NY Metro ASHI News
October 2003
A Publication of the NY Metro
Chapter of the American Society of Home Inspectors
Edited by John Gerardi (gerardi@att.net)
Articles published in the NY Metro ASHI News are the sole opinion
of the author and we publish these articles for educational purposes only and
not to endorse or state a position for or against the content of the article.
October Meeting
Tino’s Steak House
Route 100, Hawthorne, NY
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2003, 6:00PM
Next Meeting's Program
Guests are welcome at all meetings.
NY Metro ASHI's
Holiday Party
Sunday Nov. 16, 2003
Brunch 11:30 am to 3:30 pm
Renaissance Westchester Hotel,
White Plains, NY
Hold your office party with us, reward referral
sources as guests.
Remember, part of your chapter dues went towards your discount for this event.
Sumptuous buffet and good surroundings.
Cost per member with guest is $26.00 per
person which includes the discount. (no increase from last year)
Deadline is November 7, 2003
Names of
Attendees:
_______________________________________
Company: _________________________________________
#: _____
Mail checks to:
Evan Grugett
Social Committee Chair & Treasurer
NY Metro ASHI
105 Bradley Road, Scarsdale, NY
10583-6213
voice/fax ;
914-723-5795 email:
egrugett@aol.com
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VIC'S
(AD)VICE COLUMN
BITS & PIECES
by Victor J. Faggella
SEMINAR 2003
Another year has come and gone and Seminar 2003 is a thing of the
past. In my opinion (inspector talk),
this was our best one yet, in participation (93), speakers, facilities, food
and vendors. Inspectors came from as far north as New Hampshire and as far
south as Virginia. We had vendors from
Florida and California.
Comments on our survey gave uniformly high marks to all of our
speakers. The full results of the
survey follow:
Excellent Good Fair
Content: 37 21 0
Facilities :
Vendor Area: 30 25 3
Clasroom: 39 18 1
Audio/Visual: 35 20 3
Amenities: 31 26 1
Parking: 40 15 3
Location: 38 18 1
This is not a one man operation and I would like to extend my thanks
and appreciation to the committee members. Victor G. Faggella, Bart Rodi and
Douglas Boyd for it job well done. I
would also like to thank the presenters, Steve Hern, Victor G. Faggella, P.E.,
Pat Porzio, Evan Grugett, Jim Hodrinsky
and Paul Scelsi for making their presentations both enjoyable and
meaningful for inspectors.
We have already reserved the first weekend in October, 2004. Mark it on
your calendar. We have been guaranteed the large ballroom and will have to fill
it up. If as a chapter member, you did not attend this year, make
a resolution to attend in 2004.
Steve Gladstone. National ASHI, president elect attended and made a
brief presentation to the group re: Branding. I believe that Steve received an
"earful" from those attending regarding the handling of the matter
and promised to bring the
concerns to the Executive Board.
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"You Know You're a Home Inspector When” From the NAHI Forum
July/August 2003 issue Courtesy of Jim Krausmann,
Krausmann Home Inspection Services, Grosse Pointe, MI 1)
Instead of buying shoes based on looks, you buy them based on their ability
to stick to a roof. 2) You know how to type with more than four fingers! 3) When your wife asks how
dinner is and your reply is, “Shows Signs of Unprofessionalism . . . !” 4) Instead of peeking inside of the medicine cabinet, while visiting
friends, you look inside their furnace. 5) When heating a can of
soup for lunch, you automatically turn on all four burners on the stove. 6) You
actually begin to understand how your insurance agent thinks. 7) Your attorney's number is on the speed dialer. 8) You
start to find flaws in Norm' s work while watching "This Old
House". 9) You
begin to measure your success based on how many calendars you receive from
real estate agents. 10) You automatically get nervous on an inspection when the plumbing
and electrical components still have the price tags on them. |
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The Environmental Corner
Submitted by John Gerardi
Safety First
In the interest of safety you may copy these and give to your clients
as you see fit.
NEW TECHNOLOGY IN GAS WATER HEATERS CAN SAVE LIVES
CPSC, GAMA SAY NEW HEATERS WILL PREVENT FIRES FROM FLAMMABLE VAPORS
WASHINGTON,
D.C. - Picture this: a plastic can filled with gasoline is innocently left on the garage
floor, near a gas water heater. A 4-year-old boy playing in the garage tips
over the can, spilling the gasoline and sending flammable vapors into the air.
The vapors reach the water heater, sparking a flashback fire that takes the
life of the young child. Tragically, similar real-life incidents involving gas
water heaters take the lives of or severely injure children and adults across
the country each year.
