Paul Duffau

I don't remember getting into my doddering years. After all, I'm still nimble, I can still beat some of the junior high girls in a foot race (if I make it long enough to bore them) and I almost always can find my way home.

So I was a little surprised to receive an email from the Whitman County Association of Realtors thanking me for volunteering to the strategic planning board.

Huh!?

I remember filling out the survey they sent. They sent me one because I'm an affiliate - usually that means the people that sponsor the treats for meetings but the WCAR has done a nice job of trying to include their affiliates.

And because they're nice folks (and I'm doddering), I'm inclined to try to help. I have a few ideas but thought I'd seek the collective wisdon of AR.

What suggestions, based on your experiences with your associations would you consider putting forward.

And please play nice. I like these folks!

Americans would buy cars and trucks from the Big Three automakers if the auto companies would do on simple thing.

Make a solid vehicle that you can trust, day in, day out. Make it economical to run, on both fuel and maintenance. Make it comfortable.

My little Ford Ranger is a great example. It just rolled over 200,000 miles. I've put in one set of brakes, a clutch and a starter. It gets 28 mpg. And lanky 6'3" me has plenty of head room and knee room.

The engine is absolutley reliable and my kids are arguing over who gets her when I buy a new truck.

It may be a while.

My friend, Lori Cofer, just posted an article on her blog about custom home building and the advantages of including a Realtor in the process.

I got me to thinking (which is preferable to cleaning the garage which is what I am supposed to do this morning - thank goodness I'm working this afternoon!) about my experiences on custom homes.

Unfortunately, my experience has come as an expert witness in litigation against builders. As a home inspector that also has code experience and credentials, combined with a small community, there are a limited number of readily available experts.

My first experience was with client who had issues with the garage slab settling (1.5 inches in 6 months and leaning on the foundation wall), improper window flashing, etc. By the time I left the house, the lawyer and the homeowner were discussing with or not to include the bathroom grout in the suit - the colors didn't perfectly match from one side to the other in the shower.

Since then, I've done 3 or 4 cases like this per year. It's interesting work but depressing as well. There's no worse feeling as an inspector than walking a homeowner through their home and defining all the areas that are deficient, all the while knowing that they have a 50-50 chance of making good on it and, just as depressing, knowing that if they had brought you in on the process, they would have the dream home they paid for.

Usually custom homes are someone's dream home. The owner is trusting the builder to get it right but usually lacks the specific knowledge to know that it is done correctly - until things go wrong.

Homes are built by teams - not just the concrete finishers, carpenters, plumbers and such. I wish more of them would include good representation in the form of a Realtor, a lawyer for the contract, and an inspector. They earned their dream home and they deserve to get it.

FPE can't hide from Infrared!

Following up on my discussion of FPE panels earlier, here are some infrared pictures from a home I did on Wednesday. It was a big house, built in 1980 with 5000sf on three levels and FOUR (4!) Federal Pacific Electric panels installed. Four in a week is a bad week for panels. Four in one house....

To look at them, not much was happening - there were some double-taps but that's not exclusively a problem to FPE. Here's the picture of one of the panels. The double-taps are in the lower righthand corner. The sheathing isn't cut back. One in the garage was missing a dead cover. A couple of other issues but nothing that got me excited -most of that is very correctable. I was much more concerned about the fact that they were FPE. The other thing that bugged me was that the panels covers felt slightly warm. Not like it was going to burn me but....different.

Now, the systems in this home had been shut down for a year while it was vacant and I tackled the panels at the beginning of the interior inspection (I normally start outside and work my way in - I like to see where the water is trying to go). Before I started the electrical inspection, I turned on the heat. The house had radiant ceiling heat on the top floor (controlled by a panel up there) and a new heat pump for the bottom two floors.

So the panels felt slightly warm. Time to play with my favorite toy, a FLIR infrared camera. It turns out that the panels weren't warm, they were downright hot. The first IR image is of the same panel that you see up top. The second is of the bus bar of the upstairs panel.

To put the color in perspective, the entrance cable on the first panel was at 151 degrees and only one side was drawing power enough to heat up. The breaker is also hot.

The second one has a bus bar at 137.5 degrees.