I find a fair amount of water heaters in Minneapolis and Saint Paul that backdraft.   Backdrafting happens when the exhaust gases from a fuel-burning appliance,  such as a water heater, spill in to the room rather that rising up and out of the house through the vent.  This is a potential safety hazard that should always be repaired.

The most common question that I get when I find a backdrafting water heater is “How can this be fixed?”

There are many potentials reasons for a water heater backdrafting, but there are several basic things to check – any one of these conditions could be enough by itself to cause a water heater to backdraft.

A missing rain cap. Not only do rain caps help to prevent rain from dumping in to the vent, but they help to prevent downdrafts; these are wind currents that can blow exhaust gases back down the vent.  A listed cap is also required by the Minnesota Fuel Gas Code, section 503.6.6.

A backpitched vent connector. A water heater vent connector, often called a ‘flue’, is required to pitch upwards towards the chimney or vent at a minimum slope of one quarter inch per foot (MFGC 503.10.8).  This is a minimum requirement.  Just meeting this minimum requirement doesn’t mean everything will work the way it’s supposed to.  The steeper the pitch, the better the draft.

Insufficient combustion air. I start every home inspection the same way – I close up all of the windows and doors, and I turn on all of the ‘motors’ at the house that remove air.  These fans include bathroom exhaust fans, kitchen exhaust fans, and clothes dryers.  Besides giving me the opportunity to make sure the fans are properly working, I’m removing a lot of air from the house at one time, which creates a ‘worst-case’ scenario for the fuel-burning appliances, such as the water heater.  If there isn’t a proper combustion air duct installed, the water heater vent may end up acting as an air intake. This will definitely cause backdrafting.

A vent connector located directly across from a fan. Most newer furnaces have an induced draft fan that is designed to pull the exhaust gases out of the heat exchanger.   This fan ends up ‘pushing’ the exhaust gases up the vent, and if the water heater vent connector is located directly across from where the exhaust gases are directed, the exhaust gases from the water heater get pushed right back down.  The water heater doesn’t stand a chance of drafting properly with this configuration.

The water heater isn’t venting in to a chimney liner. When a water heater vent connector enters a chimney separately from the furnace or boiler vent connector, there’s a good chance that the vent just pokes in to the chimney and the exhaust gases rise up the annular space between the chimney walls and the metal vent liner.  The heat created by the water heater may not be enough to heat up this huge area.  The water heater vent needs to connect to the metal liner.

An obstructed vent. This one is a curveball that most home inspectors won’t be able to diagnose.  While replacing a water heater once, I found a dead bird sitting on top of the draft hood.  No wonder why the water heater was backdrafting.

If you have a water heater that backdrafts, have it professionally repaired.  Your home inspector may be able to give you several potential reasons for the water heater backdrafting, but an obstructed vent is always a possibility, and without taking stuff apart, there’s no way to know for sure.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minneapolis Home Inspections

In November of 2009, a home inspector in North Vancouver was ordered to pay nearly $200,000 after a faulty home inspection.   I read about all of the mistakes that were made at this inspection, and the most important piece that I came away with was that the judge decided that the home inspector didn’t give his client enough time to read the home inspection agreement, because the inspector had the client fill out the inspection agreement on-site, at the time of the home inspection.  You can read more about the story here.

That’s the same procedure that we’ve always followed, and as far as I know, that’s what most home inspectors do…. but to be proactive about this issue, we’ve changed our procedure.  Starting in January of this year, we began having our clients read and sign their home inspection agreements well in advance of the home inspection, and it’s worked out quite well.

We signed up with Echosign, which give us the ability to email our clients a link to our inspection agreement, with can be viewed and completed online.  I’ve come up with nine great reasons to send out inspection agreements ahead of time with Echosign:

• This reduces our liability.
• It saves us time during the home inspection.
• It gives our clients the opportunity to address any potential concerns with the inspection agreement well in advance of the inspection, rather than at the time of the inspection while everyone is already there.
• It’s green – no paper needed.
• I can read my clients writing.  I used to get a lot of email addresses and phone numbers that I couldn’t read.  That doesn’t happen any more.  I know this is a small benefit, but I really do appreciate this.
• We include a link to our web site in the email, so if our clients want to learn more about our company or about other services we offer, they now have the opportunity to do this.  This is especially helpful for the times when a third party, such as a real estate agent, arranges the inspection.
• For clients that can’t attend the inspection, this is way easier than emailing the agreement and having our clients fax it back or scan it and email it back after they fill it out and sign it.k
• We include the date and time of the inspection as well as the cost of the inspection in our email – this definitely helps to eliminate any confusion.
• Our tech-savvy customers love this service.  I’ve received a ton of positive feedback from them.

