped roof, by all means - do so. It would save me from having to deliver bad news to whoever wants to buy your home.