In this episode, Reuben and Tessa discuss various homeowner questions, focusing on health effects related to sleep deprivation, the intricacies of high-efficiency furnaces, crawl space concerns, and the importance of proper ventilation and insulation. They emphasize the need for safety in home systems, particularly regarding carbon monoxide risks, and explore best practices for insulation techniques, including the concept of beam fill in basements. In this conversation, Tessa Murry and Reuben Saltzman delve into critical aspects of home construction and maintenance, focusing on capillary breaks, insulation challenges in older homes, the necessity of combustion air, and the myths surrounding electrical panels. They emphasize the importance of understanding building practices and the potential risks associated with modern energy efficiency measures, while also addressing common misconceptions in the home inspection industry.
Takeaways
Sleep deprivation can affect health and decision-making.
High-efficiency furnaces typically use a two-pipe system for safety.
Crawl spaces need proper ventilation to prevent moisture issues.
Insulation in crawl spaces can lead to potential rot if not done correctly.
Carbon monoxide risks are heightened with improper exhaust systems.
Homeowners should prioritize fixing leaks in exhaust pipes.
Ventilation strategies are crucial in cold climates to prevent frozen pipes.
Insulating the perimeter of crawl spaces is often recommended.
Beam fill is a technique used to secure floor joists in basements.
Home improvement decisions should consider long-term impacts on health and safety. Capillary breaks prevent moisture from moving into wood.
Older construction methods lack modern moisture management techniques.
Insulating older homes can lead to structural rot.
Energy efficiency measures must consider existing building conditions.
Combustion air is crucial for appliance safety and efficiency.
Home inspectors often face challenges with electrical panel assessments.
Not all recalls indicate a product is inherently unsafe.
Understanding building codes is essential for safe home practices.
Homeowners should weigh risks when considering insulation options.
Communication with homeowners is vital for effective home inspections.
Chapters
00:00 Sleep Deprivation and Health Effects
02:58 Introduction to Homeowner Questions
06:04 Understanding High-Efficiency Furnaces
08:56 Crawl Space Concerns and Insulation
11:55 Health and Safety Issues with Exhaust Systems
14:57 Addressing Carbon Monoxide Risks
17:54 Ventilation Strategies for Crawl Spaces
20:54 Insulation Techniques and Best Practices
24:06 Exploring Beam Fill in Basements
26:26 Understanding Capillary Breaks in Construction
29:36 The Risks of Insulating Older Homes
34:10 Combustion Air: Necessity vs. Comfort
44:01 Debunking Myths About Electrical Panels
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.386)
Welcome back to the show. This is the Structure Talk podcast. I am coming at you from Minnesota super sleep deprived today after a horrible night of sleep, but that’s okay we’re gonna we’re gonna power through it Tessa. How are you doing today?
Tessa Murry (00:17.723)
Hey Ruben, you don’t usually have bad nights of sleep, do you?
Reuben Saltzman (00:23.264)
No, not usually. Just every once in a while. I don’t know what it is. I think it has something to with the position of the moon or something like that. And it’s like sleep does not come. I don’t know. But.
Tessa Murry (00:36.278)
Okay, well I was gonna ask if you cared to share on the show what it was that kept you awake, but you think it was you think it was just something in the universe?
Reuben Saltzman (00:42.802)
It wasn’t any thoughts. No, it was no stress. It was no thoughts Although you know what to pull it back to pull it back. You remember we were talking about My HRV and how was saying it was making me all sneezy. Well, I The other day I my HRV is on it’s running. I’m like, why is it running? Well, someone had hit the button in the bathroom to turn the HRV on because you know, it’s got one of those bathroom buttons
Tessa Murry (00:47.331)
Really? What? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (00:58.04)
Yes?
Tessa Murry (01:06.875)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:10.866)
And, so it had run for about an hour and later that night I started getting sneezy and I’m like, it has to be my HRV. That’s making me sneezy. And then, so yesterday I’m, you know, I’m like getting a runny nose and I’m sneezing again. And I took some, whatever, some kind of cold pill. is this pseudo effigy and hydrochloride.
Tessa Murry (01:10.885)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:21.268)
my gosh.
Tessa Murry (01:34.651)
boy. Why not an allergy pill? No, you went right for the hardcore cold medicine.
Reuben Saltzman (01:39.886)
I don’t know. It just seems like my go-to. But I think I took it too late in the day and I think it just got me too amped up. I think I’m really sensitive to caffeine and whatever chemicals.
Tessa Murry (01:49.741)
in me.
Tessa Murry (01:53.678)
Would you say pseudephedrine in this cold medicine? Okay, so we were going down a rabbit hole. I will tell you, it does the same thing to me, Ruben. I found this out in college. Yep, I took, I took pseudephed and, and I remember I was like, I was amped up. I was feeling weird. My heart was racing. I was like having like kind of paranoid thoughts. And I’m like, what is going on? And I remember I called my dad and he’s like,
Reuben Saltzman (01:55.406)
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:03.203)
Really?
Reuben Saltzman (02:14.231)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (02:20.449)
yeah, did you take some cold medicine, some pseudo-federal? I was like, yeah. And he’s like, your mother reacts the same way. She can’t take it. It has like a psychological impact on me too. So I stay away from that. If I have to have to take something to clear out my sinuses for like a flight or something like that, I will occasionally, which I’m about to do in the last year. But otherwise, I keep my distance from that stuff.
Reuben Saltzman (02:45.504)
Okay, maybe I won’t take it anymore. All right, well this
Tessa Murry (02:47.907)
Yeah, I’m super sensitive to caffeine too, so maybe it’s that, I don’t know, but…
Reuben Saltzman (02:51.618)
This is officially now the health channel. That’s okay. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (02:58.279)
Yeah, pseudo-federal stories. There we go. Well, I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t sleep well. It’s funny because I did not sleep well the night before last night. And since I was sleep deprived two nights ago, I got like a little nap. I slept really well last night.
Reuben Saltzman (03:12.886)
That sounds delightful, Tess.
Tessa Murry (03:14.843)
Me who hey should we start the show off Ruben are we talking about today? Sorry everybody, okay
Reuben Saltzman (03:20.206)
All right, let’s I should I hit record? Should we start the show? Boy, I already hit record. Oops. well, we’ll just go with it. It’s okay. All right, let me let me give a shout out to our show sponsors IEB inspector Empire Builder. It’s a coaching platform basically for home inspectors about making their businesses better. The big thing that we’re talking about right now is the big annual event.