So why am I telling you about Echosign?  I think it’s a cool service that most people don’t know about.  If you have a need for electronic signature captures, check them out.  They even have several standard forms, such as I-9, W-4, and W-9.  There’s a similar competing service called Docusign, but it costs about ten times as much, and the only benefit that they could provide was ‘better customer service’… at least that’s what they told me.

If you’d like to see how this works, you can view a sample home inspection agreement.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minneapolis Home Inspections

]]> http://www.structuretech1.com/blog/2010/08/home-inspection-agreements-with-echosign/feed/ 0 http://www.structuretech1.com/blog/2010/08/cheater-breakers/ http://www.structuretech1.com/blog/2010/08/cheater-breakers/#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:56:06 +0000 Reuben Saltzman http://www.structuretech1.com/blog/?p=983

When an electric panel is filled with standard circuit breakers and more circuits need to be added, the solution is sometimes to install tandem breakers.  These circuit breakers allow for two circuits to be installed under one space, so they’re often call cheaters.  A few other terms that I commonly hear are duplex, twinner, half-height, half inch, and double.

Is this really cheating? No.  This is a perfectly acceptable practice… but there are several rules that need to be followed to make the installation correct.  When these rules aren’t followed, I suppose you could call it ‘cheating’.   Today I’ll share what I look at when inspecting tandem breakers.

The model of the panel

The model or part number of the electric panel will typically give away whether or not the electric panel is designed to accept tandem breakers or not, and how many can be used.  Here are a few examples:

• HOM20M100C  = 20 spaces for standard circuit breakers.
• QO13040M200C = 30 spaces for standard circuit breakers, and will accept a total of 40 circuits – that means 10 tandem breakers can be used at this panel.
• E0816ML1125S = 8 spaces for standard circuit breakers, and will accept a total of 16 circuits – that means all 8 spaces accept tandem breakers.
• BR1224L125V1 = 12 spaces for standard circuit breakers, and will accept a total of 24 circuits – that means all 12 spaces accept tandem breakers.

I think it’s easy enough to see the pattern here.

A diagram inside the panel

The wiring diagram inside the panel is the best way to determine if tandem breakers are allowed, and if so, exactly where they’re allowed.  In the photo below, which I used in my blog about double tapped circuit breakers,  you can see that the top four spaces allow only full size breakers, while the bottom eight slots allow tandem breakers.

Here’s another panel diagram – this panel allows the use of tandem breakers in four locations.

And another – this panel doesn’t allow any tandem breakers.

And another – this panel allows tandem breakers in the bottom ten spaces only (11-20 and 31-40).

Other Things To Look For

If the diagram inside the panel is missing or isn’t clear, there are several other ways to help determine if tandem breakers can be used in a panel.  One simple way is to look for the maximum number of circuits allowed.  In the photo below, you can see that only 20 circuits are allowed at the panel.  This panel had 20 full-size spaces, so tandem breakers weren’t allowed.

If the label is missing, another way to determine the maximum number of circuits allowed is to count the number of terminals for the neutral wires.  For instance, if there are 23 terminals present for neutral wires, the panel is probably designed for 20 circuits.  This is not a hard and fast rule though – some panels may have 40 neutral terminals present, yet only be designed for 20 circuits.  In the photo below, there are a total of 23 terminals; 1 for the main neutral wire coming in to the panel, 1 to bond the panel, 1 to ground the panel, and 20 more for the neutral wires.  This panel is designed for 20 circuits.

Another trick is to just look at the shape of the bus bars, if they’re visible.  Bus bars that are designed to accept tandem breakers will often have a slightly different shape.

In the photo below you can see that tandem breakers will often have a different design than standard breakers, which prevents them from being installed in locations where they shouldn’t go.

