Drainage drama - when the water don't do you right

Ah, drainage issues. I could write a book about them and still only cover the surface - but really, who wants to read a book about plumbing leaks? I certainly know that I, for one, don't want to be the guy writing it.

So. We'll try to somewhat kinda sorta cover it in a few hundred words.

Basically, and this won't be a surprise to anyone, but there are a few basic rules with inspecting and maintaining your plumbing system. They go something like this:

• Water runs downhill.
• Water that runs downhill that stays in your house causes problems. 

I know this is very technical stuff, and hard to wrap a person's brain around, but with a little study, we can all begin to imagine its ramifications. 

Let's start with exhibit one for the prosecution. Water runs pretty well through pipes, especially when the pipes run downhill, but add electrician's tape to the mix? Yeah, things stop working so well. This is like trying to fix a broken arm using a stapler and screwdriver. And if you're not guilty of this? Well, your grandpa did it. I see it everywhere. Don't. Just don't. 

Exhibit B. Have you ever had one of those real juicy whiffs of sewer smell? I know that stuff in the toilet smells bad when you flush it, but what exactly happens to it to make it so nasty after it's been fermenting in the sewer lines? By the way, those gases not only smell bad, but they're not good for you. If you have sewer smells, look for a trap that might have evaporated water out of it. Or - look for one of these items. Yeah - not good. 

Exhibit C. Leaving the hose on the hose bib during the winter causes problems. What kind of problems? Well, how about a wet basement or crawl space when you turn the hose on in the spring? What happens? Well, the hose freezes in the winter, and freezes the water in the faucet. It freezes back in a ways, but you don't get to find about it until you turn the valve in the spring/summer. Then the water hits the fan and you have a mold problem. $10 fix? This time it's free - keep your hose off the hose bib during the winter. $10,000 fix? Calling the disaster cleanup crew after your basement floods. I advise the first fix. If you have lots of money and don't care, I advise you just do the $10 fix anyway and send the rest ($9,990) to me. I'll put it to good use. 

D. Sewer traps are there for a reason. Do you remember what I said above about the whole sewer smell thing? Yeah. That's why the traps are there - the water provides an air barrier against those sulphur smells. 

Oh and by the way, if you don't know what you're doing? Don't do plumbing. Don't do electrical either. That will certainly result in the $10k fix - or the morgue. Either way, it's not good. 

 Exhibit E: Water heaters don't last forever. Depending on the level of use, on water quality, and whether you're in a construction zone, they generally last from 5 to 10 years. This means that you should check them regularly. Do you see any signs of water stains or corrosion? Don't wait for the flooding event. It may be a free swimming pool in the basement, but they turn out to be very expensive after you pump the water back out. 

And now for a few more plumbing follies: don't do any of the above 

Remember the whole water flowing down hill thing? Yeah - this ain't gonna work too well

Holding 

How to finish your furnace - without doing anything at all

I inspected a house the other day - very nice home in one of Utah's best cities to live. It was one of those million dollar plus sort of homes - the kind that makes you wonder what the guy does. Turns out that this particular breadwinner was really good at buying and selling businesses, but not so outstanding at changing his furnace filter. 

There's a filter in there?

He had been in the home for 7 years, and never thought to consider that there might be a furnace filter in there somewhere. So after 7 years of use on one filter, I show up. I go to the furnace, and there it is - oddly located - about seven feet up off the floor and above the furnace. Needless to say, when I pulled it out, it was a tad dirty. 

The guy was all kinds of embarrassed, but perhaps he didn' t need to feel quite so bad - I see filters in that sort of condition commonly. Maybe once or twice a month. Renters are especially bad at completely forgetting about their furnace until it doesn't work. If you're a landlord, there's something to learn from that - but I won't belabor the point. 

The $10 / $10000 rule

So how does the $10 / $10000 rule work here? This one's pretty obvious. A furnace filter costs a few bucks - I like the cloth ones you can get at home depot or most other hardware stores. Yeah - the 30 day mesh ones are pretty lame - don't use those at all. Ideally, you'll use the 4 inch filters, placed on the side of the furnace so you can get to them easier. 

My experience is that the easier it is to get to the filter, the more often it is that the poor thing gets replaced. 