IEB Unite. This happens once a year. It’s an in-person, what do we call it? A conference, basically. Yeah, yeah, it’s several days of education and camaraderie. If you want more information, I will have a link in our show notes. It’s coming up at the end of May. So,
Tessa Murry (03:58.086)
Sure. Party. Just kidding.
Tessa Murry (04:18.116)
Nice.
Reuben Saltzman (04:18.272)
everything IEB does. All right, Tessa, anything new in your world we need to cover before we dive into our show topic for today.
Tessa Murry (04:21.807)
Nice.
Tessa Murry (04:29.563)
No, other than I am just not used to it being in the mid 90s in late March, early May. So I am trying to adjust to that.
Reuben Saltzman (04:33.89)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (04:39.022)
yeah, I heard it gets even warmer than that.
Tessa Murry (04:43.009)
It does. I’m not looking forward to it. Mm-hmm. Yep. Anywho, yeah, okay. Let’s dive in. What are we talking about today, Ruben?
Reuben Saltzman (04:46.222)
okay, yeah. Anywho.
Reuben Saltzman (04:54.72)
All right. I got a fun one here. This might be a long series. We’ll see how it goes. get our office gets emails from people all over the country asking random questions about houses. People have pains. They don’t know what to do. And they Google stuff and my blog comes up and then they send us emails and we don’t
answer all of them, but I do answer a lot of them, probably more than I should, because I’m not getting paid for any of this. And a lot of these answers take time. But I’ve got so many Q &A questions. I thought it might be fun to do a podcast where we read off these questions that homeowners are having and we discuss them. And these can be much longer discussions than the concise little answers that I usually write out for people. What do you say, Tess?
Tessa Murry (05:31.212)
Ha ha ha.
Tessa Murry (05:51.386)
Hmm Ruben first of all, I think that is so impressive that you take the time to Handwrite a response personalized response even citing code sometimes I’ve seen to all of these questions. That is extremely impressive To everybody listening out there, please send us your questions. However, we can’t guarantee that Ruben will be the one answering these questions for that much longer because Ruben How do you have the time to do that?
Reuben Saltzman (06:04.386)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (06:19.288)
Tessa, I don’t know. I have no idea. I don’t know why I make time for this. I can’t help myself sometimes because it just you just think to yourself, I know the answer to this. I OK, I got this.
Tessa Murry (06:20.792)
you
Tessa Murry (06:32.141)
This was after you popped a Sudafed, wasn’t it? You’re like up at two in the morning typing all these responses to people. No, I think this is great. And why haven’t we done this before? Have we? I don’t know. At this point, how many years have we doing this show? Maybe we haven’t. I just don’t remember anymore. But I think I think this is great. We’ve got we’ve got people from around the country that listen to this show and they’ve got lots of great questions, like you said. So let’s take a stab at answering some of these.
Reuben Saltzman (06:35.411)
right.
Reuben Saltzman (06:45.39)
I don’t think we have. No.
Reuben Saltzman (07:00.302)
All right, look, all right, I’m gonna eliminate any names because nobody gave me permission to share any of these questions. So they shall remain anonymous. Although for this first one, I just got this one, which is what kind of prompted this idea, because I thought this is such a long discussion, so much longer of an answer than I was willing to write out. And I thought you and I could almost do half a show just on this one email we got. And…
Tessa Murry (07:07.451)
Sounds good.
Tessa Murry (07:16.773)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (07:26.523)
Ooh, let’s dive into it.
Reuben Saltzman (07:27.808)
So I’m going to share this podcast episode with the person who asked this question when we’re done here. But here goes the question. I bought a how I bought a home that had upgrades that were not properly done. One thing is that my condensing furnace is a single pipe system drawing air from my ventilated crawl space. All right. Let’s just talk through that test. So we got a condensing furnace.
Tessa Murry (07:34.126)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (07:50.649)
Okay. Okay. I’m picturing this in my head.
Reuben Saltzman (07:55.918)
A high efficiency furnace is another way to put it. Almost all of those high efficiency furnaces are a two pipe system where it takes combustion air directly from the outdoors, brings combustion air directly to the outdoors. In her case, she’s got a single pipe system. So it’s taking the combustion air from inside the crawl space. Do we have a problem with that?
Tessa Murry (08:10.639)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (08:23.735)
Okay, and just to clarify, they’re bringing combustion air, fresh air in from the outside tip a typical high efficiency furnace. I just want to clarify this because you said it brings combustion air in and exhaust combustion air out but two different types of combustion air. The intake is drawing fresh air in for combustion, then it combusts and then it’s exhausting like the carbon monoxide and all the icky stuff out.
Reuben Saltzman (08:38.547)
sorry. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (08:44.697)
So a lot of these high efficiency furnaces, like you said, are these two pipe systems where it’s not impact, it’s not drawing any air from the home and it’s not exhausting anything into the home. It’s just connected to the outdoors. Okay, so hers is, does not have an intake going to the outside. It just has the exhaust going to the outside and it’s drawing air from this vented crawl space, she says. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (08:49.091)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (08:56.206)
That’s right.
Reuben Saltzman (09:03.81)
Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (09:09.442)
That’s right. And so the way I see it, I mean, you could have that furnace inside the house. You could have it outside the house. Either way, it’s perfectly fine to have a one pipe high efficiency furnace. All the manufacturers give installation instructions for doing it either way. And if she’s got a vented crawl space, no harm, no foul. We’re good there so far, right?
Tessa Murry (09:16.805)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (09:26.298)
over.
Tessa Murry (09:34.742)
Technically everything you say is correct. I This gets a little a little bit into some gray area and I don’t know if we should discuss it now or later but if if this crawl space is vented and it’s kind of technically outdoor space I want to know like what kind of condition is this crawl space? It doesn’t have an open dirt floor. It probably does it’s not sealed Is there a lot of mold and moisture in this space? Do we know where she lives?
Reuben Saltzman (10:03.15)
Spokane, Washington.
