General

What’s That Beautiful Green Stuff on my Roof?

In the wet Northwest, we sometimes get things that other parts of the country seldom see.  In this case, the beautiful green stuff is moss; and it is not beautiful on a roof.  Moss growth on a roof causes several problems and is considered a “conducive condition” for wood destroying organisms.  Moss growth can cause roofing nails to lift, hold moisture against the roof and ultimately destroy the shingles.  In the early stages, it is easy to deal with.  A little zinc powder strewn above the growth during the growing season (moss grows in the winter when it is wet) can kill the moss. If it gets a little farther along it can be mechanically removed.  This does not  mean pressure washing.  Pressure washing dramatically shortens the life of a roof.  The photos below show moss at a stage that is almost beyond control.  The whole point of this is to control it in the earliest stages.

What Is It? and What’s the Difference

The following pictures are of three different siding materials that look quite a bit alike.  Knowing what each is and the pros and cons of each may be important when you purchase that next home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, each of these siding materials are similar.  The top, cement asbestos has been given a bad rap.  Asbestos is a problem when it is friable (fibres floating in the air where they can be breathed) but as long as it is intact and kept painted, it is one of the best and longest lived sidings ever invented.

The second siding, asphalt shingles, was popular in the forties and fifties (earlier in some farm communities).  This stuff is fairly rare in Whatcom County, but it does exist.  The picture was taken in Bellingham.  It doesn’t  last much longer than an asphalt roof (generally in the twenty year range) and doesn’t like hot weather because it softens and is susceptible to damage.

The third siding, striated cedar, is pretty common here in Bellingham and is often mistaken for cement asbestos.  It is a quality wood siding that, if maintained properly, will last a lifetime.

Thank you for reading this. 
David Helm, Bellingham home inspector
http://www.helmhomeinspections.com

Insurance 101 - The Learning Curve Series: Flood Insurance

What is a flood and does my Home Insurance cover it?

This is a question we get all the time in the fall and spring. First what is a flood? Water seepage, broken pipes, and washing machine overflows are not floods. To see if damage from these perils are covered give your agent a call. A flood has a definition and is paraphrased as water covering land that is normally dry and involves 2 or more connected properties and/ or a certain number of acres.

Flood is usually excluded from a Home Insurance policy and requires coverage backed by the National Flood Insurance Program a division of FEMA.

Flood Insurance may be required by the lender if you live in an area of the 100 year flood plain. Lenders are increasingly asking for flood determintion reports prior to funding a loan. If you are required to purhase Flood Insurance it is important to get an Elevation Certificate to qualify for the best rate.

Insurance 101 - The Learning Curve Series: Homeowners Insurance

The most important thing about home insurance is to protect you and your property. A typical home insurance policy covers the structure (dwelling) and unattached structures not used for business. The events that are covered typically are most everything except a list of perils such as earthquake, flood, rot,and those others in your policy.

 The personal property (contents) or the unattached items you own are covered typically only for a named list of perils such as fire, smoke, theft, and many others listed in the contract. Many types of personal property have limits such as theft of jewelery.

Even more important is your liability exposure, what if you are negligent and cause injury to some one? Are you covered?

How about if you need a place to live if your home is damaged due to a covered claim?

Will your rates go up if you have a claim?

Will you be cancelled if you have too many claims?

These questions and more can be answered by a simple phone call.

Noxious Weeds

Most exotic garden plants are not particularly problematic.  The majority of garden plants do come from elsewhere in the world.  Some of them, because of their invasive nature, become a serious problem for the well being of native plants when the spread to wild areas.  One of the main ways they escape gardens is as seeds in the belly of birds.  Some of these invasive, noxious plants in the state of Washington are as follows.  Gardeners may be surprised by the inclusion of some of these plants.

Common Fennel, a non-bulbing type that has tall feathery licorice smelling foliage.  Escapees inhabit and colonize grasslands and crowd out native flora.

Purple Verbena, has attractive lavender tubular flowers, is vigorously self seeding and is rapidly spreading into fields and open areas.

Knotweeds, large, bamboo like shrubs with feathery white flower heads.  Bees love them.  The invade riparian areas, block sunlight and degrade habitat for wildlife and fish, including Salmon.  They have very deep roots and a difficult to get rid of.

Old Man’s Beard (clematis vitalba), is a climbing vine that when escaped get established in forests and along stream banks where the smother shrubs and trees forming dense mats in the understory.

English Ivy, spreads into forests and forms dense mats that block sunlight, smother trees and encourage rot.  In Western Washington there is a movement to remove English Ivy where ever it exists.

Purple and Garden Loosestrife, are a major threat to wetlands because they tolerate saturated soils and spread rapidly, it crowds out native plants and reduces wetland habitat.

Butterfly Bush, is problematic along rivers and streams where it traps sediment.

These are just a few of the noxious plants that appear in Washington.  Many of them are noxious and invasive in other parts of the country too.  It is a good idea, when planting a garden, to learn about the bad boys of the plant world in your area.  These plants are legal to buy, but they cause serious problems.

