Hi, Orin.
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I just finished this assignment but it said I was not logged in, how could I not be logged in if I were on this page. Now I have to do this all over.
Not my fault!!!
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Grinnell Residence
104 5th Ave East Apt. 632
New Town, north Dakota 58763
June 29, 2015
about 5:45pm C.S.T.
At the time it is 90 degrees and clear skies
Just my self present
The building is estimated to be built around 1970 - early 1980’s
4 plex or Multi Family
The House Doctor, LLC
PO Box 1455
New Town, North Dakota 58763
orin.grinnell@yahoo.com
701-629-6184
Roof:
I inspected the roof from the ground. T-Lock shingles
I inspected the gutters from the ground. All gutters appear to be in great condition but cannot tell if they leak or not at this time.
I inspected the eaves and downspouts from the ground. They appear to have “wear and tear” from years of service but remain intact.
I will stop right here to see if you get this. If so, I will continue later.
It shows I am logged in.
Hello
Well it says I’m logged in so I’m going to continue.
After the roof, I could only see three small vents and no flashing, skylights, chimneys, or other roof penetrations. Although I can see the eaves from the ground, which looks like the paint is crumbling off it.
Moving on, I cannot see any roof leaks as we live in the bottom floor. Although I know these T-locks are perhaps past their prime.
Interiors: wall coverings were only inspected in our unit and could not verify others. There are no visible flashings, and only the window and door trim which need replacing.
There is only one exterior door, yes only one for this entire four plex. All four tenets share the hallway and the only exterior door. There are no means of fire escape.
Even that, the individual unit main entry doors have the wrong swi g on them, they all swing outward and not into the apartment. Somebody can easily pop the hinges and break in anytime.
There are no adjacent walkways or driveways, only a parking g lot on the North side of the building. There are stairs leading up to and down towards the apartment units.
The stoop appears to be in excellent condition for being so old. There are no ramps.
There are no porches, patios, decks, balconies, and carports.
Soffit and eaves appear to be in good condition but need a new paint job.
There are 32 WI dows in all and everyone of them are wood and are infected with mold, non tempered, and are perhaps 20 years old.
The only vegetation is the green grass outside.
The exterior wall covering g consist of that old T 111 12 inch lap siding which needs replacing . PERIOD!
Again there are no balusters, spi dles, rails on the exterior.
The basement foundation is in excellent condition after all these years. I see no cracks, chips, or Spall ing anywhere.
It is not a full basement, there is no crawl space, so I cannot verify any other structural items. The foundation walls are of concrete as well as the floor.
There is no thermostat anywhere as this is heated by electronic trial baseborads. All baseboards are working. Now, there are no cooling system in place, however, we installed one in our window, the kind you buy at Walmart.
Plumbing: cannot verify a main shut off valve, main fuel supply line, water geater, in our apartment. Although there is a separate place under the stairs where this all goes but it is locked up.
There is an electric panel in our closet but I’m not going to verify anything g else.Toilets work very well, faucets work very well, tub and showers work very well. Cannot verify any drain waste vent system because I don’t see any. Water supply is public although we never drink from the past four y ears. We only wash with it.
Hot and cold water work well.
Service drops, madt, main, are all outside and appear to have inspection tags on them but cannot read them to well. There are a number of switches, receptacles, outlets, GFCIS, smoke alarms but no carbon monoxide akarms.
There is no chimey, fireplace in the building. Everyth in ng is electric and there is no gas lines.
Does not appear to be enough attic ventilation because there are no gable vents as well.
Cannot verify any attic insulation.
All interior doors are hollow core and are at least 30 years old. There are no garages.Appliances are all new and work well. There are no door vells.
I also want to add that these are HUD homes and are located on a reservation in North Dakota.
Which essentially have never been inspected since they were built.
Thank you
Hello
1 of 2 articles post.
Mold Blasting
This is an interesting subject because I had experienced it first hand. You see, last year at my last job, there were three 2 storey apartment buildings all seriously infected with mold.
After relocating 36 families, we further investigated and found that the mold had existed for years. 5 types of spores were found, and each building condemned.
I have to say after several attempts to clean it up. There was no point in doing so. And, it was actually reported that the spores embedded itself deep within the of the wood structure. Now, with respect to mold blasting, further test revealed mold spores at high levels.
So, my point is if you get it early you have a good chance of getting rid of it. The end result is total demotion of all three buildings.
2 of 2 article discussion.
Dryer Vent Inspections.
I chose this because this is a serious topic. In a new dwelling, the vent definitely exceed ed 25 feet, with two or more turns, and above all, it is in the same metal wall cavity as the gas pipe. The owner and project manager fought me on this so it stays. They did sign a waiver releasing me of any mishaps . But I really could not find that in any code book so I didn’t know. It was also drew up in the plans and specs that way so it must be okay, I don’t know. Anyways that is my dilemma with dryer vents.