Tessa Murry (10:05.933)
Washington, okay, so kind of more moderate climate but Spokane, I think Spokane. Yeah, Spokane Okay, so my my thoughts are typically when you’ve got this, you know furnace that’s high efficiency and it’s a single pipe you’re drawing air from your combustion room, is inside the house and in our climate, you know basement and a basement typically Is you know, it’s heated it’s cooled. It’s conditioned
Reuben Saltzman (10:08.462)
Is it Spokane? It’s Spokane. I said it wrong. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (10:33.371)
It’s got a concrete floor to it. So you don’t have any open dirt You know if you’ve tested for radon and it’s high you’ve got a mitigation system So you’re kind of controlling your indoor air there and that type of you know space but in this unvented crawl space You’re not really controlling any of that air at all But that’s okay because it’s just going into the furnace for combustion and then being exhausted out correct
Reuben Saltzman (10:57.92)
Right, right, yes, yep.
Tessa Murry (11:00.749)
But it is using that air that’s not mixing with the household air. It’s just for combustion. Okay. Thanks for sitting with me while I think through that. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (11:05.73)
Yep.
That’s right. So far we’re okay. Yep. All right. And then the next part, it says, I’m assuming it’s fine since it’s vented, agreed. And then this person says, and I don’t plan on doing any insulating under the home. As I imagine that would invite rot. So what is implied here is that there is no insulation.
Tessa Murry (11:35.758)
No insulation.
Reuben Saltzman (11:37.536)
separating the living space from the crawl space, from the vented crawl space. And if it’s vented, means we’re going to try to keep it at the same temperature as the outdoors. That’s the idea. Lots of air movement through there and we have no insulation.
Tessa Murry (11:41.955)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:49.923)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:55.42)
There’s no thermal boundary between there’s no thermal boundary between inside and outside. And there’s likely no air barrier. That’s great either a consistent. So really that house is communicating with that crawl space pretty well. Yeah. And you know, insulating the floor of a crawl space can get a little bit tricky too, because then once you start putting insulation in the floor, the depending on the type of insulation you use, if you use a vapor barrier,
Reuben Saltzman (11:55.736)
What do you say? There’s no thermal boundary. The end.
Reuben Saltzman (12:09.155)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (12:23.195)
You can have issues with condensation and mold too, especially in a vented crawl space That doesn’t have any control over, you know humidity or anything like that Now that being said the furnace that’s drawing air from the crawl space though when that furnace is kicking on It’s it’s pulling air from that space and it’s probably actually pulling air from depressurizing the house. Maybe a little bit too
Reuben Saltzman (12:49.602)
Could be.
Tessa Murry (12:50.715)
If the vents are clogged or not fully open or whatever, it’s sucking air from anywhere it can. It’s sucking air from the vents, sucking air from the house. It could actually kind of regulate humidity levels underneath the house in the crawlspace and help dry it out a little bit, like a dehumidifier, which is always a good thing. So that’s going for her, but it’s not energy efficient at all. Everything we’re talking about, having ductwork running through a crawlspace that
doesn’t have any insulation around the perimeter, let alone insulation floor or the ductwork being insulated. It just all of that heat through, you know, from the furnace going through the ducts is just dissipating into that space and not going to where it should be going into the house. So you’re keeping your crawl space probably warmer and drier, which is a benefit for reducing potential mold growth and rot.
Reuben Saltzman (13:37.07)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (13:48.334)
and structural issues, but you’re also costing yourself more money because you’re losing a lot of that heat and that energy to the crawl space instead of going to the house. So it’s kind of a straight off like we talked about before with efficiency and durability. It’s like, okay, the setup you have now is going to make that crawl space hopefully warmer and drier, but it’s just going to cost you more in heating costs.
Reuben Saltzman (13:55.948)
Yes. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (14:12.512)
It’s gonna cost you more. now the part that I take a little issue with is that she’s saying she doesn’t plan on insulating under it because she’s thinking that this would invite rot. If you insulate there, will it cause rot, Tessa? And I know, come on, I want your favorite answer to everything. Yes.
Tessa Murry (14:30.753)
Yeah, it depends. It depends. You know, insulating the floor of crawl space is risky. And the preferred method I believe these days is that a lot of building scientists talk about is insulating the perimeter of the crawl space and doing some sort of dehumidification. But anytime you put insulation in the floor joist, you’re going to make it let’s just say
It’s a warm, humid day outside and you’ve got your AC running. You’ve got fiberglass baths stuffed in between the floor joists, isolating, reducing the amount of heat transfer through that floor cavity. So now the underside of the subfloor is going to be much cooler temperature because you’ve got that insulation up against it. So any sort of warm, humid air that gets through that fiberglass or through any holes in a vapor barrier that you might have.
will potentially condense on the underside of that cold subfloor. So you are potentially creating a moisture problem when you take away heat.
Reuben Saltzman (15:34.476)
Yes, yes. Okay. So it’s risky. You could do it, but you invite some potential problems. Okay, we got that. She’s not even asking about that. She says, my main issue is that the pipe was not fully connected. This is the exhaust vent. The exhaust pipe.
Tessa Murry (15:39.514)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (15:56.064)
is not fully connected. So it is leaking the exhaust and thus moisture under the home. I’m quoting here. I’m not implying that’s what’s happening. That’s what she’s telling me. The exhaust is not fully connected. Okay. She says further I live in Spokane, Washington, where it gets extremely cold. I’m wondering if I should be leaving those vents open in the winter, the vents to the crawlspace or
Tessa Murry (16:01.295)
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (16:25.888)
Should she keep doing what the previous owner did and push insulation batting into the vents during the winter to reduce condensation? And she says, I feel like leaving them open, regardless of temperature and weather conditions is best. I was told by technicians that the pipe leak is not a huge issue. As it is not inside the home. All right, what do you have to say about this test?
Tessa Murry (16:54.459)
Where to start? Okay, well, first of all, let’s start with health and safety issues. Okay, so you don’t want to be breathing in carbon oxide. Technically, this pipe is running through a crawl space outside of a condition space. That’s why it sounds like the HVAC contractor is like, eh, not a big deal. However, I’m guessing that crawl space and the house are somewhat connected through little tiny holes, air leaks, whatever. And so potentially, there’s a way for that carbon oxide to come back up into the house just kind of like
when you park your car in the garage. If the garage is not perfectly sealed from the house, you can get leakage between the two spaces. So number one thing, okay, hopefully she doesn’t have a carbon oxide issue in her house. The second thing though is I’m thinking about all the exhaust gas going into that crawl space and there’s a lot of moisture in that exhaust. So it’s dumping a ton of humidity and moisture.
