Charles Buell, Seattle, WA, Home Inspector

One of the spin-offs from the energy “crisis” of the 70’s was an increased interest in wood burning stoves and fireplace inserts. Wood burning stove companies, like Vermont Castings and Jotul, were literally resurrected from the terminal disease of disinterest. Efficiencies were greatly improved----including reductions in pollution emissions, making the units even more attractive. It also fit in with many people’s interest in a return to “basics” and romantic notions of wood burning. Another thing that gave these heating units a push was the advent of factory built insulated metal chimneys. These chimneys allowed for the stoves and fireplaces to be installed just about anywhere because the weight of bulky/expensive masonry chimneys did not have to be factored into the equation.

Some of these chimneys were what are called “triple wall” chimneys in which air brought from out-doors circulates between the layers to keep the outer layer cool enough to be close to wood structures. These chimneys have a stainless steel inner liner with the outer two layers being galvanized steel. These chimneys are vulnerable to the same aging issues associated with any galvanized materials that are exposed to the elements and have a much shorter life expectancy than their more expensive cousins that were constructed (usually) of two stainless steel layers and the space between was filled with insulating materials----originally asbestos.

Both of these types of pipes had very specific installation requirements. Proper clearances to combustibles needed to be created and maintained. It is common for problems to occur when these clearances are not maintained and the surface of the pipe is allowed to overheat.

As a builder I had a very real and very scary “learning moment” of my own regarding what can happen if these clearances are not maintained. Often this pipe is run in chases within the walls of the interior of the home until it exits through the roof. Baffles in the attic are installed to prevent insulation from coming in contact with the pipe. Care has to be taken to keep debris and insulation from getting into the baffle space as well as into the space around the pipe where it is concealed inside the wall.

One day as I left the job site and headed off to the lumber yard to get materials, I looked in my rear view mirror to see black smoke billowing out of the soffit vents above the clerestory windows----kind of like what the oven looks like when turkey catches on fire. It did not take a rocket scientist to know what had happened. Somehow there had been a breach of the enclosure around the pipe and the chase had filled up with blown-in cellulose fiber insulation.

My workers thought I had a usual screw loose as I came roaring into the house and up the stairs. At the base of the chimney chase, the drywall was too hot to touch and the drywall screws were melting the paint. Whoops. Fortunately there was no actual “fire” in the sense of flames. The cellulose fiber, while being the unwitting accomplice in the problem, was doing a good job of containing the smoldering and preventing the whole chase from going up in flames----which in all likelihood would have destroyed the home. After we tore off the drywall, it was a fairly simple matter to remove the smoldering insulation and hose down the charred framing of the chase. Several of the studs were completely turned to charcoal at the base of the wall. This was the closest I ever came to losing a house during construction. (I had another one where I could not get to the house for a month because the area was off limits due to a raging forest fire---but that is another story.)

The event has made me very pro-active when it comes to evaluating homes that have this type of chimney installed. Many of them can not be inspected at all due to being concealed in chases. As these chimneys age, it behooves anyone buying a home with a metal chimney (or any kind of solid fuel chimney for that mater) to have them carefully and invasively inspected by a qualified chimney sweep.

Take a look at the cap on this 1981 metal chimney.

It is difficult to see in the picture, but the spark arrestor/vermin screen is badly deteriorated and there are obvious holes through the top of the cap. At the very least this cap will need to be replaced. This next picture was taken looking up through the chimney from the fireplace. All those white spots are holes through the cap.

I often have buyers ask me, “So, how does the inside of the chimney look?” I think you can see from this picture why that question is very difficult to answer within the context of a home inspection and why having the chimney professionally cleaned and evaluated is important. It is impossible to tell much of anything about this flue other than it needs cleaning, there are holes in the cap, and there are no birds or bees nests in the pipe.

This next picture shows a pipe connection visible in the attic that did not get put back together properly when the roof was replaced. Discoloration from where smoke has entered the attic at the gap is obvious. At least this connection was visible in the attic. It would not be so visible inside a chase.