But a new,
safer era in gas water heater technology begins in July, according to the U.S.
Consumer Product Safety Commission and Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association,
the national trade association of the manufacturers of water heating and space
heating equipment and components. A voluntary standard developed by industry,
in cooperation with the commission, calls for conventional tank-type gas water
heaters manufactured after July I, 2003, to be equipped with new safety
technology. This technology, often referred to as a flame arrestor, prevents
flashback fires by trapping and burning dangerous gas vapors inside of the
heater, while preventing ignition of the vapors in the room.
Gas water heater ignition of
flammable vapors is involved in nearly 800 residential fires, resulting in an
average of five deaths and 130 injuries annually, according to commission
estimates. The fires typically occur when consumers use flammable liquids,
usually gasoline, for cleaning purposes, or when a flammable liquid leaks or
is spilled near the water heater. When the vapors come in contact with the
appliance's burner or pilot light, the vapors ignite, causing a severe
flashback fire.
""The
new water heaters will save lives and property and reduce the number of
terrible burn injuries that are caused by these fires," said CPSC Chairman
Hal Stratton. "The redesigned gas water heaters, which are already on the
market, show that industry can solve difficult problems to build the safest
products possible."
All 30,40,
and 50-gallon gas storage type water heaters manufactured after this date are
expected to comply with the national safety standard.
Because
millions of gas water heaters manufactured before the new standard took effect
remain in homes across the country, Chairman Stratton warned that gasoline
should never be stored or used indoors (in a basement or garage) where vapors
can ignite. Gasoline should be stored in tightly closed, properly labeled,
non-glass safety containers away from ignition sources and out of reach of
children.
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Licensing for Home Inspectors: Doing More Harm Than Good?
By Michael Lennon
Whenever I hear
the words "licensing" and "home inspectors" in the same
sentence, I shudder. I have a tough time believing that the services we provide
have improved as a result of any
of the licensing laws which have been enacted. To be sure, I have strong convictions (call them prejudices if you like)
learned at the school of "hard knocks”. Building a solid home inspection business
offering credible services is completely dependent on the willingness of the
owner to invest sustained intense effort. It's the integrity and internal
makeup of the individual that really counts. The home inspection business is
deceptively sophisticated and it takes a substantial effort to learn even the
fundamentals. It also takes an uncommon honesty to deliver services and practice
with integrity where "perspective" is not a code word for "soft
disclosure”.
I've lived in the Washington DC area for the last 30 plus years and have
found myself surrounded by politicians and bureaucrats. As a former Navy
officer, I've worked with bureaucrats for several years. In the public sector,
the relative impossibi1ity of firing poor performers or holding people
accountable undermines the morale of the better people and fosters an
environment of indifference to performance. I've noticed what I call an
"anti-profit" attitude on the part of many bureaucrats which seems
to make them simultaneously jea1ous of and antagonistic to the private sector.
They seem to relish doing things that ensure no profit. From my view it is profit that affords
training, new products, etc.
While testifying for what ended up as a home inspector registration
bill in Maryland I was once again disgusted with what I saw as a disingenuous
performance by yet another
self important representative who was posturing as a champion of the consumer.
To my mind he refused to do any real homework, routinely misrepresented the
truth, and couldn't care less about the home inspection industry, or how much
damage his careless actions would result in.
I was once a defendant in an arbitration hearing bill by a consumer
affairs office. I felt justice was turned on its ear when the opinion of the
arbiter was reversed by supervisors who bad no contact with the proceedings.
They were apparently more concerned with their win/loss record (the better to
get a budget) than in concurring with their employee. How is it, I wondered,
that an advocacy group could hold itself
out as an impartial arbitration group and use tax money to pressure
people like me into dealing with them.
Putting up a fight
When Ralph Nader addressed the American Society of Home Inspectors
(ASHI) at one of our conventions he remarked that while licensing may be
inevitable for our profession, we would be very well advised to fight it as
hard and as long as we could in order to achieve our best
deal. I believe Mr. Nader was in an excellent position to fully understand what licensing can
mean to our profession and I believe he was sincerely trying to help us by giving
us a well thought out warning. How I wish many of our other members had heard
that presentation in the way I did and had taken it similarly to heart.