Reuben Saltzman (17:46.026)
a lot.
Tessa Murry (17:51.578)
and corrosive gases into that crawlspace, which is, again, not a good thing. Yeah, corrosive gases and moisture, which are going to be impacting potential durability issues of the structure and everything. you know, you want to get that pipe reconnected and you want to get that exhaust gas vented out. Those are my initial thoughts on that. Do you want to add anything?
Reuben Saltzman (17:54.286)
corrosive gases. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (18:14.426)
Yes. Well, and here’s another thought. So we’re combustion air from inside the crawl space. We’re leaking exhaust gas into the crawl space. So now we’re re-burning it. And you know when you re-burn it, the carbon monoxide level is going to skyrocket. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (18:21.89)
Yeah. yeah.
Just recirculating. You’re right. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (18:34.521)
Yeah, I guess it depends. How big of a space is this that we’re talking about? Because I hear what you’re saying. Yeah, you don’t want the exhaust of the furnace to be going right back into the intake. That’s why the manufacturer specifies certain clearances between intake and exhaust on high efficiency furnace on the exterior of the house. So you’re not sucking in that combustion air again. So yeah, if it’s a small, tiny crawl space and there’s a big leak in that exhaust pipe and it’s near the intake, yeah, that could be.
Reuben Saltzman (18:39.394)
Don’t know.
Tessa Murry (19:03.003)
create a problem with just the efficiency of the furnace and how the furnace burns too.
Reuben Saltzman (19:07.446)
Yeah, yeah, and it could create high levels of carbon monoxide. And now again, you’re not sealed off from the rest of the house. I would call this a very unsafe condition. I would say, yeah, fix it. You need to fix that pipe.
Tessa Murry (19:11.043)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (19:18.523)
Could be. It could be. We’re kind of going through worst case scenario. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because how many crawl spaces are actually 100 % air sealed from the condition living space above?
Reuben Saltzman (19:34.894)
I don’t inspect any. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (19:35.939)
Like, any. Yeah. Hardly any. Unless it’s, unless they’ve installed like maybe a closed cell spray foam against the underside of the subfloor, like from the crawl space, and they’ve air sealed it that way. Otherwise, all the penetrations in that floor are potentially leak. And framing members and all that. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (19:54.668)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so we’d say fix the pipe and then what should she do with her vents? Should she leave them open in the winter or close them in the winter?
Tessa Murry (20:11.693)
Okay, so yeah, this is I’m glad you brought this back up again, lots of questions in this question. So, you know, I’m just thinking again, she said it gets very cold there. So, okay, my thoughts are again, is this crawl space the entire house? Is this just one little area? Are there water pipes, water distribution pipes running through this crawl space? Like, does she have any problems with frozen pipes? Because not only is it energy inefficient to have a super cold climate within
uninsulated crawl space with duct work running through it, heating system. But you can also have like issues with frozen pipes if you’re leaving these vents all open and again, you’re trying to keep this crawl space the same temperatures outside and get venting. And so if it’s, if it gets, you know, really cold there, you could have an issue with just frozen pipes, I’m thinking. But
Reuben Saltzman (20:54.285)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (21:07.897)
I guess if it’s this furnace is drawing fresh air. I mean, I’d want to get as much fresh air into this space as possible right now until that furnace gets fixed. That’s just my thought on it.
Reuben Saltzman (21:15.618)
Yes, yes, I agree. And I mean, in a perfect world, she would have exactly what you described earlier. She would have insulated outside walls. The crawl space would be brought into the thermal envelope and you would have no ventilation going into that crawl space. You just make it all a warm space, right? Okay. All right. All right.
Tessa Murry (21:28.347)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (21:37.389)
Yes. Yep. In a perfect world. Yeah. I mean, again, how accessible is this crawl space? Can that be done? How big is it? What’s our budget? That’s tough.
Reuben Saltzman (21:48.098)
Yeah, yeah. But I mean, in the meantime, I think, well, what would be better, leaving those vents open or closed in the meantime?
Tessa Murry (21:59.716)
In the meantime, the furnace leaking, I’d say leaving him open. Until you get that exhaust gas fixed. I don’t know, what do you think? Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (22:04.832)
Okay, all right. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I thought the same thing. Yeah. All right.
Tessa Murry (22:11.993)
sacrifice a little energy penalty and maybe some frozen pipes for not getting super high carbon monoxide in your space.
Reuben Saltzman (22:20.298)
and tons of moisture and whatever else. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:22.371)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, tons of exhaust gas and condensation moisture.
Reuben Saltzman (22:27.746)
Yep. Okay. All right. Well, that’s that one. Thank you. Right. Yeah, this was a tough one. This is a tough one. That’s why that’s what kind of inspired me to do a little series on this. That was a longer answer. I think I’ve got a lot of other questions here where the answers are a little bit more straightforward. So.
Tessa Murry (22:32.187)
Well that was a concise response. I’m surprised you didn’t type that one up, Ruben.
Tessa Murry (22:42.595)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:53.163)
Yeah, yeah, this is a perfect example of kind of like some of the consulting I do with my consulting business, your house coach. It’s people that have stuff like this going on and they’re not sure what to do. And maybe they’ve had like, you know, an HVAC contractor come out and tell them one thing and then they’ve had another contractor come out and installation contractor and tell them another thing. And they’re like, I don’t know what to do. And everybody’s looking at their individual pieces. And so
You know, it’s usually it’s not just a quick do this or do this. It’s like well, okay Let’s weigh the pros and cons of all these different things and figure out something that’s best for you best for your house best for your budget And it’s usually talking through all these different things with people to help them understand You know how everything is connected how everything’s related you change one thing and you can impact another so It’s usually not black and white
Reuben Saltzman (23:43.138)
Yeah. And how can people find you, Tessa?
Tessa Murry (23:50.574)
No, thanks, Ruben. Thank you for that. People can check out my website, www.yourhousecoach.com and I’ve got all my contact information on there. You can shoot me an email at housecoachtessa at gmail.com. That’s probably the best way.
Reuben Saltzman (24:06.624)
Okay, and you’re still working out of the Twin Cities, but are you doing this type of work in Tampa, Florida as well?
Tessa Murry (24:11.066)
I do.
Tessa Murry (24:14.635)
Not yet. I have not branched out to Tampa yet. I’m thinking about it, but I have enough clients and business out of the Twin Cities that so far I’ve just been focusing on that.
