Snow and roofs - clear it off

[ryoung7 (ROBERT YOUNG, CMI)]

@ruecker

Although I disclaimed the roof and AC inspection completely, there are at least two things that are visible in the below pictures from my flying camera that made me reinforce my verbal and written narrative to the client that the roof must be thoroughly inspected once the snow clears. Anyone see them?

1: Vegetation. 2: Ballast size. 3: Parapet looks off. 4: Sleepers. 5: Corrosion.

[mroberts21 (Mark Roberts)]

@ruecker

There’s one more thing in the second picture.

I got a tree on my house!

Opie & Anthony: I GOT A TREE ON MY HOUSE!

[mgratton (Marcel Gratton, CMI)]

@ruecker

There’s one more thing in the second picture.

You mentioned two things so I stopped at two but yes, there was vegetation growing on the roof .

@ruecker

Not if you can’t get on it. Unless you like to set ladders up on ice. It was 7 degrees F. today. Building is unoccupied, so not salt on the sidewalks. I prefer to keep my bones unbroken, lol.

Snow and ice, then maybe not. Nice pictures from that drone!

[lkage (Larry Kage, CMI)]

@ruecker

there are at least two things that are visible in the below pictures from my flying camera that made me reinforce my verbal and written narrative to the client that the roof must be thoroughly inspected once the snow clears. Anyone see them?

[lhenderson2 (Lon Henderson, CMI)]

@pcrooks

now I feel like offering a discount since water and electrical couldn’t be fully inspected.

Hard “NO”.
Even if they had disclosed these conditions to you, you still (or should) block off the same amount of time, because you never know what you’ll find on an inspection

[jjonas (Jeffrey Jonas)]

@lhenderson2

Hard “NO”.
Even if they had disclosed these conditions to you, you still (or should) block off the same amount of time, because you never know what you’ll find on an inspection . .

Exactly!
My Fee for (most) Residential SFH’s are set as “FLAT RATE”!!
Do you raise your fee if it takes 30 minutes longer? I bet NOT!!
Charge the right fee up front, and don’t worry about all the silly fluxuations!!

[lhenderson2 (Lon Henderson, CMI)]

@jjonas

Do you raise your fee if it takes 30 minutes longer?

So true. I wish I could charge by the hour. Some clients would get a hell of a good deal. Some clients would be screaming bloody murder as I cross the fifth or sixth hour on an 850 sqft dud.

[mroberts21 (Mark Roberts)]

@lhenderson2

I cross the fifth or sixth hour on an 850 sqft dud.

So I had a 1380sqft today, I’m thinking easy peasy, in and out in 100 minutes or so. 3 hours and change before I left.

Ugh. While the condition was ok, There were a lot of little things and there were three things that took extra time. One was that the Furnace would trip out after about 10 minutes, Blinking SOS (three short, three long, repeat). Then it’d reset in 5 minutes. Threw me off my stride.

Then I had an arc-fault breaker that should have been called an arc-breaker. Holy arc-flash batman. Hit the test button…bbbzzzztttt KABOOM. Was like the sun appeared in the panel. lol. I’ve been around shorts, faults and such working with industrial electricians. This was shocking without the shock.

The final was this giant German Sheppard. I walk up to the house…it’s not moving. I’m talking in my dog friendly voice. It lowers it’s head starts moving toward me…I see it’s on a 30 foot lead and I’m in range. I’m thinking…ruh roh. It grabs it’s fuzzy toy off the ground, runs over to me, jumps up and pushes the toy in my face. lol. If I could pause that moment in time, think dog tall enough to look face to face to a 6’1" man, it’s paws are on my chest while it’s thrusting it’s toy at me.

It then bounds off and loops around, tail wagging rapidly and comes in for another run. I tried to get the toy, NO SOUP FOR YOU HUMAN!. and off again. The dog decided whatever I was doing was more interesting so I had a faithful companion until the owner rescued me.

[lhenderson2 (Lon Henderson, CMI)]

@mroberts21

Holy arc-flash batman. Hit the test button…bbbzzzztttt KABOOM.

Oooohhh…you have ventured into another favorite hot topic for HIs. Like testing the garage door operator reverse with a board, or the TPR valve on a water heater. I no longer test AFCIs on occupied houses. Many years ago, I had a first generation one blow up on me. It was like a jet cigarette lighter shooting out a 3" flame that would not go out. I used my channel-lock to pull the breaker from the panel, while standing in a foot of snow.

[mroberts21 (Mark Roberts)]

@lhenderson2

I no longer test AFCIs on occupied houses.

Most of the ones that fail go bbzzt three time and stop buzzing.

I’m still going to test these things though. It’s part of my SOP. I may however test them before I remove the dead front from now on. Most of the panels I deal with have the main disconnect in the panel.

a representative number of switches, lighting fixtures and receptacles, including receptacles observed and deemed to be arc-fault circuit interrupter (AFCI)-protected using the AFCI
test button, where possible; K. all ground-fault circuit interrupter receptacles and circuit breakers observed and deemed to be GFCIs using a GFCI tester.