One solution to a lot of these aging installations is to convert the chimneys to gas fired stoves and fireplaces. Here is a picture of a chimney that has been re-lined and capped for a new gas fireplace insert.

Crude but hopefully effective-----all of that caulking will at the very least need considerable maintenance----or perhaps a more appropriate adaptor to the smaller pipe liner would be a better long term solution. Removing the original chimney below the roof line would be a better solution and let the new vent come through the roof on its own----but this would require some patching of the roof.

Charles Buell

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DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

Siding materials need proper clearances between finish grade and the siding.

This is not just to prevent damage to the siding-----it serves a couple of other functions as well. It prevents access to wood structures behind the siding by wood destroying insects or damage from water that might get trapped behind the siding.

More importantly it allows for inspection of the area. In other words inspectors can see what type of foundation is there, whether flashings are there and whether insects are moving into the structure behind the siding.

I dare say that in most parts of the country there is some reason to follow these principles----not just the wet North West.

I have had builders tell me that if the siding can’t be damaged by water, that there is no problem with bringing the siding right down to the ground. While it is possible to design a wall cladding that could get away with this approach-----as a general rule it is not a good idea, and proper clearances are required by the building codes. At a recent inspection I was fortunate to get perhaps the most perfect example of why the builder’s logic is not sound.

Take a look at the concrete patio in the following picture. Notice how the patio is poured right up to the house and the siding comes right down to the patio. This in vinyl siding and is in no danger of being damaged by water. However, as an inspector I can not tell what is behind this connection. Flashings? Concrete? Treated wood? Untreated wood?

The point is----who knows?

This next picture was taken in the crawl space. The entire rim joist was bug infested and rotted away over the whole length of the patio connection with the house.

The grey color visible in the picture is the back side of the vinyl siding.

Maintaining good clearances between finish-grade and siding materials of all kinds is crucial to preventing this kind of damage. In most cases it doesn’t make any difference whether the siding is wood, vinyl, aluminum, stucco or brick.

Charles Buell

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

Every once in a while I get a call to do an inspection on one of the islands in the Puget Sound. I always enjoy these little road trips----even though it generally means I have my work cut out for me in terms of the inspection. You see work done on homes on the islands often (especially older homes) do not come under the same degree of scrutiny by building departments as their mainland cousins----especially jurisdictions of large metropolitan areas. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they don’t come under any jurisdictional control at all---at least in years gone by.

Often repairs to these structures are likely to reflect both the personality traits of rugged individuality and independence, as well as reflect the necessity for the repairs that would not fit the time-frame of bureaucratic meddling.

My approach to these road trips is to treat them like little working vacations and to take in some of the sights----as long as I am going to shell out the big bucks for the ferry ride-----as well as the fact that it is going to kill my day time-wise anyway.

For a recent inspection on Vashon Island, WA, I packed up the ATV, threw the kids & the boat in the back-----and headed off to the ferry!

You don’t need to know “Jack” about the inspection to appreciate this post. Instead I will focus more on the “Road Trip” part of the trip.

All of the islands of the Puget Sound are famous for their eclectic mix of personalities, and has always been a haven for artists, organic farmers and other social misfits (being an organic farmer in the past and an artist myself, I can get away with this analogy; and consider myself a misfit of the highest order). These eccentric tendencies almost always spill over into the houses they live in. Sometimes, for some, it would appear that all that is necessary to do proper repairs and construction is their independence and a chain saw. Other times it shows tremendous skill and inventiveness.

On this trip I decided I was going to find that illusive and infamous bicycle that had reportedly been eaten by a tree many years ago. As I headed into town, a jogger was approaching and I pulled over and rolled down my window. They continued to jog in place while they enthusiastically gave me detailed directions as to where I could find the famous bicycle. “You drive right into town. Just before you get to the third stop light----the woods will come to an end----and that is where it is. Just walk along the edge of the woods----you can’t miss it.”