The manufacturers make them this way in an effort to prevent people from using them in an improper manner – but this doesn’t stop everybody.  In the photo below, you can see how someone broke the bottom of a breaker to force it in to a place that it wasn’t designed for.

If a circuit breaker sticks out from the rest of the circuit breakers, or ‘stands proud’, it probably doesn’t belong.  This particular panel didn’t allow tandem breakers.

When I find improper installations like this, I always recommend having an electrician come out to make repairs.

Oh, and for the record -I’ve been saying ‘electric panel’ this whole time, but a more technical term would be ‘load center.’

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minneapolis Home Inspections

The rules don’t apply to the federal government

In a nutshell, HUD’s position is that Truth-In-Housing evaluations may slow the sale of a property, and “By statute and regulation, HUD is to sell its properties as fast as it can, preferably to owner occupants.”  HUD won’t pay for Truth-In-Housing evaluations, and they won’t complete required repairs.

So how are the various cities dealing with this?  I contacted every city, and the answers were all across the board.  By the way, I use the term ‘Truth-In-Housing’ loosely – it’s what most people call the required pre-sale city inspection.  These are also known as Truth-In-Sale of Housing, Time of Sale, Point of Sale, and I/I Sewer Inspections.

• Bloomington – Still required.  The city of Bloomington is currently in the middle of a dispute with HUD, but if a property is offered for sale in Bloomington today, an evaluation is required.
• Brooklyn Park – An evaluation is required after the sale goes through, and the new owner must complete any required repairs.  This means that the new buyer is walking in to the deal blind, and could be facing a large list of required repairs immediately after purchasing the home.  You can see a letter that HUD wrote to the City of Brooklyn Park regarding this matter here.
• Crystal – No.
• Golden Valley – When I called, I was told “Yes, they’re required on all properties.”  This answer makes me think that the city is not yet aware of HUD’s refusal to participate in this program.
• Hopkins – An evaluation is still required, and the buyer must complete the repairs after the sale goes through.
• Maplewood – “Yes, they’re required on all properties.”
• Minneapolis – No.
• New Hope – Same as Brooklyn Park.  An evaluation is required after the sale goes through.
• Osseo – “Yes, they’re required on all properties.”
• Richfield – Same as Brooklyn Park.  An evaluation is required after the sale goes through.
• Robbinsdale – “Yes, they’re required on all properties.”
• Saint Louis Park – “Yes, they’re required on all properties.”
• Saint Paul – No.
• South Saint Paul – “Yes, they’re required on all properties.”

How this affects the public

When a home is sold without a Truth-In-Housing evaluation, the buyer takes on a larger risk.  The obvious and immediate issue is that these HUD homes may have numerous safety hazards that would ordinarily be identified by a Truth-In-Housing evaluation.  The obvious solution is to get a private home inspection.  Gee, you didn’t see that coming did you?  The less obvious issue is that the new owner may be faced with a list of unexpected repairs when it comes time to sell the property.  Buyer beware.

I will keep the above list up-to-date.  If I hear of any changes, I’ll modify the list and I’ll include the date of the change.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Saint Paul Truth In Housing

Warning:  Do not try this at home, at work, or anywhere else.  You could get electrocuted.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I guess they’re right.  I inspect a lot of old houses in Minneapolis and Saint Paul that still have two prong outlets, and testing these outlets has always been much more time consuming than testing three prong outlets.  I started thinking about this the other day, and ended up inventing a silly looking electrical tester that will save me a couple seconds at every two-prong outlet I test.

Until my invention, testing a two-prong outlet required two hands and multiple steps with a standard two-lead tester.  Here’s how it went:

Stick one lead in each slot – if the tester lights up, the outlet is energized.

To test the polarity of the outlet, I stick one lead in the smaller slot and grab the other lead.  I’m not kidding.  If the polarity is correct, I’ll at least see a very small light at the tester.  If my body is in contact with a grounded surface, the light will actually light up quite brightly.  If the polarity is reversed, the light won’t light up.

At this point, you’re probably thinking that the second part of this process is a stupid test because I could get shocked.  Technically, yes, I’m getting shocked, but there is so much resistance in my tester that I can’t even feel it.  If I’m standing on a concrete floor with wet feet and I try this test, I can feel a very slight tingle.  That’s about as bad as it gets… but I’m sure this would also make someone from Underwriters Laboratory laugh maniacally if I tried to get my little invention listed.