So why not just leave a filter in there? After all, they cost money, so if you don't replace them, you save money - right? Yeah - no. Here's a couple of reasons why you don't want to do that. 

     1: Efficiency is  all about air flow. Stop the flow, kill the efficiency.

     B: It fills up the combustion chamber, the computer and moving parts with dust - and it ages all of them very rapidly. Filling a furnace with filth is a surefire way to empty your wallet on a brand new furnace. 

      III. It's a good way to kill off yourself and your family. When the burn chamber fills with dust, it causes different parts of the chamber to heat differently. Then things age more rapidly, and you get a crack in the chamber. Then you get carbon monoxide in the home. Then you start buying coffins for those who didn't survive. 

Yeah - that's the $10,000 fix. 

Here's just a few pictures I thought I'd share with you. Got them all at my inspections

watch for corrosion from condensate leaks

Yeah - these filters pretty much qualify as officially nasty

This is what happens when the filter isn't there - or isn't installed properly

No furnace deserves to be abused like this, but here's a promise - it gets even

How to spend the most and get the least from your air conditioner this summer

Summer is upon us: hamburger barbeques, water slides, fireworks and yes, huge cooling bills. As a home owner, you know that the electric bill can make your heart pound like a fresh tin of strawberry pie – but in an entirely different way.

As astronomical as the power bill can get in the summer, most of the cost increase stems from your air conditioning system. Let’s assume for a moment that you feel generous, and wish to contribute to the economy by paying the most you can to cool your home. This way, the electric utility gets more of your money, and well, nobody else benefits. If this is your goal, you can do that in a few, simple steps.

Make sure that your air conditioner compressor is clogged

Your air conditioner needs to collect air from the outer grills and exhaust that air above the unit. To minimize effectiveness, set plants directly against the unit, or within 18 inches of the grills. If plants are there, air can’t move into the grills and the unit becomes much less efficient. This will go a long way toward making your bill skyrocket.

If you would rather not spend the money on plants, you can do the same with weeds. Allow leafy or viney weeds such as crabgrass or morning glory to climb in and around the grills. They can also choke off the grills in a short period. Voila! Job done.

But if you’re not into greenery, you can accomplish the same thing simply by not taking care of the grills. For example, if you have a lot of dust in the air -  or if you have those precious cottonwood trees in your neighborhood – much of the work can be done for you. Just allow the dust and cotton to fill your grills.  Make sure you never wash the grills out – it’s a tempting step and so easy: all you would do is turn off the a/c for a moment when you’re barbequeing, and wash the grills off with the hose. It could be done once or twice a year. Remember: resist the urge. If your goal is inefficiency and high costs, washing off your grills is taboo.

Still another way to make your a/c compressor inefficient is to mash and bend the grills with a hammer, with rocks, or whatever children in your neighborhood may use.  If a large part of your grills are damaged, the job is done: your goal to pay a maximum cooling bill is almost met.

Make sure the furnace is hammered too

You can still do more. Inside your home lies another key part of your a/c system. The furnace takes cold gases generated by the compressor, captures the temperature of those gases and sends the cold air through your home. To thwart this process, there are a few key steps you must take.

Efficient furnaces rely heavily on clean filters. To clean out your wallet of all the money you can, make sure you ignore the filter. Whatever you have, leave it there. Let it get clogged with construction dust, dog hair, smoke and paint spray. After all everyone else is doing it – why be different?

Another advanced method of cash disposal is to go buy one of those cheap 30-day filters and leave it in for years. The nice thing about the really cheap filters is they do a poor job from the beginning, and allow much of the dust to flow right into the furnace.  Buy a 30-day filter.  Then as the godfather would say, “forget about it”.

Another tried and true technique is to place the filter in a position where it won’t do its job. For example, if your filter is laid horizontally, make sure it’s not held in place. It looks good laying there while the furnace is off, but when air flows into the furnace area, this filter will lift like a boat - allowing the air right around, rather than through the filter. This results in a dirty and inefficient furnace, and will certainly help you clean out your wallet. As an added bonus, dirty furnaces age more rapidly. The dirtier you can get your furnace, the sooner you will need to replace it. This will also help the rest of the economy – and destroy yours.
 