Well, she was right----I felt like I was trespassing, because it isn’t marked like one would expect of such a famous historical landmark. You have to hop across a creek by stepping on a hunk of wood stuck in the middle of the creek and there you are----at the bicycle in the tree.

If you look really close you can see where the end of the bike’s pedal is sticking through the bark. The story goes that someone placed the bike in the crotch of the tree and over the years the tree has grown around it.

It would be consistent with island life that someone did it on purpose as an artistic statement.

Charles Buell

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

One of Bill Cosby’s most famous stand-up comedy acts was called “Noah.” I am not going to recite the whole monologue and if you want to hear it you can find it here: Noah. It is a little long---but funny as all get out. You see, Noah is building the Ark and his neighbor comes over and wants the pile of wood out of his driveway so that he can go to work. Noah is being secretive and won’t tell him what he is building and the neighbor wants to know if Noah can at least give him a hint. Noah says, “You want a hint? I’ll give you a hint----how long---can you tread water?”

This brings me today’s post about hydraulic jacks. While the connection between Noah and hydraulic jacks may be hard to imagine, I promise there is a connection----of sorts. You see, hydraulic jacks work on the principle that when you pump them up, oil is pumped into a cylinder under the piston through a one way valve which causes the piston to move up and be “uplifting.” Now---as long as that one way valve does not leak, whatever you lifted will stay lifted. If the valve starts to leak-----things can tumble down or at least get all cattywampus.

In my most recent crawl space adventure there were five of these jacks holding up the house so that a new foundation could be poured under one side of the home. It had been this way for several years----symbolic of someone’s dream gone awry---or at least out of money. These five jacks have been “treading water” pretty well, for a long time----how much longer is anyone’s guess.

All bets are off when all the beasts of the world----two of a kind----both male and female, start to party in the house.

Charles Buell

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

Since most people already consider crawl spaces to be “BIG BLACK HOLES,” it will probably surprise most of my readers (considering my reputation for loving the “adventure” of crawl spaces) that the thing that gets me the most “unglued” in there is: holes.

Especially the big black bottomless type.

For me, there is nothing more un-nerving than to be feeling my way across the plastic ground cover and feel “NOTHING” under the plastic.

Water under the plastic----feeling like a giant waterbed-----is not uncommon and that is fairly simple to deal with. You either back up and leave----or you go around it.

It is those holes you come upon that seem like “Black Holes” in your crawl-space-universe----until you peer over the edge with your flashlight and discover snarling vermin, the ground only inches away or water 20 feet down. The water-20-feet-down type holes----as in abandoned wells---CAN FREAK YOU OUT!!! Yup!

Other types of holes are: abandoned septic tanks with collapsed covers; abandoned cisterns full of junk automobile parts, water, and rat carcasses; abandoned basements full of old water heaters and bug infested furniture; and, holes created where stumps have rotted away.

I just love that feeling of adrenalin as I visualize being swallowed up by any one of these versions of holes.

Another type of hole is where with every knee placement-----with every hand placement-----the ground underneath collapses 2-3 inches. This happens when the top layer of dirt is riddled with rat tunnels. These kinds of holes you get used to, but they can FREAK YOU OUT at first----but not as much as the ones you think might be “bottomless.” I am just grateful when the rat tunnels are covered with plastic to minimize the mold and asbestos-laden dust that would otherwise billow up around you.

The following picture was from a crawl space at a recent inspection.

Even when you can see them ahead of time, they can still be unnerving, because you still don’t know how deep they are and you don’t know if it is hollow under where you are laying----but just hasn’t collapsed yet!

Fortunately this one was only good for a small adrenalin rush.

I know that there really is no such thing as a bottomless pit, but it really doesn’t have to be very deep to represent a difficult scenario for the “Search and Rescue” crew------assuming of course you remembered to fall into the hole with your cell phone.

I think my worse nightmare would be falling though the cover of an old hidden septic tank full of raw sewage, drowning my cell phone, if not myself.

This IS the REAL reason they pay us the big bucks.

Charles Buell

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.