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MONDAY MORNING MESSENGER |
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Message prepared especially for Members of the American Institute of Inspectors® as well as Home Inspectors abroad |
GOOOOOD MORNING, A.I.I.....
It's a great day here in Orem, Utah! Father's Day was a special event at the Leavitt household. In fact, the entire weekend was family centered. Here in northern Utah we have a different city festival every couple of weeks. It may be Strawberry Days one weekend and Onion Days the next. This weekend was the Orem Cityfest. This included a parade, carnival and games. The younger Leavitt kids rode bikes, while Jessica roller bladed. While Mommy and Grandma sat along the parade route Daddy was riding a skateboard carrying a little black toy poodle in one hand and a digital camera in the other trying to document the kids in action.
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| AARON - 4 |
HAILY - 6
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ADAM - 8
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JESSICA - 12 DADDY - 40
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MASTER ROCK CLIMBERS
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The Orem Cityfest is always fun because we get to eat good food, enjoy the parade, climb a rock wall, ride some carnival rides and then watch a firework display. And to think that all of this takes place just about a mile and a half from our home. The kids loved climbing the rock wall. Getting to the top was really only important for Dad. The kids stopped their ascents when they realized that they were getting pretty high off the ground.
REVERSE POLARITY DEATH
I have been asking the readership to pass along news stories and documentation that will help us better defend why we report what we do. How do you explain to a client the risks associated with reverse polarity? While discussing this on another forum the recounting of a past news story came up about a boy getting shocked and dying from a Coke machine. Countless times I have had agents try to downplay the importance of correcting outlets with reverse polarity. Tragic real life events like the following are sometimes our best explanation for why a reportable condition should be corrected. So the next time the question arises as to what is the real difference whether or not the receptacle has reverse polarity, you may want to refer to the following event. Bill Loden in Alabama was able to chase down the article and I share it with you here from the Huntsville Times March 7, 1999, Pg A19.....
Court reduces award in vending machine case - Bill Poovey The Associated Press
MONTGOMERY-- The Alabama Supreme Court reduced from $13 million to $4 million a jury's award of damages to the parents of a 10 year-old boy who was electrocuted while buying a snack from an ungrounded vending machine in Clanton.
The justices’ 6-0 decision gave the Mobile couple, Michael Ramanauskas and Tela Ramanauskas, one month to either accept the reduced award from Charlotte, N.C.-based Lance Inc. or have the case sent back to circuit court in Mobile for a new trial. “We will discuss it and decide what to do,” said the couple’s attorney Robert Cunningham Jr. of Mobile.
Larry Harper of Birmingham, and attorney for Lance, could not be reached by telephone for comment.
The parents of Shawn Ramanauskas, previously received settlements of $7 million from Williams Motel Inc. and Holiday Inns Inc., owners of the motel where the machine was located, and another $3 million form Montgomery Coca-Cola, the owner of a soft drink vending machine that was touching the machine owned by Lance. Neither the motel owners nor Montgomery Coca-Cola admitted any wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.
Cunningham said the Supreme Court decision shows “how conservative the (court) system has become and how well the system works.”
“I think it is a very well reasoned and well written opinion;” he said.
Lance contended the trial court mistakenly failed to grant its motion for a new trial based on the company's claim that the boy's parents “failed to establish that that Lance had a duty to police the electrical circuits at the motel.”
Shawn Ramanauskas died Aug. 21 1995 while attending a family reunion with his parents at a Holiday Inn in Clanton.
At the trial, an attorney for the parents asked jurors for $100 million in punitive damages, claiming Lance still had not started training procedures for employees to make sure its machines were plugged into safe outlets.
The attorney said the motel staff ignored guests’ complaints that they were getting a painful shock from vending machines for two days prior to the boy's death.
A Coca Cola machine next to the snack machine had dirty coils, a broken grounding plug and a coin changer damaged by salt water, Harper told jurors.
Testimony revealed that both machines were plugged into an ungrounded, wrongly polarized outlet that was rigged by a handyman.
