Electric Water Heaters
Electric water heaters come in many sizes and shapes. (I recently found one in a basement of a 1938 home that looks like a washing machine). Most are cylindrical. They all provide years of service and have gotten much better insulated. This alone is a good reason to...
Delta Shower Valve Not Getting Hot Enough
I had 2 new Delta Shower Valves installed by my plumber and the darn things would to get hot enough. Yes there was plenty of hot water available in nearby faucets. The plumber told my client that there must be something wrong with the valve. On his return they told...
Sewage Ejector Pump Problem
I installed a sewage ejector pump in a home I remodeled for myself 15 years ago. I needed it to evacuate the basement water from the laundry and a 3/4 bath. It worked fine for all that time, then it started acting up. It was staying on and not shutting off like it...
Gas Furnace Flame Sensor Fix
The flame sensor was an ingenious solution to a serious safety problem. On a gas furnace, they provide an incredible safety feature when they are working right. When they aren't they become a menace and cause silly service calls. For some reason there seems to be a...
Failing Exhaust Duct work
A client called to report a hot exhaust wall in their bathroom. Naturally fire and Carbon monoxide poison come to mind. The gas water heater exhaust and the 80% furnace exhausts commingle and go up and out of the home in a double walled oval exhaust flu. The home was...
Is My House Toxic?
I have always enjoyed understanding building science and have dabbled in the realm of an amateur of sorts trying to discover what is causing a home to make a resident feel ill when they are inside of it. Being a former Paramedic, I blend my knowledge into a pretty...
Recent Posts
How Come My Water Pressure Is Low?
One of the silliest things I see is when the incoming water line is choked down for a valve then made larger again. What the hell were they thinking? This reduces the volume of available water or gas for that matter. This one goes from 3/4" down to 1/2" then back up...
The Location of Things Matters
I tend to be very observant. I am always on the lookout for a good story. This one got me chuckling. I went to pump down and disconnect an AC compressor from a home that we were going to do a significant remodel to. I noticed that the unit was quite filthy. A filthy,...
New Great Use For A Home Inspection
As I visited with a client that had lived in their home for 20+years. and wants to live out their lives in the same place. As I walked around looking at the overflowing shopping list of to-do's, it dawned on me. Rather than me telling them what needed to be done, that...
My Floor Feels Like A Trampoline
In an effort to make houses as comfortable as possible you set up your stuff and it looks good, some stuff is fragile and you would assume that the floor is stable but we see all sorts of stuff that flys in the face of a solid floor. The Big 3 Questions Turns out...
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