Robert Butler, Montreal, Canada Home Inspector

A Man's Home Is His Castle, Right?

Well that's the old school way of saying it. Saying "One's home is ones' castle" may be grammatically and politically correct (gender neutral, for all that.) But it doesn't 'ring' true. Doesn't sound right.

So, I say 'a man's home is his castle'.

While for a few days there have been these runes painted on the street and sidewalk outside my 'castle'.

Yesterday I came home to a 'moat'.

There were barricades and the whole sidewalk was gone, with a six foot wide trench where the sidewalk and curb used to be. That's definitely a moat in terms of urbanites who don't want to get their shoes wet.

Today we came home to see the new sidewalk formed, poured concrete and draped in wet burlap. There was a guard on duty too. He complained about the dogs walking on the fresh cement and got out his trowels to smooth out the tracks.

He was actually the cement finisher, part of the crew that pours the cement, who stays around to control the curing with the burlap covers and water and to trowel it smooth at critical degrees of hardness known only to those with the experience.

You can hire them and they do the job perfectly but they can't tell you how they know 'when'. It's just experience.

To get to each property they'd laid a steel scaffold deck to walk across over the wet cement moat at each driveway, for all intents and purposes a 'drawbridge'.

They say when they finish the curb, they're going to rip up the whole street and replace it. So it looks like we'll be barricaded in here for a long siege.

Is this mans home his castle?

It's beginning to feel like it.

I just don't know what to do. I mean, should I sign up for that archery course or light the fires under the cauldrons of oil.

Chess anyone? Backgammon?

Just A Handful Of Nails? On A Million Dollar House?

Yup! A handful of nail is the answer to "what's holding the deck on?"

That's pretty shocking on a building valued at a million plus. The nails are Ramset type, a heavy duty concrete nail that is shot into place with a 22 cartridge. They are thick and hardened to do this but they are not for permanent use out doors. The will and are rusting.

They are not made to transfer weight, and certainly not live loads like people walking on decks. They are made to attach wood framing to concrete but the framing (vertical) parts are supposed to carry the weight.

In the photo above the ledger is 'shot' on to the brick. This is not a brick wall. It's a wood framed wall with a single facing layer of brick (called veneer) on the outside. So if lateral (sideways) forces move this building (earthquake) there is a real risk the ledger will be pulled from the wall, collapsing the deck. (The bricks will just come with it.)

The 2x4 support blocking show above that has been placed to stiffen and support the deck ledger. It has only 2 nails in the concrete. The difference between that an a pair of cinch anchors or through blots is huge and they can be had galvanized or in non-rusting alloys.

The other thing to take note of here is that it's only the edge/end of 2x4 pieces (several along the length) that reinforce the the ledger. Lateral movement of only 1.5 inches means the deck will fall.

The photo below is the doubled beam the supports the outer half of this deck. Structurally for weight transfer everything is good but there are some issues.

In this part of the continent we are averaging earthquake shock roughly every five years. This can't be predicted of course and they aren't major, usually less than 5.0 on the Richter scale.

That's nothing like what the west coast experiences and most people don't even notice. But your house does.

So the issues are;

A The bracket on the concrete support is small and hasn't much grip on the beam. There are 4 small screws holding it and they are less than an inch from the edges of the wood beam. Gravity is doing the rest. There is some surface rust to be taken care of (rust paint).

B There is no blocking or bracing to prevent this beam from rolling over. This can easily be done with wood or metal parts. A few years ago here in Quebec a roof collapsed on a commercial building and employees were killed. Investigators found that the trusses did not fail or break, they just rolled over and collapsed. Bracing was mostly absent.

C The deck joists have no blocking or x-bracing (at the mid span) so they will be a bit bouncy under live load (people) and also risk rolling over.

Just picture a bunch of partying friends line dancing to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and all 'jumping to the left' in unison. Not the 'smashing' party you want to envision.

Now this is not an emergency. Things will hold together for a while but it needs to be corrected and it wont cost a lot, but on a million dollar house, it should be there.

So when you need a full inspection......................

E-plaid? Is It The Trend Leader? Email Has Defined Snail-Mail. Is E-Plaid the Same?

You know what plaid is, right? Those patterns championed by the Scotts. Defining clans and families.

Well that may be so but most of us hear 'you not wearing that today!' when we put on that nice plaid shirt given(birthday, xmas) to us by ___ (older gen family relation) . Unless of course you live in a real life version of the set of "Men in Trees".

Nevertheless I believe I've been inspired by this electrical vision for the latest fashion e-plaid;

So here's my inspiration for the new e-plaid; multilayered vibrant reds, blacks, whites and silver crisscrossing over a tan background. Could this not become the latest e-tartran fashion.

Are the colours not vibrant, especially with all that 'electricity' flowing through them.

Why the impedance alone has to get you all 'charged' up.

Just don't pass your credit card near this. the magnetic fields will erase those digits six ways from Sunday.

Don't Do As I Do, Do As I Say!............... Don't open the electrical panels. That's my job (or your electricians). We have the training, but there is always a degree of risk. So don't open your panels! Period.

Around here the electrical utilities normally lock-out the larger voltage switching and bus bar panels. They do this for a reason. Higher voltages are dangerous. There is no serge protection and arcing potential is high. (That means sparks baby!, You'se don't want no sparks.!)

The lock-out devises are simple one-use wire and plastic things with the utilities logo in them. If they've been opened you can't fake it and put them back on. They (The utility company, the electrician, and the inspector) are going to know. So those panels are meant to be left alone.

But if the tags are opened or gone, or lying on the floor, I will (very carefully) take a peak, just to ensure nothing's wrong. Usually all is fine, but imagine what I thought of this:

Where that pencil is, that's where the lock-out tag should be, hymmm.

So as you can imagine I had a look?

Well this is what I saw:

I may have said "Oh f....." out loud, but I took a picture and closed it back up.

Why? , Because this is what you should expect to see in a switch panel of this type;

Yeah, cartridge fuses that have big thick solid metal contact bars which in conductivity are very nearly the same as the metal in those big black wires that you see there.

But in the other switch panel behind the pencil closer, those are thin pieces of metal corner beading used by the drywall carpenters to create perfect corners on joint taped gyproc walls.

They are not electrical components! They are scraps from construction that should not be in an electrical panel. You might as well have used a piece of a tin can!. That metal is thicker.

There is a piece of wire, as single strand, tucked inside it to make it thick enough to be held by the fuse contacts. this does not equal the load capacity of the supply and load wires (big black ones) entering and leaving the switch box.

What does that mean. It means when there is a demand load on this service these pieces of metal are going to get hot. Maybe really hot. Maybe they could start a fire hot.

So I said "Oh Frozen" NOT.

I said " Oh, Further investigation required by a qualified master electrician! " and then took my photo and closed the cover.

In this case it is not an emergency because further on the load side the power is split into two smaller switch boxes and theses are both properly fused for protection.

However a qualified electrician is a specialist and has the final say on the safety of this system. This was the most surprising detail I discovered here, but not the only concern.

So when you need a full inspection or need to know if further specialized service of any type is required you need the benefit of a qualified and experienced inspector.

If you're in the Montreal area and you need a full inspection..............