What do you think or know?
Well I finally uploaded my Dryer vent picture from the other day.
But I have uploaded a picture of a missing joist hanger for a Hip roof truss system.
Aging in Place
This is very interesting, I really never paid any attention to the older or elderly people until now. My eyes just opened up, I never been around any of this type of building or built one so Im not sure how an Inspection for this type of Structure will work out.
But I’m sure this will be a very interesting and heart-felt experience. Can’t wait!
First, I will use a building from memory since I’m not available to go anywhere right now.
Client name: Sunset Heights (fictitious name).
123 Sesame Street, USA
June 2015
Nice weather conditions
I’m the only one present
This were built in 2014
Multi-Family two story unit.
Muppet Inspections
Orin Grinnell
orin.grinnell@yahoo.com
PO Box 1455 New Town, North Dakota 58763
Roof: The roof covering is asphalt and were inspected from the ground.
The gutters were attached to some eaves but not all and inspected from the ground.
Downspouts were all new and attached to those existing on the building.
As for roof penetrations, there were no skylights, no chimneys, but only the stacks from bathroom ventilation. HOWEVER!!! I found that there were no boots on the stacks which you can see daylight and rain coming into the building.
They got installed now.
Now, as for the exterior wall covering. it consist of vinyl siding for entire building. HOWEVER!!! I did see daylight through the wall which told me there might not be any flashing or improperly installed.
I hope you all can see the pictures. So I have uploaded more pictures to view.
Well apparently, I can only upload five pictures.
Gosh, I have about 2,000 pictures to show.
Moving on, as you can see, there are no decks, porches, and patios with this building. Eaves, soffits, and fascia were of the aluminum type, all new and inspected from the ground of course.
As for the windows, well you can from the picture that this is a new building with vinyl windows, they all operate properly, are glazed, but not flashed or caulked on the exterior. They are insulated between the window frame and rough opening with batt insulation, as well as the doors.
There is no crawlspace or basement, but it has a main floor and an upstairs where the bedrooms are. Concrete floors on the main floor. Two hour fire-rate walls from the floor to the bottom side of the roof sheathing. No penetrations.
Have not noticed or seen any cracks in the concrete floor yet.
As for the Mechanical room, well I must admit that this little room had several arguments as to whether or not it should be sheet-rocked before anything was/is installed. I could not find anything directly stating to do so in the IRC or ICC books. But when I was a carpenter, we were taught to do so before it was “rocked,” fire fire-prevention. That was one issue that took so long.
Anyways, The furnace tech installed the furnace with ducts that most people did not like, which was another debate, but it is now solved.
The furnace is natural gas, and the heating vents are in the first floor ceiling and on the second floor, they are placed in the floor system.
As for the cooling system, it is located outside of course, but has only been roughed in at this point.
Plumbing: I wish I can upload more pictures because the plumbing was another can of worms.
There are actually exterior walls that have not been insulated behind the tub/shower units and have been signed off by the owner’s project manager saying he is okay with that.
I do not agree because here in North Dakota it can easily get to minus 30- 50 degrees below zero.
At this point in time, I cannot verify any toilet, tub/shower, or water faucets in working condition as they are now in the “finish inspection phase.”
All main shut-off valves are in the mechanical room which are the gas, water, electrical. By the way, the state of North Dakota requires only a Plumbing and Electrical inspection. as for Framing and other inspection, NO! But local cities are now getting stricter and requiring these.
As for the service drops, well, everything of that nature is underground.
Cannot verify any other inspection at this point in time.
No Interior, Exterior, Attic, inspections, No appliance inspections.
Furthermore, cannot verify rebar, concrete inspections as well.
Also, these multi-family units are not A.D.A. equipped. There is means of a fire escape by a rope ladder from the second floor, if that helps.
No swimming pool, spa, hot tub inspections to report.
Garage inspection will happen in due time, so I need to get going on that certification as well.
Finally, this concludes my report of an actual dwelling in progress so hopefully I get to let you all know how it goes.
Thank you
Orin
The two articles selected for this course were “Inspecting the kitchen exhaust” and “Inspecting the dryer exhaust”.
The first article consisted of several different topics such as; air flow requirements, ductless range hoods, interior/exterior fan locations, venting, duct materials and inspections.
The second article discussed several different topic including; moisture, proper vent pipe lengths, supports, terminations, hazards and inspections.
I think that both articles were easily understandable and very descriptive.
For my additional reading for this block of instruction I chose Choosing a Manufactured Home and Crawlspace Hazards. Since I am a student and I am entering into this industry I chose these two; because of the area I live. It is rural and there are many Mobile/Manufactured homes in the area; plus an abundance of hazards for the crawlspace. I wanted to see how things like this are handled by others as opposed to how I would handle it.