I’ve invented a tool that rolls these steps in to one, and only requires one hand. I took a standard three prong tester and cut the grounding pin almost all the way off.  I attached a stranded copper wire to this pin, and then wrapped my electrical tester with foil tape.  That’s it, that’s all.

When I plug this tester in to a two-prong outlet, the middle light will light up if the outlet is energized.

If the light on the right dimly lights up while I’m touching the metal tape on the tester, I know the polarity is correct.

If the light on the left lights up, the outlet has reversed polarity.  That’s it, that’s all.  If I want to know if the outlet box is grounded, all I need to do is touch the box with skin while holding the tester; if the outlet is grounded, the dimly-lit light will get really bright.

How cool is that?

RELATED POSTS:

• Reversed polarity at outlets
• Converting two-prong outlets

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Saint Paul Home Inspections

Vacuum breakers (aka – backflow preventers) have always been one of those pesky Truth-In-Housing repairs for homeowners in Minneapolis and Bloomington, but those aren’t the only cities where they’re required.  They’re actually a requirement of the Minnesota State Plumbing Code, section 4715.2100 (D).

Cheap Vacuum Breakers Don’t Meet Code

Part of the requirement for a vacuum breaker says any new device must be field testable. The minimum standard for a vacuum breaker meeting this requirement is ASSE 1052.  Vacuum breakers that conform to this standard are about twice the size of the really cheap vacuum breakers that you’ll find at most home improvement stores, and they cost about four times as much.

At left is a vacuum breaker conforming to ASSE 1052.  You can see that it’s about twice the size of the cheap vacuum breakers that conform to ASSE 1011, shown at right.

Cheap Vacuum Breakers Are Still Allowed…

So why do you see the cheap vacuum breakers all over the place in Minneapolis and Bloomington, and why are they allowed for Truth-In-Housing evaluations?

Minneapolis and Bloomington allow these because they don’t want to place too large of a burden on homeowners.  They want homeowners to be able to pick up a cheap vacuum breaker at the neighborhood hardware store for a couple bucks.  They figure it’s better than nothing.

…But Not On New Construction

If you look at any new construction home or at any sillcock that has been recently installed with a plumbing permit, you’ll find the larger vacuum breaker, or the sillock will have an integral vacuum breaker.  If the sillcock has an integral vacuum breaker, it doesn’t need to be field testable.

The photo at left shows a standard sillcock with an integral vacuum breaker, and the photo at right shows a frost-free sillcock with an integral vacuum breaker.  Both of these sillcocks meet the minimum requirements of the Minnesota State Plumbing Code.

Why Just Minneapolis and Bloomington?

So why is it that only Minneapolis and Bloomington require vacuum breakers for their Truth-In-Sale of Housing programs?  I suspect there has been too much complaining from residents in other cities.  Even though this is the cheapest, easiest ‘repair’ item required in Minneapolis and Bloomington, I hear more complaints about this one item than anything else.

RELATED POST: Why Do I Need A Vacuum Breaker?

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Bloomington Home Inspections

In example #2, I wrote: At another home inspection I did last month in Bloomington, I could clearly smell gas while standing at the water heater.  I bent down and smelled a significant leak at the union.  I put some leak solution on the union, and it quickly blew a bubble about the size of a quarter.  This was so obvious that I didn’t even bother marking the location of the leak… but I’ll never make that mistake again.  The Bloomington seller called Centerpoint Energy, who came out and said there was no leak.  We then called Centerpoint Energy, talked to the technician that went out the first time, told him exactly where to find the leak, and he still couldn’t find it the second time he was out.  Unbelievable.

Here’s a quick follow-up video of that same gas leak that we found at a Bloomington Home Inspection, taken yesterday.

(Don’t Try This At Home)

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email – Bloomington Home Inspection

An improperly installed drain hose is by far the most common defect that I find with dishwasher installations, but it’s also one of the easiest things to get right.  In the photo below, which was featured as a Structure Tech Photo of the Day, there are several plumbing defects, two of which are related to the dishwasher drain.

Can you spot them?