Reuben Saltzman (24:15.937)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (24:28.78)
Okay, all right, cool. Well, when that changes, I’m sure you will let us all know.
Tessa Murry (24:34.027)
I will keep you posted.
Reuben Saltzman (24:35.488)
Okay, all right, cool. All right, so that was one question. I’ve got about 37 more that we probably won’t get through on this podcast, but we might do a little series on it. We’ll see. All right, here’s the next one. It said, Hey, Ruben, I’ve been researching how to best insulate the rim joist area of our basement. And I happened upon your blog post about beam fill. I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about beam fill.
Tessa Murry (24:42.779)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (25:00.784)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (25:03.286)
on this podcast, it’s B-E-A-M Beam Fill. Tessa, how do we describe Beam Fill? What is it?
Tessa Murry (25:12.655)
Well, I think we did a show on it a long time ago, but I would describe it as if, know, picture the structural wood members that hold up your floor, floor joists. And where we have basements, a lot of times it’s concrete, concrete block. In some older houses, they actually buried those, those joists in the concrete. And so if you’re looking at the top of the foundation wall where the wood meets the concrete, you will see concrete.
in between the floor joists and the floor joists are kind of buried in that. The ends of them are.
Reuben Saltzman (25:44.684)
Yeah, yep. And it’s like you’ve got a concrete block wall. They put the joist on top of the wall and then they just used concrete mortar, whatever, and they troweled it on where it touches the top of the joist and then it comes out down at a 45 degree angle ending with the front of the foundation wall or the inside part of the foundation wall. It’s almost always sloped at an angle.
And it, and the purpose of it was to help prevent the joists from racking, to help prevent the joists from twisting one way or the other. It would kind of hold everything in place and it would also help anchor all the joists onto the top of the foundation walls and make sure they’re not sliding all over the place. Because today we use a flat piece of lumber on top of the foundation wall.
Tessa Murry (26:14.65)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:23.407)
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:31.973)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:38.894)
And then we use this capillary break and then we put the joists on top and it all gets bolted together, but they weren’t doing it back then. That was not standard building practice.
Tessa Murry (26:44.079)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (26:47.941)
Keyword, capillary break. That type of older construction method we’re describing with beam fill, there is no capillary break. Okay, what is a capillary break? That is just a break so that moisture can’t move from through the concrete into the wood. Because concrete is like a sponge. So when it gets wet, which it will, it’s buried in wet soil, that moisture will move up through the concrete and move into the wood. So new construction doesn’t…
Reuben Saltzman (27:14.36)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (27:16.387)
doesn’t allow that. We’ve got capillary breaks all over the place and the footings, the foundation wall. But this older style of house has no capillary break. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (27:25.326)
Yes, yes. So one of the big problems we see when you got beam fill, you look at it and the ends of the joists look perfectly fine. But if you take an awl or a screwdriver and you poke it in right where that beam fill right where the concrete meets the joist and you kind of shove your all into the joist at a 45 degree angle, it will just sink right in like there’s nothing behind it.
And it turns out that the joists have rotted away to nothing. Tessa, I remember an inspection you and I did together. Do you remember this one where the homeowner had tore off all the siding and all the ends of the joists, you could see the ends of the joists, they were so rotted, you could just stick your fingers into them. Remember that one?
Tessa Murry (27:55.836)
Yeah. yeah. Yes.
Tessa Murry (28:09.219)
Okay, so we got a rare view of the ends of the rim joists because of like you said, they were doing new cladding, but they had removed the original cladding and they’d I think the rim joist was rotted too, wasn’t it? So there wasn’t. Yeah, the rim joist, the rim joist was gone. And so you could literally see the you know, the end of each joist and you could see the rot and how it was just, you know, deteriorated.
Reuben Saltzman (28:23.2)
It was gone. It was rotted away to nothing.
Tessa Murry (28:38.479)
So I do recall that and a lot of houses that we have in kind of in Minnesota we’re talking about that we see in the Twin Cities area, like the majority of houses from that area, I feel like are stucco. I don’t know if a lot of older stucco, which, know, moisture can move through stucco. It’s a reservoir cladding and then into the wall cavity as well.
Reuben Saltzman (28:51.246)
There’s a lot of stucco.
Tessa Murry (29:07.951)
But, I mean, back in the 1920s when these houses were built, or 1900s, like they didn’t have vapor barriers, they didn’t have insulation in the walls. And so all the heat from the house would go through the structure of the home and dry it out. And it wasn’t that big of an issue. But what’s a problem today is when people say, hey, I want to stop this heat transfer through the wall system.
Reuben Saltzman (29:08.214)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (29:23.98)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:36.473)
and I want to stop this air leakage and I want to make my house more energy efficient and install insulation and air seal it really tight. Now you’ve created potential disaster where you can rot out your floor joist and your rim joist.
Reuben Saltzman (29:54.05)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Tessa Murry (29:57.186)
This is my opinion on this. I know that it’s a little bit of a touchy subject, especially for people in the energy efficiency world or people that do energy audits that recommend rim joist insulation. I get it in general. It’s a good thing. We want to try and reduce energy consumption and make your house more comfortable. But in certain situations like houses that are built like this, in my opinion, I’d rather pay more money on heat than
have to deal with replacing rotted structure of my house eventually.
Reuben Saltzman (30:29.814)
Okay, so your preference would be, because they’re asking like, know, what’s the best way to insulate it? You know, should we use fiberglass baths? Should we use rigid foam and caulk it in place? Should we use spray foam? It sounds like your preference, you’d rather say, don’t insulate it, period. Pay the energy penalty.
Tessa Murry (30:37.423)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (30:41.711)
yeah.
Tessa Murry (30:50.447)
That is my personal opinion on that because you have to decide what level of risk you’re comfortable with as a homeowner. And for me, when it comes to building durability and potential routing things out, that’s a risk that I wouldn’t want to take. So I would just not insulate that. Plus, you’re not going to get a whole lot more… I don’t think you’ll have a huge impact on the energy efficiency because…
Half that rim joist is already covered up with concrete. So you’ve only got half of it exposed anyways that you can really add some insulation to. So is it worth it? You know, once you bury that rim joist and those floor joists in like a spray foam, it can’t dry anymore. The little bit of, you know, that it could, that was exposed to the air could dry. Now you can’t. You’ve removed all of that. So.
