Complete Home Inspections Blogs

Last week, a friend of mine, Larry Brewer wrote a post in  the Active Rain real estate community on Brentwood Deer. Well this morning while I was in the kitchen getting a cup of coffee to get these old bones moving, I glanced out the kitchen window and saw 2 does and spotted fawns out at the farm pond behind the house. I snapped a few frames to share.

Brentwood is one of those unique cities that is a great blend of both city and country. When the city carter was set up, subdivision lots had to be an acre or have enough acreage of ‘common’ area set aside to make up the difference. This additional acreage is a great habitat and refuge for wildlife.

Michael

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Photo of the Day by admin
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Home inspectors don’t have all the answers to all of the challenges encountered during the inspection process. Sometimes we have to rely on ’subtitle’ clues, and take the SWAG (Scientific Wild A$$ Guess) approach to reach a conclusion as to what the problem could be. While inspecting a ‘challenging’ property in another county, I had to use the above technique to determine if just maybe there might have been a drainage issue under the sink…  What do you think?

Michael

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Photo of the Day, Plumbing by admin
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Hurricane Fay brought some 2″ of much needed rain to the middle Tennessee area the other day, helping relieve some of the drought conditions here. As I was getting ready to do my evening walk, I was able to capture a few frames of the last of Fay as she left and moved north. The double rain bow formed a perfect arc in the eastern sky and lasted but a few fleeting moments…

Michael

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Miscellaneous, Photo of the Day by admin
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After moving the grandfather clock from the Den to the foyer, ‘ol Pop quit working. Well, being a typical male, this should be an easy fix I thought, so I fiddled with this, and that, and could not see why the clock would not run. Getting frustrated I thought that I would get back to it later or call a clock smith. Well, about 6 months later, I thought that I’d see what’s wrong with Pop. Once again, I started tinkering not knowing what I was really doing, but after all I’m a male and we can fix anything, or so we think…

Not having too much success, and getting a little frustrated again, I by chance happened to glance down and see an instruction booklet.  H-m-m-m-m! Well maybe, just maybe, there may be a solution to my problem here. I know that this may sound insulting to most males as we don’t need no stinking instructions. It’s a male thing ya know…

Well I’ll be dipped… AFTER reading the instructions, it seemed as if all that was wrong with Pop was that he had lost his beat. Has to be a clock thing now. After FOLLOWING the instructions, I made the necessary adjustments to restore the beat and ‘ol Pop is just a tickin’ and chimin’ away just like ever before.

The moral of the story? DUUH!! Guys, sometimes it helps to read the instructions if you don’t know what you are doin’. Just don’t let your wife know. After all, we got to save face if you know what I mean…

Michael

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Miscellaneous, Photo of the Day by admin
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Home inspectors do not have the equipment to inspect the throat and flue of most chimneys. However, thanks to pocket digital cameras, a missing damper and smoke shelf, this badly damaged fireplace lent itself to get a good logs-eye view of what the inside of a chimney really looks like.

The lack of rain caps allowed water into the chimney and intense temperatures of wood burning fires caused the water to expand and pop out the mortar between the fire brick. Through time and neglect the original damper and smoke shelf was eventually destroyed and burned away leaving the bottom of the flue liner exposed. Needless to say, this fireplace is unsafe in its current condition and will need to be repaired before using.

Michael

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Miscellaneous, Photo of the Day by admin
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One of the more challenging aspects that I find with the home inspection industry is the lack of mentoring. I know that when I got started several years ago, it was almost impossible to get any home inspector in this area to mentor me when I had questions. I will be the first to admit that I do not know it all and I do run into situations that are quite perplexing.

As part of my business plan, I have developed a program where I ride with the inspectors twice a month to mentor, train, and help them become better at their craft. Yesterday was mentoring day for one of my inspectors and we could not have had a better property in which to do some training. One of the issues that stumped him was the Spider Man cracks below.

At first look, the damage appears to have been caused by the poor installation of the gas line. But after looking at all the “clues” it was determined that the brick ties that hold the brick veneer to the block walls were failing and unless repaired in a timely manner, the brick veneer could become a brick patio. The lesson learned here was not to jump to conclusions. Look at everything and start putting the pieces of the puzzle together. This is what separates good inspectors from the rest of the crowd…

Michael

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Photo of the Day by admin
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In our ongoing saga of the Rehab from Elm Street, there is something missing in this laundry room. Can you help Bubba and the rehabber find the missing item in order to satisfy this picky home inspector?

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Photo of the Day by admin
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Like everything else on this planet, there is an expected service life for products. Older cast iron waste systems certainly fall in this category. I have written several posts on this material rusts from the inside out, gets sclerosis, and is prone to clogging as the system ages. However, areas rehabbers often overlook are the service caps. These must be securely threaded into the pipe to prevent sewer gasses and raw sewage from exiting the pipes and into the home or yard.

The threads in this cleanout have been stripped preventing this cap from being properly secured. If the caps are askew, these are suspect for either cross threading or damaged treads. In either case, my crystal ball says that a licensed plumbing contractor, not ol’ Bubba, can be seen visiting soon…

Michael

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Photo of the Day, Plumbing by admin
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It is not uncommon to see garages converted to living space especially in older properties. However, when doing so, proper construction techniques is very important. For the past few days, I have been writing about some of the issues that I found with a particular rehabbed job in northwest Nashville, TN. So, without further ado, the saga continues…

I noticed that the driveway slab (now the patio) in the back of the property was cracked and sloped toward the property. Since there was a spigot handy I ran some water just to ease this curious mind. It is hard to tell it from the picture, but there is approximately ¾ of an inch of water pooling up against the siding material which is yet another post. I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count as to where the water is going…

… Yeah Buddy! You guessed it! The finished den. Can we say squish, squish, squish? Now if you were Sponge Bob Square Pants, all you’d have to do is add a little water when necessary…

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Photo of the Day by admin
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I am one of these folks that can draw on both sides of my brain which allows me to be creative as well as analytical. However; there are some things that I see that totally defies logic, makes you wonder do they have the common sense that God gave a goose, and more importantly, just makes the left half of my head throb. I was inspecting a rehab in the north east side of Nashville, TN earlier today and the crap that the rehabber did, just made me want to shake my head and say what an idjet…

A classic case of total stupidity was this duct work being place smack in the middle of the closet door entrance. How the &^%$*!! is anyone going to get sheets or towels in or out of this closet?

Now I have seen ductwork run in closets before, but generally they are placed on the back side or corner so that they are not unobtrusive. What really got me was that every closet in the upstairs section of the property was run like this. Oh, BTW, most of the closets did not have closet rods because of the ductwork.

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Thornton of Complete Home Inspections, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Photo of the Day by admin
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