Contribute to your own economy

There is another choice. Rather than contribute in this way to the economy, you could contribute to your own. Rather than burn money like marshmallows at a boy scout campfire, take a few inexpensive and simple steps. Keep your compressor clear, your furnace filter clean, and your furnace composed. Excessive heat this summer should be what happens to your barbeque grilled hamburgers – not your home. 

When Birds Build Big

So I was doing an inspection on an older home in Pleasant Grove the other day. As I walked around the home's exterior I noticed a bird perched on the gable vent (you know, that one hole up near the roof on the side of the home) and wondered if birds might be nesting in the attic.

Notice the pile in the middle and the smaller hay piles moving to the left 

 Yeah - I was pretty much right. There was no sign of this happening on the inside of the home, but birds had   pretty much made this attic their own ant hill. I didn't get too close to this bird high-rise because a flock of hundreds of startled birds in a closed space - lit up only by my cell phone and above only sheetrock - didn't sound appealing to me. The movie "The Birds" came to mind - it's an old time movie by Alfred Hitchcock. In its day it was terrifying. The gist of it was that birds attack humans and kill us all. I didn't want to be that movie.  

So I took a pic of both sides of the attic under each gable vent. The one to the south was approximately 12 feet in length, with a tall point of about 4 feet. The other side was more like a pyramid - just a big cone leading to the gable vent, also around four feet high. Much birdage.

Now typically, attics are much too hot in the summer for anything to survive, but if you have a foot or two of hay/twigs/stuff over you, who knows? It might just be slumber time. 

More information on Home Maintenance and Household Hazards at www.crossroadsengineers.com 

Painters, Plumbers, Schmucks and Sorrow

Where the Wild Mold Grows

Mold - when the water source comes from inside the wall

Ran across a beauty today. It used to be a castle - not any longer.

As is often the case during my inspections, I struck up a conversation during the inspection. He said his former realtor had told him "you don't need a professional inspection on this home -  I have a brother in law who is a painter - we should have him do it". 

Now, there are no words for such a - well - genius. At best, he should have his licensed burned in front of him. Perhaps dousing him in lighter fluid and playing with matches might be useful. Perhaps the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used at Guantanamo may change is ways. Thank goodness my client recognized him for the true pillar that he is, and found another realtor. The new guy recommended me.

Mold - when the water source comes through the wall on the floor

A Gold Star for a Good Realtor

So as we went around this home, I wondered what Mister painter might have found. Turns out that the home was a great candidate for meth. We took a sample, but I don't want to go there in this blog - there are other blogs to read that outline what I look for. 

Mold - notice the water line goes higher than the mold line

We got in the basement and noticed that the carpet had been pulled up. Was there water entry from somewhere? I put on my mold sleuth hat, and we went looking. 

Is there a Schmuck's Anonymous? 

After some searching and a little use of gravity, we found that a recently installed tub had some problems. The first? It didn't drain. The second? It did drain, but from a leaking sewer line. The entire contents of the tub had repeatedly ended up in the family room, as evidenced by the mold history.

Conserve Water?

The carpet was so wet it shows the soggy carpet footprints

Now I've heard someone say "Conserve water; shower with a friend". It's an interesting thought, but has some drawbacks. Same with donating your bath tub water to the people in the family room. This carpet was wet enough to show the footprints we had just made! It was swamp time, and there were millions of creatures in that swamp - and growing. 

We've Only Just Begun

Then we find that the water heater was leaking and had caused its own mold problems. It was hidden because the owner had hooked up a hose to the drain - of course he could have fixed the leak, but no. He ran the leak to a drain. Maybe the dude was a painter. I don't know.

Don't use electrical tape to fix plumbing leaks

 Electrician? 

Or maybe he was an electrician, as evidenced by the electrician's tape he used to attempt a leak seal on another ceiling. 

The Good Ol Moral

I guess the moral of this one ain't hard. Get a pro. Whether it's a plumber you need, or an inspector. Otherwise, guys like me will call you a schmuck on the internet - and you'll deserve it. 

Drainage Nazi: Good Gutters Going Ghoul

So where's that water gonna drain to? 