And I see, I’m looking back at the question too. Our house is a Minneapolis stucco built in 1915. Yeah. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (31:52.62)
Yeah. Yeah. So you’d prefer not know it. Well, that’s a that’s a tough one. I feel like if it’s always been dry, if you don’t have any rot and it is dry, I think you might be okay doing it. And when I say, okay, I’d say spray foam or something that’s going to make it airtight. You don’t want
Tessa Murry (31:57.306)
I don’t know, what’s your opinion on that? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:15.203)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (32:17.41)
water vapor in the inside air from reaching that rim joist and then condensing. You do want it airtight for sure.
Tessa Murry (32:25.397)
The only way you can do that with a construction method that has all the concrete in there and that’s uneven would be a spray foam, like a close-cell spray foam. Now, can I just go back to something real quick? You said if it’s always been dry and it is dry and it’s fine, well, you don’t see a problem with that. Well, maybe it’s dry, now it’s not rotted because it can dry, but as soon as you put spray foam over it, it can’t breathe anymore. It’s the same concept as like…
Reuben Saltzman (32:32.206)
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (32:46.245)
That’s a great point, Tess.
Tessa Murry (32:52.089)
You you open up a 1915 stucco exterior wall and it’s not rotted, but then as soon as you put in spray foam there, it might rot when you open it up 20 years later. It might be rotted. So I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t agree with it necessarily.
Reuben Saltzman (33:08.142)
No, you bring up a very fair point because you’re changing things.
Tessa Murry (33:12.909)
Yeah, you’re changing the airflow and the heat transfer and all that drying potential.
Reuben Saltzman (33:17.474)
Yeah, yep. Very fair point. All right. So we don’t have a good answer for you. Tessa would prefer to leave it alone and I’m fine with that.
Tessa Murry (33:28.971)
Yeah. You wrote also just a plug for one of your blogs. You did write a good blog. If people want to see what we’re talking about, they can Google structure tech blog, just Beamfill and you’ll find Ruben’s blog about it.
Reuben Saltzman (33:44.142)
Let me see what happens. StructureTech beam fill. There it is. Beam fill in the case of the missing rim joists. All right. Cool. And you know what? Look at this. We did do a podcast on it back in 2021. All right. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:50.103)
Yeah, hey, great. Perfect. You documented it.
Tessa Murry (33:59.036)
Okay. Okay. I thought we had talked about it, but yeah, that’s like four years ago. So you can go back and listen to that one if you’re curious to learn more about Beamfill.
Reuben Saltzman (34:10.316)
Yep, yep. Okay. All right What do we have next next one? This one is on combustion air. This one says
I came across your blog on combustion air vents and I had some questions. We have a house in Kansas City. It was built in 1928 and I have this big six inch combustion air vent in our basement in the laundry room. So we all know what that is. It’s this big insulated tube that drops down into the room. They say it’s letting in a lot of cold air, but we’re unsure if it is necessary or not. We do have the water heater in front of us in the basement.
Tessa Murry (34:40.443)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (34:46.875)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (34:50.486)
in a room catty corner to the laundry room, but both have doors. We are wondering if we could seal the vent completely to avoid the freezing temperature in the basement, but we also don’t want our appliances to explode if they’re not getting fresh air. We do seem to have a lot of cracks in outdoor air from our storm windows, so is the air vent even necessary? What do we do?
Tessa Murry (35:08.411)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (35:19.342)
All right. Okay. I have blogged on this because I’ve been asked this before and you know, it’s, this is a tough answer because we don’t know everything and you can, you can go to the codes for, I think they said Kansas City they’re in. Yeah, Kansas City. Yeah, exactly. Good point. But
Tessa Murry (35:20.069)
Take it away, Ruben. You also wrote a blog on this one that’s really good.
Hehehehe.
Tessa Murry (35:34.135)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (35:43.649)
Which may not have codes.
Reuben Saltzman (35:49.294)
Forget all the national codes. Let’s go to Minnesota’s code because I think Minnesota, we’ve amended the heck out of this section of our fuel gas code, which talks about how much combustion air you need to have coming in. And they say that they’re, you know, if you’ve got combustion appliances, like a furnace and water heater, you need combustion air brought into that space. But they do have an exception in the code.
Tessa Murry (35:53.209)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (36:01.305)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (36:17.646)
And in Minnesota, it’s it’s section 304 of the Minnesota State Fuel Gas Code. And it’s an exception that says if you’ve got this huge space, you don’t need dedicated combustion air. And by huge space, you know, basically it says that you you need 50 cubic feet of indoor space.
for every 1000 BTUs of combustion. So let’s say you’ve got an 80,000 BTU boiler or 80,000 BTU furnace, pretty typical size. Let’s say you’ve got a 40,000 BTU water heater, pretty typical size. That brings us a total of 120,000 BTUs, very typical. Now,
Tessa Murry (36:48.367)
Hmm. Hmm.
Tessa Murry (36:57.595)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (37:07.835)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (37:11.488)
If we, if we got to do a little bit of math, you do 50 into that. And I think you come up with 6,000 cubic feet of space. That’s what you would need. If you have 6,000 cubic feet of basement space, then you don’t need that duct. That’s your answer according to the Minnesota fuel gas code. However, the code is dumb. The code
Tessa Murry (37:23.867)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (37:36.603)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (37:41.87)
does not know whether you’ve applied spray foam to your rim joist and covered up your beam fill. It doesn’t know if you’ve got a 600 CFM kitchen fan that’s gonna fight for some of that air. It doesn’t know how many bathroom exhaust fans you have. It doesn’t know if your walls are super leaky or they’re super tight. It doesn’t know any of this stuff. it’s a very generic answer.
Tessa Murry (37:47.671)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (38:00.241)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (38:04.197)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (38:11.522)
but I think it’s better than what a lot of the national codes just kind of gloss over. So there’s my super complicated answer. My easier answer would be leave the duct alone. You probably need it. You don’t want to have problems.
Tessa Murry (38:18.319)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (38:22.971)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (38:31.035)
So, am I understanding their email right that they’ve got their combustion appliances in a separate room from where the combustion air intake is and they’ve got doors separating the combustion air from the combustion appliances?
well, I mean, do they leave the doors open or not? Because I mean, that’s another thing like the the combustion air is kind of being isolated to the laundry room if they keep keep the doors shut. I’m sure that dryer is very happy having combustion air that it can use to burn and exhaust. But what about the furnace and the water heater, the boiler and the water heater? They’re using air from the space and hopefully the space they’re in is big enough.
