Robert Butler, Montreal, Canada Home Inspector

Pointe-Claire 100th Anniversary Celebration - Pointe-Claire Days

It's 100 years since the incorporation of Pointe-Claire as a city. And the city is having a bash this weekend. Most of the activities will be in the Village. This is the original area settled, locally called the Pointe-Claire village and is actually 300 years old as a settlement.

This is the announcement flyer put out by one of the merchants in the village. The merchants association is actively participating in and promoting the event as well as a volunteer citizens committee (That's actually been organizing this since 2009.)

Saturday the street will be closed and filled with antique cars. The nearby park will be filled with children's activities and amusements. A band stand will be erected and there will be a variety of performers all day. The swimming pool will be open (free) and there will be pony rides in the afternoon. Fireworks will begin at nine PM.

That's only Saturday, it really begins Friday afternoon and evening, and finishes up Sunday afternoon.

For the full itinerary and all the event locations as well as the shuttle bus stops, go to the city website main page and Click on the Pointe-Claire Days Programme .

Don't miss all the fun or the Smoke Meat Pete's specials.

Know what you are looking at? Easy, Read the signs, Follow them!

DO you know?

Well there's a couple of my foot prints there in the attic floor insulation.

But there's more. A lot more. All over the place.

They aren't individual tracks like mine. No, they are pathways for much smaller feet.

And here they are roads well traveled. They are more compressed and well defined. These two around the stud in particular.

That's because this is the only direct route to the other side of this wall, to the addition section of the home.

But fainter, less traveled paths are visible too.

In fact they are everywhere.

And here, on the other 'side' of the wall, they are just as abundant.

The route around the chimney is well traveled too, as I'm sure this area is toasty warm, in season.

Oh! Didn't I mention that!

This is the off season for these itinerant travellers.

Travellers, well I should say foragers.

They come here only to seek food and shelter in the cold season.

Now in the summertime they are out doors, feeding and doing there thing, mostly at night as they are nocturnal.

But they can be found by day if you keep an eye out for them.

But if you really want to see them, lots of them, well just come back here in the fall.

It'll be like a convention!

What are they? You might have guessed by now. They have several names that generally depend upon where you meet them.

They are most commonly known as field mice, but if you encountered them in the space over your head you would be talking about 'mice in the attic'.

Here it's a lot of mice in the attic. They've been coming here for a long time,(they have reservations!). And they know how to get here. They have easy access.

So if you want to be sure that your seasonal guests have invitations, you want your inspector to have the experience to read the signs and know what has been going on, even when it's not happening now.

So when you are looking at, or investing, in a home or property you want your inspector to be able to correctly 'read the signs'.

For the Montreal or the surrounding area you know who to call.

Telegraphing - Not just the original text messaging system.

Calling it the original text message system is a very apt description in todays world, but long before 'text messages' as we know them today appeared, to telegraph had another meaning.

To reveal underlying or hidden conditions that are not directly visible, often through solid materials like these shingles; thats telegraphing the surface below.

In the photo on the left I've used red lines to show the information that is being telegraphed through the roof shingling. The photo on the right is the original. Note the screwdriver that has been placed to illustrate the parallel lines that are being telegraphed through this material.

But you have to know your "Morse Code" to read the message. In this case my training as an inspector and knowledge of construction technology, and it's history, allow me to translate the message.

In this case heat and gravity have moulded the shingle materials to closely follow the sheathing underneath. Here the shingle layer is one layer thick and has been installed directly on the board sheathed roof.

The 'lines' that you can 'see' are slight ridges that mirror the edges of the boards. They are sharply defined so that tells me that roofing paper, if present is very thin and certainly no ice and water shield membrane in this area.

Here you see the view from the inside.

The boards used for the sheathing are clearly visible and the cement on them reveals that they were first used on the forms of the poured concrete walls. (A common economical practice of the pre-plywood era.)

You can also see the loose fill - blown-in insulation and that it has fully blocked the rafter bays lower than this level (ceiling).

This causes higher heat build up in the shingle areas where we see the telegraphing detail. Higher areas on the roof do not show as much telegraphing as they've been cooler and have experienced less heat moulding to the shape of the underlying boards.

So when you are looking at, or investing, in a home or property you want your inspector to be able to correctly 'read' the building.

For the Montreal or the surrounding area you know who to call.

Hello HAIL hole ? Heck no hail hole, that's one of three.......... what?

