Jerry,
I may have used the words “must change” to really enforce my concern about the unsafe railings. Yes, must is a word that I have rarely used, if ever in my reports. But, in this case, with a 2 year old present during the inspection, I could imagine a potentially disastrous situation. We as inspectors spend too much time on exact word usage, I know that I do as I complete the reports. Sometimes, you need to use the best verbage to describe the issue, and move on.
Fair enough John, as a father of 2 young adventurous children I can definately respect the point you are trying to get across.
I had occasion, today, to do an inspection for a municipality (the building dept. hired me). They, specifically, hired me to do a home inspection and not a code inspection.
That being said, I talked with the code inspector for the municipality and talked with him about this situation and what he would do. He said that it was not against the local codes and, therefore, he could not call it out. But he very much agreed that it was a significant safety hazard and that I would be right to call it out.
Told me that there is a big difference between “allowed” and “safe”. He also told me that there were many things that he would like to see in thier local codes, but they cannot get the politicians to put them in. Pressure from politically contrinuting builders and some of the unions.
Hope this brings in a new perspective.
Thanks Will.