Reuben Saltzman (39:04.705)
huh.
Reuben Saltzman (39:08.92)
for sure.
Tessa Murry (39:20.651)
and that they are drafting and working properly. But what kind of water heater do they have? Do they have a natural draft water heater? You know, and what size space is that? And is the water heater drafting okay? And like you said, what kind of ventilation appliances do they have now? So they have a 600 CFM range hood that they just added. I mean, they might need additional combustion air or a combustion air servicing the utility room that they don’t have. So…
Reuben Saltzman (39:47.288)
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I’d say it would be a really good idea to make sure that there is no way for occupants of the house to block that airflow from the combustion air intake to the appliances, meaning either remove the doors.
or make sure that you have louvered doors or put some holes in the doors so air can always go through them even when they’re closed or in a lot of these unfinished basements where they just kind of put up walls to separate stuff. A lot of the time you have air communicating through the floor joists and it doesn’t matter if you close doors. But I don’t know, they didn’t say whether it’s finished or not. We’ll assume it is finished.
Tessa Murry (40:11.694)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (40:27.214)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (40:31.119)
Yeah, we don’t know the level of finishing. Now, if they had a, let’s say they had an electric water heater or even like a direct vent water heater on demand or something like that, and they had a high efficiency furnace, would that space need? Who cares? We don’t think that they do, but just saying. So it matters in some scenarios. We just don’t know if it matters in this one.
Reuben Saltzman (40:48.632)
then who cares? Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:59.702)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, so tough to give a complete answer with no, without knowing all of these other things. Yeah. Yeah. And, just kind of generically, if you don’t want all of this air, just dumping onto your basement floor, what a lot of people will do is make a little J at the bottom of that combustion air duct, or have it dump into a large bucket where it’s not so small that it restricts airflow.
Tessa Murry (41:05.035)
All the details. There’s a lot of details. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (41:29.458)
and that will kind of create a trap so the cold air doesn’t just fall into the room. It’s got to fall down and then it’s got to rise up again. I don’t know how effective that really is. I think it helps. I’ve always told myself it helps and I see it done everywhere. I’ve always done it in every house I’ve ever owned. I think it helps.
Tessa Murry (41:36.251)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (41:42.46)
Yeah. Well, I think it helps too, because I have felt the alternative in super airtight homes. I’ve been in some houses that are less than one air change per hour, like 0.6 ACH50 air changes per hour at 50 pascals of pressure. That’s like passive health standards. And they had combustion air intakes, of course, was required. And that
that duct was just dropping straight into the utility room and didn’t end in a J shape or didn’t go into a bucket. And because that house was so airtight, anytime you turn on a fan or whatever, air got sucked out of the house, new air gets pulled in to replace it and was coming in through that combustion air. And air would just pour in through that combustion air duct. And obviously in Minnesota when it’s super cold outside.
That makes your basement floor really uncomfortable. The whole floor would feel freezing cold because that cold air is more dense and it just falls and it sinks. And so before you know it, it’s like that whole space feels really cold. I don’t know. think it does. I think it does help a little bit. If you’ve got a J-trap or you’ve got a bucket or something where that cold air coming in can, as it gets called into the space, as you know, the pressure calls for it, it will mix a little bit with more of the
Reuben Saltzman (42:40.759)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:04.095)
the air in the room and kind of warm it up a little bit and temper it and not just keep coming in and falling into the floor and making the whole room cold.
Reuben Saltzman (43:10.946)
Yes. Yep. That’s the exact idea. Yep. I like it. And, and don’t, you know, I’ve seen a number of ice cream pales below these. That’s way too small. You have completely obstructed your duct. That doesn’t work. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:15.45)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:21.883)
Nice try, but yes get something bigger does like a 10 gallon bucket work for like paint bucket Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, sorry yes
Reuben Saltzman (43:30.478)
Five gallon you’re thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That five gallon bucket with a six inch flex duct is just fine. If you’ve got a seven inch flex duct, the five gallon buckets probably too small. You need to make a J with your duct at that point.
Tessa Murry (43:41.583)
Perfect. Okay.
Tessa Murry (43:48.78)
Yeah, you could use a Tupperware bin or something like that too. Or trash can. Whatever. Trash can’s good. Okay. Yeah. Good. Well, we sufficiently didn’t answer that question either, so should we move on? Just kidding.
Reuben Saltzman (43:52.248)
Sure. Yeah. Trash can. Yeah. Big trash bin. Yep. Yep. A big one. Yeah.
Okay, I think we.
Yep. All right. We got time for one more. All right. And this one, I think we’ll have a little bit more of a direct answer. This one is from a California resident. They say they’ve lived in their current home for 10 years. They put it up for sale. They’re an escrow. The inspection report came back saying that the electric panel was a potential fire hazard. It is a challenger panel. Okay.
Tessa Murry (44:10.907)
Okay, all right.
Reuben Saltzman (44:35.374)
They’re doing the research. They found our site and in 2022, I wrote a blog post saying there’s no problem with challenger panels. Is that still our stance? Why is there all commotion about these challenger panels? And they also shared the inspection report and they’re looking for some input on this. Now we’ll talk about challenger panels in a second, but first I got to read what it says in inspection report.
Tessa Murry (45:05.093)
Please do. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (45:05.934)
All right, so this is a challenger panel. OK, I said that already. It’s a challenger panel. Here’s what the inspection report says. The electric subpanel was manufactured by Federal Pacific.
Tessa Murry (45:10.139)
Yeah, okay.
Tessa Murry (45:20.873)
Oops.
Reuben Saltzman (45:22.424)
Federal Pacific Chal-en-ger, we’d put a sick there. Yeah, it’s misspelled. The Challenger, Sylvania, Zinsko, and Stablock electric panels have been the subject of numerous investigations and lawsuits, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they go on, there’s this big paragraph. So do something about it. Okay, so they identified it as a Federal Pacific panel. Number one.
Tessa Murry (45:28.529)
it’s misspelled. Okay. They left out the E. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (45:52.29)
How lazy or ignorant of report writing is this to just say they’re all the same thing. They identified it as a federal Pacific. It’s not, it’s a challenger. Okay. Not the same thing.