Choosing a Manufactured Home, the appearance of convince of a manufactured home is not all that it is cracked up to be. There are a lot of variables, especially when it comes to siting the house. Having to depend on the installer or the retailer on whether you get setup properly is a scary thought. From the sites I have seen as a casual observer most of these folks who do this do it right; however, I don’t really see any accounting for the drainage of the area or the soil conditions in the sites I have seen. I guess that would be the reason for the requirement for there to be an inspection 60-90 days after set-up and then an inspection yearly thereafter.
It was nice to note that through the use of computer assisted designing, the consumer can now have pretty much the house that they want instead of the canned floor plans of past.
Hazards in the crawlspace: Personally I am not too worried about most things like the small things Disease, mold, and bugs. It is crawling into a space and being confronted with a critter like a bobcat, skunk or large snake that is what I worry about. I know you should do a sweep with your light prior to entry. Critters like to hide. All the other stuff can be taken care of with PPE and caution.
Upon a post failure on an outside deck, I was asked to inspect why the post pulled away from the deck during a wind storm. I found that the posts on this deck were fastened into the joist with 4.5 inch lag bolts. The lag bolts only went 1 inch into the 1.5 inch thick joist after going through the 3.5 inch post. These lag bolts were easily pulled out with the force of the wind on the glass baluster. Upon inspection I found that all of the posts were fastened in this manner. It was recommended that the deck / post connections be brought up to existing code.
Here are two photos that shows what looks like bolts attaching the post to the rim joist. After looking behind the rim joist I did not see any bolt threads or nuts. This indicates to me that the post is attached with a lag bolts going only one inch into the rim joist.
[ATTACH][ATTACH]testing95410[/ATTACH][/ATTACH]test
My picture is of my roof showing the OSB sheathing, H-clips and ventilation for the roof. Also pictured are the rafters and ceiling joists.
Conducted an inspection of my attic and crawlspace and have attached the results of my inspection.
ATTIC, INSULATION & VENTILATION
INSPECT:
__x___I inspected the insulation in unfinished spaces from:
__x___readily accessible areas
__x___readily accessible panels
__x__readily accessible doors
___x__readily accessible stairs
See comments below in Reports section.________________________________________
_____The insulation in unfinished spaces was not inspected, because it was:
_____inaccessible
_____unsafe
_____not present
_____not within the scope of the inspection
__x___I inspected the ventilation of unfinished spaces, including attics, crawlspaces and foundation areas.
_____The ventilation of unfinished spaces was not inspected, because it was:
_____inaccessible
_____unsafe
_____not present
_____not within the scope of the inspection
____A single blanket of Fiberglass insulation has become detached from the bottom of the stairs leading to the garage in the crawlspace.
__x__I inspected the mechanical exhaust systems in the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry area.
_____The mechanical exhaust systems in the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry area were not inspected, because they were:
_____inaccessible
_____unsafe
_____not present
_____ not within the scope of the inspection
___All mechanical exhaust systems were in working order and vented to the exterior of the house.
DESCRIBE:
The type of insulation observed can be described as:
___x_fiberglass blanket
_x__blown–‐in fiberglass
_____loose–‐fill fiberglass
_____mineral rock or slag wool
_____blown–‐in cellulose
_____loose–‐fill cellulose
_____spray–‐foamed or foamed–‐in–‐place
_____structural insulated panel
_____concrete block insulation
_____foam board or rigid foam
_____insulated concrete forms
_____natural fibers
_____others
The approximate average depth of insulation observed at the unfinished attic floor area or roof structure:
6-8 inches_________________________________________
The approximate average thickness of vertical insulation observed from the unfinished attic area:
N/A____________________________________________________
REPORT:
__x___I saw evidence of the general absence of insulation or ventilation in unfinished spaces. Correction is needed.
_____I saw evidence of a material defect. Correction is needed.
__x__I saw evidence of a functional defect. Correction is needed.
_____I saw evidence of a cosmetic defect.
___In the Attic space the insulation was blown fiberglass, it appeared that during installation there was no attempt at uniformity in its distribution as there are small piles throughout the fiberglass’s distribution ranging in size of 6-8 inches. The impact it has is functionality with the effect that it could be the cause of significant energy loss. Recommend that the insulation defects be evaluated by a insulation contractor.
I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, where nearly all residential foundations are slab on grade with a continuous perimeter footing, or post & pier construction. This is a typical foundation shear wall for post & pier. It consists of a poured-in place concrete footing with typical wall framing. The girders sit on top of the piers and shear wall, and the floor joists are atop the girders. In order to inspect this you would likely need to remove the interior sheathing. You would check for properly attached anchor bolts, sufficient nailing of the studs and top/bottom plates, and check for rot or excessive wear.