So I actually had a little bit of time today - what a refreshment that was! I got looking through my files and did some organization. Now, I've written about drainage before, but It's always new and refreshing to me! And how could I truly earn the "Drainage Nazi" title if I didn't obsess over it?

The Drainage Nazi: He's Baaaack!

Despite my many rantings, the volume of water that finds its way near America's homes is somewhere between monstrous 

The mother of Utah Lake. Standing water at left center

and humongomucho. As evidence, I give you the mini-lake Utah, found on the side of a home (pic below). Clay soil here - it doesn't drain, except into the basement. And the 1-inch depth of standing water was right there, waiting to make me look like a genius by finding its way right into basement land. 

Drainage into the Window Well: dtw


Let's just say it's common for me to find a condition where water drains toward the foundation or window well. My sweet little macro for one is dtw. The other? Yep. dtf. 
Saves me the pain of having to type out all the letters as I'm doing the inspection.

Is it common? Severely so.


Then there's dsh

Um, weeds growing in the window frame?

How much water are they getting?

Ah, the joys of not having to type out the full sentence. Dsh: don't spray the house.  Now, I see it commonly but you gotta love the photo here: weeds growing in the crack of the concrete under
the window frame? Really? Exactly how much water are we placing on the frame? There are mold and termite remediation companies everywhere that owe their careers to these kind of practices. Oh yeah - and me. It's so easy to look like a genius when I go way out on a limb and predict this kind of stuff. 

How many errors in this picture?  I count, hmmm

Being Highly Recommended Ain't What It Used to Be

Got a call the other day - somebody knew that they had meth contamination in their home so I took off my home inspector hat and put on my meth man mantra. 


The home was in the neighborhood just north of Thanksgiving point. After weaving my way in, I met with the guy and asked him what he knew of the inspector and the way he did his meth testing. I know the guy - he's one of the better inspectors. He said that the guy had come highly recommended. 


Now THAT offends me


From my perspective, I have two titles: the first is "Drainage Nazi", the second is "The guy who comes highly recommended." I was offended. I object to others calling themselves my name - or my official title(s) . It's like they were stealing my social security number or making my dog work nights when I thought he was sleeping. 


So I put my offendedness in my hip pocket and moved forward. As we walked though the house to gage the contamination and assess where best to take the meth samples, I asked where the inspector had tested. The response offended me: the walls? My blog readers are better trained than that! This inspector is somewhat lacking in his "highly recommended" training! 


It would be a Highly Recommended day 


So we check out the basement. Seems that a bedroom window well needed desperately to be dug out and the entire area around it drained into the well. Did the previous dude notice all that? Nay.


Bathing in Urine


We went out to the garage - quite often the smoking occurs out there. There was a heavy smell all right, but not associated with smoking. The place reeked of pet urine. I asked if the previous inspector had identified it as urine or had described what to do about it. The guy was impressed I knew so much on the subject, and his "highly recommended" friend's stock was dropping. 


Furnace Fibers Fray my Face


Then I look at the furnace, because any good CEI blog reader knows that's where to test. The filter was OK, but the furnace blower was covered in a good half inch of dust. I asked if the previous inspector noticed that? You can guess the answer. 


The Revenge of the Highly Recommended 


So I got him a couple of correctly selected samples, based on his thoughts and based on the home's layout. Handed them to him and prepared to leave. I was proud of myself because this guy was now well served. He got the meth samples he wanted, he got much more meth information than he knew he could get, and he got a bonus mini-inspection that slams down the stamp on my title - with emphasis. Gotta love that. The title is mine once more.


So as we were leaving, he walks to his car, but confused. He asks me for the fee for what I'd done. No charge. He's taking it to the lab so I never intended to charge him. 


Now that's highly recommended. I think he'll mention that to his realtor. 

How to Die in Your Home, Part 2

2

Warm air flows uphill. The flue must also go that direction

So I teach a class to realtors on the "fear factor" any press: good old Carbon Monoxide - also known as CO.