Thanks for looking.

David Helm, Bellingham home inspector

www.helmhomeinspections.com

What Does Green Really Mean?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while.  There is a lot of hoopla regarding green building and green lifestyle these days.  There are certainly many levels of greenness and I applaud you for whatever level you have reached.  Unfortunately, being truly green is a lot more complex than it might seem on the surface. 

Let’s start with transportation.  When we think of green, we need to take into consideration the carbon footprint for sure, but we also need to take into consideration the use of resources (after all, we do live in a finite world) and how long will it take that new green product to become a net gain for the environment.   You buy a new Prius.  This is very green because it gets very high mileage.  Not green immediately.  How much steel, oil (including all the plastics) and polution was used/caused in its manufacture?  How much oil was used in shipping it to the USA and then to your town?  Compare this with a ten year old high mileage vehicle  (since emission standards have not improved in this time I will not talk about that).  The manufacturing costs (polution, resource use) have nearly been amortized.  In the beginning, at least, the ten year old vehicle will be greener than the new Prius.  How long will it take the Prius to catch up? In this blog I’ll not talk about public transportation because the nature of most of our work requires private transportation (there is probably very little green about private transportation).

Food use and production; where does your food come from?  Is it shipped halfway around the world?  Is it a result of industrial monoculture farming (relying heavily on oil for fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and harvesting)?  Truly green food is both local and seasonal. We eat what is produced in our local area, when it is produced.  If you want it to be green, you also have to take into consideration the treatment of the land and animals that you eat.  If the land is being despoiled with petroleum based chemicals, if the animals are treated as production units (feed lots, cages, etc.) it is not green.  Even if it is organic, if it’s shipped from far off, it’s not green.

Local economies; A green economy is one that is sustaining of the locality.  If your buying your goods and services from the big box stores/national or international chains, you are not sustaining your local economy.  This is not green.  Buying local circulates the money locally.  Buying from chains sends the money somewhere else. 

What is a truly green house?  The analogy written above about the Prius fits here too.  Can we find truly sustainable wood products?  Not with todays knowledge.  There are certainly some small, local mills and timber operations that strive to do sustainability, but on a national level it is pretty grim.  Building to LEEDS standards is certainly a large step in the right direction, but is only a step. Where do the materials and products for future housing come from?  What is the carbon/resource footprint of future housing?

This post is not meant as a pooh poohing of green building and practices.  It is only meant as a thought provoker.  I am thrilled that our industry is beginning to take these things into consideration, and I know that all of us fit somewhere in the continuum of green; either not green, partially green, predominately green (I doubt that there is anyone in this country that is 100% green; we do, after all, live in an industrial society).

Thanks for reading this screed.  I hope it provokes thought and action. 

REDUCE; REUSE; RECYCLE

David Helm, Bellingham home inspector

http://www.helmhomeinspections.com

REALTORSPEAK; A Dictionary

First a disclaimer.  This is all in jest and is not meant to offend anyone.  I spend a lot of time looking at listings, because I am a very small time RE investor.  I always get a kick out of the adjectives used to describe homes in these listings.  The following are some of my definitions.

ELEGANT   You can’t afford it!

FABULOUS    See ELEGANT

DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL  Bring a bulldozer!

CHARMER   Old and in the way!

LUXURIOUS    See ELEGANT

PRIVATE LOCATION    You can’t get there from here!

REMODELED    A few upgrades done twenty years ago!

FIXER or FIXER UPPER    See DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL

HISTORIC    See ELEGANT

CUTE    Your family won’t fit in this one!

STARTER HOME    See DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL

NEWER    At least thirty years old!

CLASSIC    See CHARMER

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH    See DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL

VINTAGE    See Charmer

These are a few of the terms I’ve discovered.  I know there are more.  Feel free to add any you’d like.

Thanks for looking

David Helm, Bellingham home inspector

www.helmhomeinspections.com

Tales of Inspecting

I know that many home inspectors have stories (some of them horror) of inspections that did not go exactly as planned.  I have heard one story about a very dangerous person, with gun, that happened to be in the house.  My own little story is nowhere near as nasty as that one, but it had me worried for a bit.  I always save the crawl space for last.  It is a dirty place and I don’t wish to take any of the dirt back into the home.  This particular day, my client was in California, the realtor came to open the house and left, so I was alone at the site.  The crawl space was a particularly tight one, but one I could traverse with some effort. As I was coming down the home stretch, so to speak, I came to  an area that had flexible duct work that was pretty close to the ground.  Since I needed to see some plumbing nearby, I decided that I could probably push my way under this duct (after all, it was flexible).  I got about halfway through when I found that I could not make it any further.  Okay I think, I’ll just back out from under it.  WRONG!  Here I am, stuck in a crawl space, my cell phone is in my tool bag outside the entry.  I can’t move forward, backward or sideways.  What a predicament!  After struggling for a good 5 minutes (seemed like hours), I figured I needed to stop, relax and think this through.  I wear heavy duty rain gear in crawl spaces.  First thing I did was remove the rain coat; it felt like I could move a little, but not enough.  It was winter, so I had a fairly heavy shirt on; removed it.  Now I am naked from the waste up and feeling really ridiculous.  My next move was to very slowly inch my way backward.  After about 5 minutes of this I was free.  Put my shirt and raincoat back on and went the long way to get out.  While laying there thinking what to do, I was seeing the headlines: “Home Inspector found dead lodged in crawl space!”  What a time!