But Cunningham said at the trial that Lance also was at fault for failing to make sure its machine was properly grounded.
Justice Champ Lyons, writing for the majority in the decision reducing the verdict, said the motel was the most culpable of the defendants because its handyman wired the electric receptacle into which the vending machine was plugged with reversed polarity, and its management failed to react to complaints made immediately before the child's death that the machines were shocking users.
“Montgomery Coca-Cola, although culpable because it admitted that it knew its machines at many locations shocked people every year, which is more than Lanced indicated it knew, paid the substantially lesser sum of $3 million.
“However, we are also aware that, unlike the motel and Montgomery Coca-Cola, Lance elected to proceed to trial, Thereby increasing the parents’ cost of litigation, which we may take into account,” Lyons wrote”.
CRAWLSPACE POLICIES and Manufactured Housing FeesI wish to thank Jim, Richard, and Rolland for their crawlspace policies and stories
Inquiring minds:
As for the horrid crawl mentioned on a post the other day, my response is "no way" or "hang it in your left ear, I'm not going in there" for the same reasons Jon Gudnason stated. The SOP's say you don't have to and they are our road map to a successful and safe inspection. Jim Lucas - Camino, CA
I agree with you Jim about the horrid crawl space policy. If it is unsafe, then we are not required to access. I'm glad to hear that you have an added crawl space fee, like myself, when you come from an area where the crawl space is the norm. Most inspectors that I have spoke with in areas with a large percentage of crawl spaces tell me that they feel wrong to add a crawl space fee because most of the homes have them. The logic is odd, but if we polled the readers we would probably find that most inspectors do not add on a fee for the crawl spaces.
A funny one in a crawl space on a hill. The home owner had steel chain from a boat company he worked at (we're talking large chain each link about 5 lbs each). Then he bolted the chain down with 1/2" bolts to the bottom plate with large washer hand made and sunk the other end in concrete. He said he put it 3' deep all around the perimeter and about 10' apart. He told me that no earthquake was going to damage his house! Whew! Another house in Oakland had 14" of raw sewage in the sub area I lifted the access lid and wow! I've had many strange ones in the last 20 years. Rolland Pruner - Livermore, CA
The ship anchor chain sounds like a great upgrade. Is this a new seismic safety product from Simpson Strong Tie?
Unfinished basement, raised foundation crawl space, add............$45.00 (soon to go up to $65.00, and then $85.00). Current price for Mobil/Mfg. housing up to 1500 sf is $225 (add - as above - for crawl spaces). Add 10 cents per sf for any over 1500 sf. Richard Grisham - Las Vegas, NV
I need to ask an odd question. Why does it seem that many of you have such low fees for manufactured housing? Is your manufactured housing fee less than for traditional housing? If I have read Richard's Las Vegas fees correctly, then his are set at $265 for a single family manufactured home. Knowing how bad a 1976 mobile home usually is, then why would we assume all of the liabilities of an inspection for the low amount of $265? Now I am not trying to bash fees. It just seems that this is an awfully low amount and the liabilities are equal if not greater on a manufactured home. They are filled with rot from leaking roofs, leaking plumbing, as well as just the age factor that allows the cardboard with which they are constructed to deteriorate. Special knowledge is needed to understand the pedestals and utility connections. Manufactured housing inspections are a special inspection, yet many inspectors set their fees lower to perform the inspection. This is contradictory to good business logic. Jim Lucas solidifies my point......
Michael: You paint it all doom & gloom but mobile home inspections are not. Sure, you will come across a "dozer bait" unit now and then but we also do with stick built homes. My typical double wide mobile takes me two hours to inspect and the report is ready to copy immediately. The fee--- a mire $275 for two hours, not too shabby I say. This is definitely an area of "added value" to your business as is P & D for some of you. I have a strong one day manufactured home seminar that is well accepted and taught nationally. I believe, from what I have heard, that some of you may have been short sheeted at your past training so perhaps we can work out an audited class fee for those of you who were "trained" but do not feel you have all the knowledge necessary to perform a competent inspection. I also have an A.I.I. formatted inspection report form available and John Rebenstorff should have an acceptable computer disk available by November. Jim Lucas - Camino, CA
Jim, as a past trainer of the Mobile Home curriculum and a continued student of the latest information that is available on manufactured housing, I do not feel short sheeted on my knowledge base for manufactured housing. Instead, after sitting through an all day training on the State of Oregon standards for manufactured housing installations, it reinforced my belief that manufactured housing inspections should be considerably more money than that of a single family home of the same size and age. The knowledge base required to perform manufactured housing inspections is definitely an added value and without the training an inspector should not try to bluff their way through these types of inspections.