Have a look at this hole, looks like an impact puncture from this angle. Hence the 'hail' in the title. But if hail did this 'damage' there would be lots of other impacts as well. Then I found another one (2nd photo) ;

And this second one was similar but had a new wrinkle;

Now this one has a debris 'bulb' strainer, the type normally used to keep leaves and other junk out of the drains for flat roofs. This roof is definately not flat and needs no drains here, right?

You can also see what probably is flashing under the shingles at that tab slot below the 'hole'. So it's not likely to be impact damage, it was intentional.

So what is it?

Well , though I had a good idea about it,the mystery was solved when I got to see the attic side of things;

Well this is what you see from the attic side, and it's no impact hole, hail or other wise. Neither is it a roof drain, though it will drain a few square inches of the zone immediately above it (them, remember there are three.).

What they are is plumbing stacks (vents) for the 5 bathrooms/powder room and kitchen of this large home.

The good news is that there are no leaks in this very non-standard installation. (so far)

Look closely at the copper parts. You can see that there are 2 sections. The top one is sleeved into the lower one (very tightly) and it has a soldered seam facing us, the 'up-hill' side. That's because it is not a pipe section.

It is a flashing boot that has been installed up side down.

Here is a similar product made in galvanized metal and available at Home Depot and other hardware suppliers;

This is a modern galvanized version of ther same thing.

This is meant to be installed uptight on the surface of the roof with the plumbing stack pipe coming out the opening and extending up to at least 18" above the roof.

The edge where the pipe comes out can be sealed but a better treatment is a counter flashing sleeve extending down from the top of the pipe to a point a few inches below that joint.

The top of the sleeve has a smaller opening than the pipe diameter, which works fine for it's function of letting in air, but it restricts rain and incidental debris entry.

The top of the flashing base gets tucked under the upper shingles and the lower end is meant to be on top, just like it was a shingle itself. That's how it's designed to work.

So these three holes on this roof are incorrectly installed amateur or non-professional work. The materials have been used inventively but incorrectly.

The only saving grace is that the work was done carefully enough so that there have been no leak problems to date.

But there have been problems. I asked the house keeper who was present at the time of the inspection if the drains made noise or here slow to drain. Yes to both symptoms was the answer.

I then asked if it was worse under heavy rains and through the winter snow season? She said Yes, how did you know that?

The answer is of course is that's when those roof 'holes' are blocked with snow, leaves or taking in high volumes of rain water, so the 'stacks' can't draw air to allow the drains to operate and run freely as they should.

The roof shingle surface is new and in good shape. But the flashings do not lap over the lower shingle courses so sometime in the next few years water will be getting under those shingles, risking damage to the roof below those 'holes' and of course eventually admitting water to the homes interior.

How many real estate professionals who are not inspectors would identify this condition and recognize the problem and realize that correction is required? How many homeowners and buyers?

There is no book or course out there that will explain any mistakes, errors or 'inventive' details that may be found. You need experience working for you. You need analytical thinking applied to your inspection., not just a check list.

When you are looking at, or investing, in a home or property in the Montreal or the surrounding area you know who to call.

WARNING: Your TV may be too small! (Or too far away!)

Disclaimer: Not responsible for readers who buy larger TV from reading this article.

The local power utility here in the Montreal area puts out a monthly newsletter, to all it’s billing clientele, that encourages good electrical habits and recommends energy saving measures, as well as promoting energy star rated appliances.

In one of the recent newsletters they discuss the relative size of TV screens. Basically the bigger the screen the more energy it uses. And that’s about what you’d expect.

However they go on to give you a formula to calculate the optimum size relative to the distance it’s normally viewed from. This is where it gest interesting.

The formula is; Viewing distance (D) divided by 2.5 equals the recommended size (S).

So D/2.5=S , or S=D/2.5

That would mean for example; If you normally sat 8 feet away then you divide 8 feet (96 inches) by 2.5 and the screen size should be 38”.

You can apply the formula to any location or usage, and use any system of measure; feet, inches, meters, centimeters, etc.. TV’s are normally measured on thediagonal of the screen.

So you can also input the screen size and determine the correct distance to place furniture. S= D/2.5 . A little application of high school algebra converts this to; D = 2.5 S. or S (size) times 2.5 = the viewing distance.

This means, for example, that a 30 inch screen should be viewed from 75 inches away (on average). That's only 6' 3".

Now this is where the world appears to split in two.

There are two camps; The (S) size group and the (D) decorator group.

(S) Group: Those who determine the TV is nor big enough and want to buy a larger unit. This group seems to have more men and teenagers.

(D) Group: The second group interprets this as reason to rearrange the furniture, redecorate or even relocate the TV. There is a greater number of women in this camp.

SO which group are you in? Is your TV too small? Or is it too far away?