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An average day

Back in the early 90's the 6-mil poly went under the footings and came up the on the inside of the form board. The poly kept the sand in Fl from quickly pulling the moisture out of the concrete. We dealt with "Hot Weather" so retaining moisture in the concrete was a real concern on slabs
 
Nobody pours on sand here anymore. All the pads that got poured ~20 years ago and more on sand are all failing, and when you bust them up the sand is gone and all that's left is a big void. Water gets under there and freezes = replacing the pad.

I can't believe anybody ever thought that was a good idea anyway.
 
mtlogcabin said:
Back in the early 90's the 6-mil poly went under the footings and came up the on the inside of the form board. The poly kept the sand in Fl from quickly pulling the moisture out of the concrete. We dealt with "Hot Weather" so retaining moisture in the concrete was a real concern on slabs
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So is the sand there to supposedly retain moisture in the concrete or to get the moisture out of the concrete? I get differing answers from architects and engineers.
 
This is how we did it in Florida in the 90's
BSI-003_Figure_01_web.jpg


This is why you do not put sand between poly and concrete slabs

https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-003-concrete-floor-problems

hope the link works
 
3/4-inch clean gravel would give you some voids below the slab. Some here don't want to use the poly.

But like conarb stated, the poly does get a few holes and rips.
 
We have been placing sand on the dirt.....then Visqueen on the sand.....then sand on the Visqueen......for decades.....without any adverse consequences that I am aware of. Other places, like Florida for example, have different conditions and perhaps our method is not appropriate there.
 
We're predominately clay subsoil here. Scrape off the sod, place sand, and pour a pad, then remove pad in 3+ years and all the sand is gone. The clay just eats it, and then you're left with voids under your concrete. 99.9% of pads I see now are poured on top of CA6.
 
The concept of crushed aggregate topped by sand over poly was promoted by ACI over 20 years ago to prevent/reduce edge curl in concrete slab on grade floors due to uneven moisture dissipation.
 
That is a path to a PV array that is located on the other side of the roof. It was provided because there's no access on the other side....I can't see the array from the other side. After 1:00 pm the array will be shaded.

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The contractor has the appearance of success. Nice truck outfitted with a bunch of tools and ladders....emblazoned with name and address.

He was all excited to see me. The work was "done". He's never been given the corrections that I gave him. He was incredulous about starting over.

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According to the contractor he is only responsible for the "electrical" work. Fixing the stucco is on the owner. Now it becomes a conflict between the contractor and the owner. He may have met his obligation in the contract but the corrections belong to him.

Doing the work over is expensive. He could be doing it wrong somewhere else for good money instead of doing this job a second time for free. But like I indicated earlier, this contractor is slick. The slick ones have a way of using corrections to sell up.
 
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Did you see the news article about the 6 YO girl who was badly shocked at the MGM casino in Maryland? Cause was bad electrical work. The third party inspector says he was pressured into approving bad work.
FYI ... in northern Va, Md and DC it is typical for the owner to hire a third party inspector. The local jurisdiction will rarely send an inspector to the site, except the fire marshall always shows up for final

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...a2ef74bd6d6_story.html?utm_term=.9484b7e5dbb7
 
The job is a re-roof. There is a ladder but I seldom, if ever, walk on a tile roof.

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The owner pointed out what appears to be a missing tile.

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So I ventured beyond the ladder and found a paper saddle. It's almost difficult to believe that a licensed contractor would do this.

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And now I'm thinking that I should be walking on tile roofs.
 
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That's a good catch, I admit, I have never done a tile roof inspection, Should the seams of the tiles be offset like an asphalt shingled roof? Your second pic looks like the tile overlap is over the next course of tile and that overlap. Just asking?
 
ICE said:
The job is a re-roof. There is a ladder but I seldom, if ever, walk on a tile roof.



The owner pointed out what appears to be a missing tile.



So I ventured beyond the ladder and found a paper saddle. It's almost difficult to believe that a licensed contractor would do this.



And now I'm thinking that I should be walking on tile roofs.
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That's a "crickett", I prefer to do them in copper but I don't think there is a code requirement, you walk on tile roofs you pay for broken tiles, that appears to be lightweight tile that breaks easily.
 
The job is an addition.

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By definition, an addition is attached and so is this .....just not the way one would expect.

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At the foundation inspection I tried to convince them that this will be quite odd. As it turns out, that's the look they were going for.....quite odd that is.

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Ten minutes into the inspection the contractor asked me what an anchor bolt is. I pointed to an anchor bolt and said, "It's these things Sir, all of these things that are here under Edison's distribution lines".

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conarb said:
That's a "crickett", I prefer to do them in copper but I don't think there is a code requirement, you walk on tile roofs you pay for broken tiles, that appears to be lightweight tile that breaks easily.
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It's a cricket with a paper saddle. It will be a cricket with a sheet metal saddle. I can't say that I've seen any made from copper. The next time that I have to write the correction I'll ask for tungsten and see what happens....they'll probably be happy to get a copper saddle after that.
 
Curious how you attach a solar array to a tile roof if you can't work on them, how you gonna install them and do the inspection? I missing something here.
 
ICE said:
It's a cricket with a paper saddle. It will be a cricket with a sheet metal saddle. I can't say that I've seen any made from copper. The next time that I have to write the correction I'll ask for tungsten and see what happens....they'll probably be happy to get a copper saddle after that.
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Tiger:

I have to apologize to you, apparently they are using the words interchangeably now, in the old days if it was built from metal it was a saddle, if built with wood by the carpenters it was a cricket. if you look at these two pictures the bottom one would have a sheetmetal saddle all the way around it, the top one has a cricket.

On new construction Title 24 is requiring a 90# white granular cap sheet under all tile to "reflect" the sunlight back to the heavens, you can thank Obama's Steven Chu for this when he tried to require all roofs be painted white, so that "unprotected" area on top of the cricket would be protected by #90, I still say you can't cite a code section saying you have to protect the roofing paper.

PC inspector said:
Curious how you attach a solar array to a tile roof if you can't work on them, how you gonna install them and do the inspection? I missing something here.
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They haven't figured that out yet, they installed solar panels on a tile roof down the street a few years ago, last year they pulled them all up and hot mopped under them. I have the same tile on my own home and won't walk on them, I have two roofers who have men I will let walk on them, you have to step on exactly the right spot, and even though I know where it is I always end up breaking a few tile.
 
I though Jerry Brown and the legislators passed a law, your all gonna have solar in CA.
 
Pcinspector1 said:
Curious how you attach a solar array to a tile roof if you can't work on them, how you gonna install them and do the inspection? I missing something here.
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Most solar companies have racking that will work with tile roof coverings. It involves specialized hooks or cutting a hole through a tile. Here lately the method preferred by many is to remove the tiles that will be under the array and place an asphalt roof. The tiles are then installed around the perimeter of the array. Most of the time I can't see any of it without walking on tile and I won't do that for more reasons than just breaking the tiles. Then if there is a way to see it, there's not much to see.

That leaves me at a disadvantage. I must rely on pictures on a cell phone. Long ago we did an in-progress inspection. I found plenty of corrections. Then the state took away our right to perform more than one inspection....naturally that one inspection is the final inspection.....when we can't see much of anything.
 
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