As for the computerized version of an AII style manufactured housing form set, we have had one available for the 3D software for over 5 years. I took the time years back to computerize our AII paper form set. There is no reason to still be performing manufactured housing reports with a clipboard, pencil, and a paper checklist. There are just too many items that deserve photo documentation in the crawlspace and on the roofs. Providing a computerized version with photo documentation surely should be worth the substantially higher fees than those that have been referred to above. I also eagerly look forward to previewing and promoting the form that John Rebenstorff is developing as it becomes available. We should all be attempting to improve our final product. The days of pencil, paper, and 2 am runs to Kinko's should become a thing of the past. And with it, we should be able to command higher fees for a more complete final product.
When asked "What are your warnings when inspecting older manufactured homes?" Rolland Pruner responded....... Aluminum wire, plastic water pipes, No tow equipment left under he rig, warped wood paneling, old furnaces. To me the rest is the same (cheap). Rolland Pruner - Livermore, CA
Richard Grisham's warning was the best........ "Don't!!!" Richard Grisham - Las Vegas, NV
PHOTO CHALLENGE FEEDBACK #108
"What are the biggest issues you see?"
I can always count on Chris Burkhart to respond.......
Chris Burkhart - Sandy Ut
THE BLACK WIDOW PHOTO BY JON GUDNASON
ROOT MOUNDS - STILL A MYSTERY
Who can give us an explanation of the source and causes of root mounds in the crawlspaces?Could be roots? Rolland Pruner -Livermore, CA
Why should we get to the bottom of this rather eccentric issue? I fail to see how this could help you do a better inspection. I know that we feel that irresistable urge to give intelligent answers to the occasional mystery or unexplained surprise that we find at an inspection site. But we are mostly the Inspector and very little of the detective. Our job is to do the inspection and tell the buyer what we found. I think we do too much speculating about what might be as it is. There is nothing wrong with honestly admitting that you don't know. Even a "Master Builder" cannot know everything! Richard Grisham - Las Vegas, NV
Richard, when you see a root mound, do you report its presence? Is it a reportable condition? Does it mean that a main sewer line is ruptured? Or does it mean that a leak is occuring from up above? Or does it mean nothing at all? Personally I was intrigued by this issue because it was just one more in the many thousands of issues in a home that I had never before previously considered. I was just hoping that one of the readers could enlighten us as to the cause and source. When we do find the answer to root mounds, then it will be just one more silver bullet that will make us that much better than the next inspector in town. Think of all the silver bullets that you have that the majority of us will never learn. One of us will encounter a master plumber with decades of experience that will enlighten us to whether or not they are a reportable condition.
PHOTO CHALLENGE #109
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This shot is followed by a message and photo submitted by Jim Corbin from Bow, WA. Jim writes...... I just got this and thought it notable for Jon Gudnason...Hey Jon, is this a reportable condition??? I appears to be one of two things to me...eminent hazard of window in flight/landing pattern of birds or it is an object lesson to not eat tainted bird seed just before flight. Bird, dead on landing into rose. Pretty landing spot, though. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL THE DADS! Jim Corbin - Bow, WA
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If you haven't yet invested in a digital camera, then your electrifying experiences are going undocumeted. If you are wondering what digital camera Michael Leavitt would go out and buy if his were to die today, then check in next week because mine died last Monday morning.
QUOTABLE QUOTE: "Life has two rules: number one, never quit; number two, always remember rule number one." Duke Ellington |
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