Tessa Murry (46:02.145)
Yeah, we see this a lot in our industry, Ruben, and I get it. It’s you you’re going through your you’re checking boxes, you’re trying to get through, you know, the house as fast as possible. And they checked a box that they had for this type of electrical panel that they’re lumping all these brands together or all these types together. But you’re correct. Technically, they should have changed. They should have edited this sentence.
Reuben Saltzman (46:27.052)
Yeah, yeah. And then when it comes to our challenger electrical panels, hazardous. If you go research and you try to figure out what makes them hazardous, you will not find any compelling information online. You will have people saying, well, they’ve been the subject of a number of recalls. You know, there’s a recall done on this. There’s a recall done on that.
Tell me what car manufacturer hasn’t had a recall. Find me a single electrical panel manufacturer that has not had a lot of recalls. Every major brand has had recalls. That’s not a reason to condemn an entire manufacturer just because they made something that had some recalls. So that’s complete garbage. And we’ve found scorched panels with
Tessa Murry (47:14.683)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (47:22.932)
every panel manufacturer. I have several examples of challengers. I have several examples of every manufacturer. I’ve shared them on my blog post about challenger panels. There is no compelling evidence to suggest that these are any worse than any other panel. So I think this is just bad press creating bad press. I think this is a bunch of nonsense. And that was my response to this question.
Tessa Murry (47:48.537)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (47:52.972)
You got any other thoughts on this test?
Tessa Murry (47:55.908)
No, think there’s, I feel like our industry has, you know, there’s a lot of like myths out there that you just as a home inspector, you hear about them and you kind of go with it. And the challenger panel is like one of those that I feel like you and Eric Hausman kind of worked on researching this and debunking this a few years ago. And we dove into it in more depth on a podcast. I think it was back, it looks like June of June 27th of 2022.
Reuben Saltzman (48:22.615)
Okay, yeah.
Tessa Murry (48:24.141)
So yeah, if you want to hear more about this, you can check out that podcast, what’s your stance on Slovenian Zinsko panels then?
Reuben Saltzman (48:33.186)
Don’t like them. Those have had a lot of problems. Those really are problematic. And when we come across those, we recommend replacement, not all the Sylvanias. There are Sylvanias that have standard breakers. They look like the breakers on any other panel. And we don’t have an issue with those. It’s the ones that look like the Zinsko breakers where they slide up and down on a single bar. And they’re basically indistinguishable from the Zinsko style.
Tessa Murry (48:34.939)
Okay.
Okay.
Tessa Murry (48:59.195)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (49:03.714)
That’s the ones that we have a problem.
Tessa Murry (49:06.489)
Okay, and why is that?
Reuben Saltzman (49:09.088)
While they the jaws eventually get loose over time, you end up with loose connections. You end up with arcing and that leads to overheating and it can lead to fires.
Tessa Murry (49:19.725)
If you’re a home inspector, should not remove the cover of Zinskos and Sylvania panel because you may not be able to get it back on.
Reuben Saltzman (49:26.25)
Yeah, probably not a good idea. You can have breakers that slide down and then it’s like, what do you do? You’re holding breakers in your hand. Like, okay, how do I reinstall these? Yeah. Having said that, I’m sure I’ve opened dozens and dozens of them, but I wouldn’t anymore. I wouldn’t anymore. I just leave them alone. Yeah. And by the way, Tessa, this is just a side note. It was just a little bit infuriating to me.
Tessa Murry (49:30.873)
Yeah.
My gosh, Yikes, yikes.
Tessa Murry (49:42.395)
Of course. Yeah, okay. Alright.
Tessa Murry (49:55.077)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (49:55.246)
I, in preparing for this show, I thought I’d like to figure out what ended up happening in this situation. I, I ended up reaching out. I reached back out to this person and said, so whatever happened with this? Like, you know, did, did you, did you push back on the buyers and you know, whatever happened? And they said,
Tessa Murry (50:02.331)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:11.823)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:19.322)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (50:21.358)
We have since sold the home and we no longer need your services. Thank you
Could you possibly? Yes. Nothing so unsatisfying like I’m not trying to sell myself. I just took the time to answer your question. I just want to hear what happened and they can’t even give me that.
Tessa Murry (50:28.731)
You took the time to write them back and they that’s what they said they didn’t even give you an answer. No Very unsatisfying
Tessa Murry (50:45.855)
Oh, well, my goodness, okay, that is a little unfair I feel like and that sucks and I wish we knew the answer to that because we never get to follow up I feel like on these things. At least I don’t or we didn’t as home inspectors It’s nice to actually know what happens, but that’s a bummer man. Okay. Hey if they listen to this show
Reuben Saltzman (50:51.245)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (51:03.893)
I know I know
Tessa Murry (51:07.163)
Please tell us what happened. Maybe they were just a little busy with the sale of their house and moving and we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe their life was a little hectic, but… Man. There’s a bitter taste in my mouth.
Reuben Saltzman (51:10.894)
You
Reuben Saltzman (51:16.588)
We will. We will give them the benefit of it out. Yeah. Yeah. well. Yeah, I know. I know. Why do I bother? OK. Well, that’s we’re.
Tessa Murry (51:28.827)
Cuz you’re a good decent human Ruben
Reuben Saltzman (51:33.078)
And we will keep doing it. All right. To the listener, if you’ve got questions, similar stuff like this, you’re welcome to share your questions with us. can’t guarantee we’re going to answer them, but if there’s something that seems juicy, like, we could really help people with this one. Maybe other people have the same question. We’ll talk about it. our, our email is podcast at structure tech.com. we, we welcome your questions. We read them all. Any closing thoughts tests?
Tessa Murry (52:04.367)
I don’t think so. We’ll definitely try to talk about them. We just spent what 40, 50 minutes on four questions. So we will talk your ear off about them. We may not answer them, but we’ll chat about them.
Reuben Saltzman (52:10.208)
Four questions, Yeah, we, and I’ve got a few more. This might be a little series we’re doing.
Tessa Murry (52:17.915)
Sounds good. I’m looking forward to it
Reuben Saltzman (52:20.726)
All right. Well, thank you, Tessa, and I will catch you next week. Take care.
Tessa Murry (52:23.44)
Thanks, Ruben. Sounds good. Thanks for listening. Bye.