Dying Inside the Home: Vissues - you know - meth, mold, radon, asbestos, lead, EIFS etc. It always draws plenty of attention from realtors, and deservedly so - plenty of good deals are lost because someone flips a lid over one of these issues. Funny thing is, based on my experience all of these items put together don't approach the level of risk associated with an item that never gets arious Recipes

Carbon monoxide flows right out the flue,
then back into the home via the swamp cooler
- a very efficient way to die

Now if you want to die, there are a variety of ways inside your home to make it happen. I read an obituary a number of years ago about an elderly lady who hired the cheap roofer. He left his tools up on the roof at the end of the first day. Yeah. Lazy. Things get worse though. He went back the next day, knocked on the lady's door and got no answer. She was dead. It seems that the roofer covered her chimney flue with his tools, and she died in her house that night. 


I have any number of stories as relates to CO. Back in the day, an open hatchback nearly did in my own family. Bottom line is: CO can get you and it needs to be respected. 


America: Land of Innovation

You can't create safe elbows at water heater flues with tape

So when I run into the obvious at home inspections, it always makes me wonder how much people love their own lives, and perhaps the lives of their families. It is no mystery to most of us that flues have carbon monoxide, an that CO is a poison, and that we should get the stuff out of the house. Yet the innovative ways we use to keep the stuff in the home are fascinating. 


The Moral of this Morbid Story



Here's the thing: if flue air wants to rise, and it's poisonous, it should be allowed to rise right on out of the house. Making the warm air flow downward in the flue? Not a good plan if staying alive is the goal. Using tape instead of a ductwork elbow? Hmmm. Sucking the poisonous gas back into the home via the swamp cooler? Cheaper than a bad divorce. 


But if you love your family and you'd prefer that they stick around awhile and take care of you when you're old? Well, it'd be a real good idea to make sure that stuff leaves the home - and stays out.  

Meth, meet Methuselah

So after doing a few meth cleanups and identifying a number of meth homes lately, I've begun to think that I'm one of the best - if perhaps not the best - meth inspector in the State. This could have something to do with the fact that I'm one of only two inspectors on the Utah State meth specialist list. Guess all I gotta do is beat that guy. 

It Might Look Like Kansas, But...

So I was in a house the other day, and amidst everything else, was mentally checking off the place for meth. Now typically, a meth house will have certain identifying features. You might have read in a previous blog how door frames can indicate one sign of meth. I'm starting to believe that nobody knows that but me.  And now - you. There are other signs of potential meth contamination, i.e. dirtyness, etc. 

But This Had None of Those Signs

I'm a professional pessimist. It makes me a good inspector. You know, you get into one of those old homes and you look for the signs of meth. This home had none of 'em. None. Why? Because it had been very recently remodeled. So my twisted brain starts twisting: why would they remodel? To sell it, or because the place was trashed from the meth lifestyle? 

Dr. Amazing Strikes Again

So with 0, count em, zero, signs of meth use in this home, my meth flag is up. I recommend a meth test. Some thought I'd fallen off the deep end. Of course I wouldn't be telling this story if it hadn't turned out like I'd suspected. Just got the result back today: meth use. 

I was able to council the client as to what the number meant, and how to address this issue with the bank. The deal went forward, and everyone is grinning. Love it when things go that way...

Could Grandma Really be THAT twisted?

Gotta love home inspections. Every time you think you've seen everything, something else comes along.


It's no secret to many of my old time clients that I have a 70's phobia. That was my decade. I remember thinking in high school that we were so "normal", and nobody could make fun of us like we did the 50's. How wrong was I? Let's just say me and Nevill Chamberlain (British dude who thought he could make peace with Hitler) are buddies. Galactically, astronomically wrong. Wrong like my dog who runs off when I call him and wants a treat for it. Wrong like a guy who's driving with his wife in the car. That kind of wrong. 


People Did Stuff in the 70's.


Sometimes I'll mention my phobia of the 70's to buyers, and they'll raise an eyebrow or two and ask why: Weird stuff just happened back then. We were all apparently high on grass. Not the drug; just grass - the stuff that comes flying out of the lawn mower.

Swag up that shower, Grandma

We invented lead and asbestos in the 70's. We invented shag carpet. We invented psychedelic colors and bare foot footprints walking up walls in our home. We invented aluminum wiring and a toilet paper shortage. Yep. I remember it all because I was a gangly non-stoner. It was brutal.


Grandma! Wrong! 


