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An average day

The inspection was for an electrical service upgrade. The panel is in the backyard. The workman asked me if I was okay with loose dogs. I said that depends on the dogs. It was spaniels. Shlt covered spaniels. While I was fending off one, the other pissed on my foot.

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I'm not sure what the white stuff is......could be a special type of mold.
 
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Maybe there setting it up for a clay roof?:rolleyes:
 
There are institutions that everyday people must deal with. Library. DMV. Hospital. Police and Firemen. Postal Service. Then there's the rest of life with family, coworkers, waitresses, store clerks, dry cleaner and that person walking their dog. During each interaction with the aforementioned, most people can be treated as genuine. Now enter the Building Dept. Zone. Lying is de rigueur. Most people don't habitually lie because they embarrass themselves but more importantly they prefer to think that telling the truth is expected of you too. So why is it that when in the BDZ lies roll past lips like a mint julep or ice cream on chocolate cake or a strawberry tart?
 
Solar company did a service upgrade....or as they like to call it, an MPU.

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My guess is that they poured a bunch of it in the gap.

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I wonder what that stuff is. I didn't get close enough to touch it. The guy that meets me never knows much about anything.
 
This one could have been tragic. The job is a foyer / grand entry. Killer front door if metal is your thing. That and an addition to a storage room of about 150 sqft. The house is 4500 sqft with a family. I don't know how many make a family but I met mom and son while dad walked the dog. A nice home.

These panels are in the storage room and I found them while performing a final inspection. It was my first time there and I was concerned that I would get chewed out for being an hour early. Well not to worry, the lady was okay with it and I found the husband a few blocks away as I left the scene of the crime.

These panels have been dangerous for several months. The lady said that her architect suggested an inspection so as to "find out what's not done". Lucky me....she was in a hurry cleaning and preparing for a throng celebrating Thanksgiving at her home. I showed her that it is deadly with a tester that has lights and sounds.


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Yet again I was told that the covers were only open today and because I was early I got there before they had a chance to close them. They couldn't fit covers because of the drywall and look at the pile of dust.

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There was no need to lie.
 
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It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but in the sub panel, the 20 amp cheater breaker on the bottom left, second from the bottom, seems to have both the red and black conductors of a shared neutral circuit connected to it. This would allow 40 amps total to return on the shared neutral.

I also don't see a separate equipment grounding conductor going to the ground bar of the sub panel. Is there a conduit nipple connecting the two panels that serves to bond the two cabinets together?

Of course those are just a few of the obvious issues. It never ceases to amaze me how bad unsafe some installations can be.
 
Would be a bit alarmed about the two wires under one lug, wires being different size, wiring being dissimilar metals ..ooh and the correct torque requirement can't be correct. This would never pass in Santa Ana!
 
The panels are existing. It was an accident that I saw them without covers. There’s a service panel somewhere. I wonder how bad this can all become. The owner claims that everything has been permitted and approved. I think that the house was rewired. They are probably not up for spending thousands more.

I’ll make a supervisor aware and recommend taking action.
 
The job is a PEX re-pipe. Cutting open the walls and ceiling exposes stuff.

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The tub plumber hacked the frame .... the re-pipe plumber chose a bad location for more holes.

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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that threaded waste fittings must remain accessible. But ya know, that may be me being.....well me.....just as wrong as can be.

In the past I have run into threaded fittings that were glued. One guy that did that said he too understood that threaded fittings shall remain accessible and he couldn't do that. There was no way to install glued fittings.

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A contractor did this.

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Flipper met me for the inspection. He wanted me to explain what was wrong....which I did. All of the windows are like this....sliders too.

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PL400 sub-floor adhesive. The windows will come out in pieces.

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You could toss that house off a cliff and the windows ain't coming out.
 
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The job is a bathroom remodel. The window was raised and the stucco is not attached to the framing. "Well" says the contractor, "The wall framing was rotten"......Therefor, the existing stucco was not attached to the framing so why should he do any different.

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