Thanks for reading.

David Helm, Bellingham home inspector

www.helmhomeinspections.com

Price Shopping For Home Inspections

I see that a lot of people shop for inspections by price.  They may be spending $500,000 for a home but opt to find the cheapest inspection they can find.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Making a major investment without getting the full particulars about that investment seems a bit wrong headed to me.  ALL INSPECTIONS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL!  That may bear repeating; ALL INSPECTIONS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.  There is an old adage that “you get what you pay for”.  In inspections this is very true.  Someone is doing cutrate inspections for a reason (usually they are trying to buy their way into the business).  It is unlikely that someone who values their service so low will do a very thorough inspection.

A better way to shop for inspections is to look at the background, experience and reputation of the inspector.  Certainly being a member of a National Organisation is a plus, but no guarantee.  Do they have E&O along with General Liability insurance?  Do they have any construction related background (again no guarantee, but I would want someone who has a good understanding of how houses are built)?  Are they formally trained? Classroom training with hands on experience doing supervised inspections is  best.  I would be wary of online training.  Do they price their inspections appropriately? (This means, do they value what they do?  If they value what they do, they are more likely to want to do a thorough job).  Lastly, do they actually spend an appropriate amount of time doing the inspection.  In Washington, with Home Inspectors also doing WDO (wood destroying organisms) it is very hard to do a single family home in under three hours (that does not include report writing time).  Larger homes, and older homes (locally up to about 120 years) will take longer, and should cost more for the inspection.

David Helm, Inspector

www.helmhomeinspections.com

An Explanation of Washington Wood Destroying Organisms (WDOs)

The most common (and the most damaging) WDO in Washington is the Anobiid Beetle(sometimes called the Western Death Watch Beetle) Hemicoelus Gibbicollis.  Often misinformed people call this the “powder post beetle”.  True powder post beetles(Lictyds) infect hardwoods and appear in Washington primarily in furniture.  The Anobiid infects softwoods; important because it infects structural lumber.  They are common in crawl spaces and thrive in a moisture level of 13 to 18%.  The larvae spend as much as five years eating wood before exiting to breed and continue the cycle.  Control includes removal and replacement of any severely damaged wood (There could be serious structural damage) and eliminating conducive conditions; primarily by ensuring adequate ventilation of the crawl space, removing cellulose debris and making sure the vapor barrier is properly installed.  Chemical control is possible, but it takes treatment over a period of years to effectively control them.

 

Carpenter Ants(Camponotus modoc is the most common) generally nest in tree stumps outside the house.  They enter the house foraging for food and to establish satellite nests.  They do not eat wood, but excavate tunnels. The initial nests in houses is started in decaying wood, but once it is established, they expand their network of tunnels into sound wood. They can do considerable damage to a structure.  If the colony is located they can be controlled by chemical treatment.  Again, non chemical control includes reducing conducive conditions: proper ventilation in attics and crawl spaces, trimming vegetation back away from the house, removal of any wood affected by decay fungi, keeping soil away from wood trim and siding.  Closing any openings to the outside (entry of gas pipes, etc.) also will help keep them out.

 

There are two species of termites known to be in Western Washington.  The first, Pacific Dampwood Termite is mostly found in crawl spaces.  The wood must be wet to support them.  A common source of infestation is formwood left on footings.  Out door firewood storage (especially against the house) is another common source of infestation.  Best control is to remove any conditions conducive to their support; remove footing forms and cellulose debris in crawl space, ensure proper ventilation of the crawl space, do not store fire wood or other wood products against or near the house, repair any leaks in plumbing.  Subterranean Termites, the other type, fortunately is relatively rare in Western Washington.  It nests in the ground and must be in contact with moisture at all times.  They build mud tubes for protection and moisture when foraging away from the nest.  Chemical control is the most effective way to get rid of them.  This can be quite involved.

 

Moisture Ants are usually associated with rotting wood.  They are not considered a primary structural pest.  Removal of rotted wood and controlling conducive conditions are generally adequate to control them.

 

Wood Decay Fungi, often mistakenly called “dry rot”, is a very common WDO in Western Washington.  Water must be present (generally a moisture level at 20% or above), optimum temperature for growth is 60 to 90 degrees f, and a food source (the wood).  The primary control for wood decay fungi is remove and replace any damaged wood and control conducive conditions (eliminate any sources of moisture).

 

There are other WDOs in Washington, but they are not considered to be a primary problem because of biological conditions.  The WSDA has identified another insect, the Velvety Tree Ant, that they are classifying as a WDO, but information isn’t widely disseminated yet.

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