Wrong side of trap

Problem number one is that the drain is connected to the sewer side of the trap.  The water that always sits in the bottom of the P-trap is what prevents sewer gases from coming in to the house.  The dishwasher drain must be connected before the P-trap, not after it, which is what was done here.  With this improper installation, sewer gases have the potential to come back in to the dishwasher.  The diagram below right shows a proper installation.

No high loop

In the diagram above, right, you’ll notice that the dishwasher drain makes a high loop underneath the kitchen sink.  This is the minimum requirement on every dishwasher drain installation – it’s required by every manufacturer of dishwasher, and it’s also required by the Minnesota State Plumbing Code (section 4715.1250).  In fact, our plumbing code says “as high as possible under the countertop.”  An alternative to installing a high loop is to install an air gap at the kitchen sink, but I can’t imagine why you would do this if you didn’t have to – how ugly.  I’ve heard that these air gaps are required in California.  Too bad for them.

Although new dishwashers come from the manufacturer with the drain looped up at the side of the dishwasher, every installation manual still requires this high loop underneath the sink.

I’ve heard different reasons for why an additional loop is required under the sink, so I decided to contact the manufacturers directly.

I sent out an email to eight dishwasher manufacturers, asking them this question:

“In the installation instructions for all of your dishwashers, a high loop is required on the dishwasher drain. What is the purpose of this? Doesn’t the high loop that is incorporated in to the side of the dishwasher achieve the same thing? Any insight or commentary in to this matter would be greatly appreciated.”

Here are the responses I received:

• Kenmore: “The high loop or air gap must be used to prevent potential backflowcontamination of the dishwasher. Local plumbing codes generally dictate the requirements in your area. Section 807.4 of the Uniform Plumbing Code states: “No domestic dishwashing machine shall be directly connected to a drainage system or food waste disposer without the use of an approved dishwasher airgap fitting on the discharge side of the dishwashing machine. Listed airgaps shall be installed with the flood level (FL) marking at or above the flood level of the sink or drainboard, whichever is higher, or separately trapped with the airbreak located on the stand pipe.”
• GE: “If an air gap is not required, the drain hose must have the high loop from the floor toprevent backflow of water into the dishwasher or water siphoning out during operation.”
• Bosch: The high loop in the drain hose of your dishwasher is to keep water from settling in the hose if it were hanging down any lower or horizontally. This keeps the drain hose dried out and keeps any odors from backing up into the dishwasher.
• Viking: In testing our dishwashers, we have found that the additional high loop in the back of the dishwasher is required for proper draining of the water.  We have seen when this piece is not applied that over time the consumer will have issues with the water back up and causing issues with proper drainage and water pooling in a particular area.
• Maytag: No response after 29 days.  Boo.
• Whirlpool: No response after 29 days.  Boo.
• Amana: No response after 29 days.  Boo.

To summarize, the reasons for the high loop are to prevent potential backflow of water in to the dishwasher and to prevent improper drainage of water.  Even though dishwashers come from the factory with the drain looped up high against the side of the dishwasher, this is not an acceptable substitute for the high loop underneath the kitchen sink.In Minneapolis, the lack of a properly installed high loop under the kitchen sink requires repair for their Truth-In-Sale of Housing evaluations.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minneapolis Truth In Housing

If you watched the news this weekend, you probably heard about the deck collapse that happened in Coon Rapids on Friday.  On WCCO news, they even had an expert speculate that the deck collapsed because it wasn’t properly secured to the house.  When I hear news stories about a deck collapses, they usually say they’ll come back to the story once they learn what the problem was, but they never do…

so I decided to inspect this Coon Rapids deck myself.  Here’s what I found:

Epic Fail

According to WCCO, there were only five people on this deck when it collapsed.  The problem wasn’t that the deck was improperly attached to the house - this deck was completely missing a post.

I marked up two photos to show exactly what went wrong.  Click on the photos to get a large version.

As you can see, one corner of the deck wasn’t help up by anything.  The floor joist that was closest to house is what was actually holding up that entire corner of the deck.  It’s a wonder this deck even supported it’s own weight.

While most advice about deck safety deals with proper bolts, nails, brackets, etc, it’s just as important to take a step back and look at the big picture.  Proper nails and bolts aren’t a substitute for a proper load path back to the ground.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Minnesota Deck Inspections