I certainly don't feel the fight has been waged hard
or long and in fact has been undermined by a few home inspectors who helped
launch the efforts toward licensing. I've come to feel that these
"collaborators" are either quite naive, intoxicated by the feeling
of power working with real politicians,
or are jockeying for positions of advantage or power for themselves. This is in considerable
contrast to the many very conscientious inspectors who have labored diligently
(once the process was set in motion) to try to keep the pending legislation
from becoming destructive. In conversations with these respected folks the
frustration and dismay are palpable.
Who's Behind the Legislation?
The first state to license home
inspectors was Texas. It occurred to me at the time that the process was
initiated because a few of the more powerful and influential home inspectors were attempting to safeguard
their turf rather than attempting to improve a fledgling industry.
Interestingly and ironically, many of those folks have been driven out of the
business by a huge increase in the number of home inspectors and by declining
prices. The state Realtorâ association has what many consider undue
control over the inspectors and
decides what and how things will be reported.
In Pennsylvania the ASHI and NAHI folks felt the candidates would have
to channel through their programs to comply with the law (being the qualified
national organizations) and become licensed, but no. New to the scene is the
National Association of
Certified Home Inspectors
who, in the view of a respected colleague there, is actually a "diploma
mill." A whole new crop of
"licensed home inspectors" is now frustrating the long established
inspectors.
New Jersey inspectors have recently experienced the process of
mandatory licensing. Several inspectors from the "Garden State" have
told me that many of the terms and conditions of the mandatory licensing left them with the feeling
that they had been "ambushed" by the regulatory authorities at the
last minute by conditions which had never been addressed during preliminary discussions.
In the state of Virginia where my home office is located, the lobbyist
for the Virginia Association of Realtorsâ (VA R) actually complained that the standards
of practice and the entry requirements of ASHI were prohibitively high. Most
inspectors here feel the licensing pressure has come almost exclusively from
VAR who would seemingly be happy to have many more home inspectors charging far
less and working to lower
standards. The desire for a one or two page standardized report has been
mentioned as well.
As we are finding, it is easier to win the war (make the law) than win
tile peace (make it work constructively for everyone). I am convinced that if
Realtorsâ and Home Inspectors want to improve our
working relations we must take each other seriously, respect our legitimate interests and concerns, and sort the
issues out on our own. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help
you." I don't think so.
Michael
Lennon is the Founder of the Professional Home Inspectors Institute and HomePro
Systems, Inc. He is the author of The HomeBook, a packaged home inspection system
used internationally, as well as a series of manuals for the home inspection
industry. Mike has performed over 10,000
professional home inspections and is a nationally recognized authority on
housing problems. He has written columns for the Washington Post and the
Journal of Light Construction and has also been a feature writer in REALTOR,
The Real Estate Appraisers and Analyst, and the Journal newspapers. He can be reached
at (800)
466-
3776.
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Builder Bets Big on Sealed
Crawlspaces
From the Journal of Light
Construction August 2003
Submitted by John Gerardi
When. it comes to
crawlspaces, codes haven't caught up with building science. Many building
departments still require foundation vents in crawlspace walls, even though
studies show that the vents cause more problems than they solve.
But one production builder in an area prone to damp crawlspace problems
has decided to get ahead of the curve. In July, Parker and Orleans Homebuilders
began installing sealed and conditioned crawlspaces for its homes in Virginia
and North Carolina, according to sealed-crawlspace expert Jeff Tooley. Parker
and Orleans has contracted with Tooley to manage construction of scaled
crawlspaces in as many as 300 homes a year.
.
The International Code Council is considering modifying the International Residential Code to
allow sealed crawlspaces in the 2006 edition. Tooley applauds the change, hut
he's concerned about the details. "The building science is good," he
says, "but there's not a lot of field experience to go with it."
Tooley is one of the few contractors in the nation who has installed more
than a handful of sealed crawls paces, and he says the details are important.
"An unvented crawlspace isn't the same thing as a sealed
crawlspace," says Tooley. "If you eliminate the vents, it's very
important to have an effective soil vapor barrier." The ground cover has
to go down early in construction, says Tooley: He places
"sacrificial" poly on the soil before the deck is built, then
replaces it later with the permanent ground cover. "I looked at a custom
home recently where there were no vents and no ground cover during construction,
and it caused a major fungus problem," he says.
Tooley has started training Parker and Orleans supervisors on the construction
sequence for sealed-crawl installations. "They deserve some recognition
for taking this step," he says. And done right, Tooley expects the sealed
crawlspaces to be a big improvement. While typical vented crawlspaces in the
region often fluctuate above 90% relative humidity, Tooley says none of his
sealed crawlspaces has
ever triggered the RH alarm he routinely installs, set at 50% RH.
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