But to add to the psychotic remnants of the 70's, we have swag lighting. I took this shot at a recently completed home inspection, and thank goodness for modern photography! I'm not sure that 1000 words would be enough to describe all that is wrong in this picture. 


Asbestos puncturing, electrical shock issues, rust and most of all, tortured aesthetic rules are being shattered like a big psychedelic bus blasting through a glass building! Perhaps grandpa had something to swag about. I don't know, but I'm proposing a new bureau: the aesthetics police.This kind of atrocity must never happen in civilization again. 

Meth Education You Don't Get In School

This One's Beautiful


So I was called out to a known meth contamination home today. This one's in Sandy. The home was in a middle class neighborhood - it was about 2000 sq feet and I'd say it was built in the mid 90's. As I walked in, I realized that some of the signs I look for were not in this home. Others were.


I noticed that the carpet and drapes had all been ripped out. Apparently someone before me had tried to do a cleanup and failed. I'm certain that's because they did the wrong set of things, but that's a blog for another day. 


This Ain't Book Larnin' Bessie


As I looked around, I noticed the "messy" factor was there, despite the gutting the home had received. Check. That's a meth flag. Then I noticed something that I'd seen in other meth homes. 


 Are You Ready for a Secret? 


Door frames. The books tell you to look for messiness, for stains, for poor maintenance. Then experience teaches you to to look double careful in the low end homes and the foreclosures. More meth there. But now? Door frames. At this home and at some of the other meth homes I've cleaned up, we've had door frame damage. This fits very nicely with the profile. 


I know a guy who used to be a tweaker. The stories he tells about what he did to people while high will curl your hair - that is if your hair started straight. If your hair is already curly, let's go with Afro. 


In any case, let's just say that meth users get emotional. Angry. Livid. Raging psychopathic conflagrations of, well, you get the idea. 


Looking at a House? 


So next time you're looking at a home and you see that a door frame has been pounded, show everyone how intelligent and street smart you are. Think Meth. Then, test it or call me and have me test it. Your husband / wife / clients will think you're amazing and love you forever. 

Nothing Cool Rhymes With Carbon Monoxide

When attempting to come up with something that's readable, it helps to rhyme, or have some pithy phrase. BTW, who invented the word "pithy" anyway? It's an awkward word. 

Flue isn't even above the water heater exhaust

Carbon Monoxide: Not Good 


I've run into a few good Carbon Monoxide (CO) stories lately. Some schmuck lawyer landlord thinks that because his property's CO reading wasn't zero, it must be OK. The dude may sue me for having a problem with a continuous inflow of poison gas into his apartment - who knows. In any case, pretty sure here that Carbon Monoxide ain't cool. I'll trade threats of lawsuit for those girl's lives. The girls win, lawyer man. 


Interesting Words

See how the flue attachments show an air gap at the wall?

But I've run into a plethora (now that's a good word) of other pithy CO issues recently. A home just a couple of days ago had a water heater that failed to have the flue covering the exhaust. What does that mean? It means that the CO-poisoned air now goes into the living space - not up the exhaust. 


And in Other Developments


Then there's this picture. In this shot (at right) we have a very poor seal between furnace/water heater flue and the chimney flue. Guess where that poison gas gonna go? You betcha. Right into your toddler's lungs. 

Exhaust out the flue, then back into the home via swamp cooler. Artistic.

And That's Not All


I have plenty of stories about raccoons nesting in chimneys. That's a story for another day, but this one's new: How about the chimney being blocked by pigeons? Yep! 


A realtor told me about how he popped his head up a chimney only to discover a few pigeons. Some of these pithy pigeons were live, some dead. Add the obligatory pigeon poop and eggs, and we have a pigeon omelete in the chimney. After you're done with that thought, here's the next: if the CO can't leave the living space, it stays.



The Inevitable Pithy Moral


I've been learning recently that some of the most obvious statements can be the most meaningful if you look under the hood. That said, here's an obvious statement: don't mix CO and your family. I've may have saved some folks' lives recently, and sure am grateful that they opted into choosing an inspection. For the rest of you that are not selling your home? Do me a favor and go take a look at your water heater/ furnace connections. I'll sleep better if you do.