Home Inspector and State Hazards

"The range of hazards faced by home inspectors in the course of examining buildings is considerable. It includes obvious catastrophes such as falling off of a roof or electrocution, and less obvious or less likely events such as structural collapse, exposure to bacterial hazards, fungal hazards, or even physical attack by violent building occupants, biting dogs, sneaky snakes, and pecking parrots.
Home inspectors and other professional building diagnosticians are expected to be observant and attentive to detail. Despite these skills, accidents happen to inspectors. Ladder falls lead to injuries or death
Home inspectors and other building investigators and workers spend a lot of time on ladders. Our photographs (above and left) illustrate some of the crazy things people do to gain ladder access to areas of buildings. Above a worker attempts to steady a ladder placed on a table top. At left, a ladder catapult has been designed and placed into use in Tapalpa, Mexico.
A Canadian home inspector fell to his death during a roofing inspection. He was ascending a high ladder which he suspected was unsafe. Following a home inspection in New Paltz, NY, Ballinger, a real estate agent who was angry with the results of the inspection, attacked and attempted to kill Steve Vermilye by driving his car off of the pavement, across a sidewalk, crashing into a building wall where Vermilye was walking. Another home inspector was badly injured when an attic fold-down stair fell out of its opening as the inspector was climbing it.
Hazards that an inspector should recognize affect other people too. An aggressive tenant threatened two elderly inspection clients with a rifle and then showered them with stones. An electrical inspector was killed by an electrical arc explosion while removing the cover of an electrical panel. A plumber was killed while leaning over a water pressure tank that, lacking a pressure relief valve, exploded.
We will list some of the more egregious and more interesting of these dangerous building hazards, review accident case histories, and we will illustrate procedures of attention, observation, and hazard recognition that can reduce the chances of accidents during building inspections." ~ Inspectapedia
Irony aside, I wonder if home inspectors hung up their hats for good, along with their state systems, and thus kept their schnozes out of people's lives, there'd be less inspector, and people accidents. It seems fundamentally dangerous to be snooping around unwanted and unneeded in unfamiliar places and circumstances.

Warm Worm wrote: It seems fundamentally dangerous to be snooping around unwanted and unneeded in unfamiliar places and circumstances. ========================== Depends on the necessity of the inspection I suppose and the relationship between all the people involved, the inspector, the person that hired him, and the owner of the property.
We hired an inspector to inspect our current home prior to purchasing it. He was recommended by our realtor whom I assumed had the right to do so. I learned a few things in the process, er, thereafter.
While our home is not large it is complex enough that no inspection can be absolutely complete. Several rather serious situations were discovered after the fact that the inspector failed to notice.
An old skool builder told me once, "You can't hire quality construction, but you can supervise it."
It wasn't until I hired people to build my own home that I realized the wisdom in his truth filled words.

On Sunday, October 14, 2012 1:14:09 PM UTC-3, (unknown) wrote:
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I meant the kind of BI who is unwanted or unneeded-- perhaps some kinds of building inspectors sent to enforce building codes. Unsure, but apparently, there's a requirement for a nose on the tread of a stairs. If so, I'm against it because I often get my toe caught under it and trip. If an inspector legally forced their way into my home and required me to add a nose, I'd certainly challenge it.

On Tuesday, October 16, 2012 11:35:46 PM UTC-4, Warm Worm wrote:
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We have pine wood stairs in the house and I learned right away to not go down them with socks on my feets. There is a nosing but I've never had an issue about it. As far as I'm concerned you should have your stairs any way you want them, after they belong to you. As you know I don't advocate other people dictating anything about your property. If thats the way it has to be then what's the point in owning anything? In fact, that changes the shape of the word *own*. YOU get to pay for it but OTHER people get to tell you what.
Anyway, here in the US nobody gets to own real property any more. They just get to use it as long as they pay ransom for the privilege.

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:40:47 PM UTC-3, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:
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The state-corporate oligarchy of course is unsustainable and eating itself as we write. Ramp those gardens up! A little after I moved to a small town here in NS, so did Kunstler, putting his talk to the walk, arriving in Greenwich Village apparently. The houses will be ours again because they have to be.

Warm Worm wrote:
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Sometimes I think about how life will be, after. You know, you'll be on your property minding your own business and a highwayman will appear to let you know about the new assembly that was formed and he would be back at a later time to collect the dues that are required.
Right then is when freedom must be defended. He, of the chaste cast, believes his clan is doing you well but you know him to be nothing more than a common thief with a threat. So you dispatch him at once and dispose of the carcass permanently without trace and go on about your business. In time another highway man will appear....
Somewhere in the past people stopped defending liberty and the decline of freedom began.

On Saturday, November 10, 2012 4:08:38 PM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:
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You should go to The Oil Drum if you're not already there. The Drumbeat's comments section. There are those there-- myself included-- who think or suspect that there may not be any humans left when this all shakes out. That's how dire our situation is as a species, Don.
But, ya, highwaymen, kings, cops, military and the collective/clueless hallucinations... I look at my 20$ bill and it has an image of this entity some call 'the queen': Essentially, a glorified welfare recipient's image on currency. Quite a bizarre species, these humans. I wouldn't miss us, save for all our trippy stories cast in the fossil record.
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I made a comment over on YouTube this week about mother nature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdYwAXZh0ME

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You can't beat reality for a trip. Too strong for the druggies.

Warm Worm a exposé le 07/10/2012 :
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Bof..

Warm Worm wrote:
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buildings is considerable. It includes obvious catastrophes such as falling off of a roof or electrocution, and less obvious or less likely events such as structural collapse, exposure to bacterial hazards, fungal hazards, or even physical attack by violent building occupants, biting dogs, sneaky snakes, and pecking parrots.
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be observant and attentive to detail. Despite these skills, accidents happen to inspectors.
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time on ladders. Our photographs (above and left) illustrate some of the crazy things people do to gain ladder access to areas of buildings. Above a worker attempts to steady a ladder placed on a table top. At left, a ladder catapult has been designed and placed into use in Tapalpa, Mexico.
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was ascending a high ladder which he suspected was unsafe. Following a home inspection in New Paltz, NY, Ballinger, a real estate agent who was angry with the results of the inspection, attacked and attempted to kill Steve Vermilye by driving his car off of the pavement, across a sidewalk, crashing into a building wall where Vermilye was walking. Another home inspector was badly injured when an attic fold-down stair fell out of its opening as the inspector was climbing it.
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aggressive tenant threatened two elderly inspection clients with a rifle and then showered them with stones. An electrical inspector was killed by an electrical arc explosion while removing the cover of an electrical panel. A plumber was killed while leaning over a water pressure tank that, lacking a pressure relief valve, exploded.
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dangerous building hazards, review accident case histories, and we will illustrate procedures of attention, observation, and hazard recognition that can reduce the chances of accidents during building inspections."
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with their state systems, and thus kept their schnozes out of people's lives, there'd be less inspector, and people accidents.
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Agreed WW. Here's a funny story about building in India... http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre89m0ck-us-gs-bangalore / Ken

Ken S. Tucker wrote:
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From that article: "provide extra margins of tolerance (ie a 'sloppy fit')" and "not design anything that requires total precision"
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You don't have to spend much time on a construction site these days to realize that is true. Ever seen a dimension like this ( 7'-3 1/8" )on a set of framing plans? Guess what? There is no 1/8" when framing a building, and anyone that claims there is is simply pointing out an error, not a degree of accuracy.

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 11:21:56 AM UTC-3, Ken S. Tucker wrote:
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See my new post that I'm about to post.