Flying to a job is always exciting. The trip in itself would be worth a whole blog bit. Let's just say my tools and I got there and back in one piece. A Pelican case really helps when it comes to transporting tools, but I do keep some tools in my carry-on. Then when you get to the destination airport, you get a rental car and proceed into traffic. In spite of my GPS trying as patiently as possible to get me to the site, I lost some time before I learned that you can't turn left in New Jersey. Left turns are accomplished by exiting right, doing a loop and going directly across traffic at a stop light. We don't have those in South Carolina.
This inspection involved several houses in a new neighborhood. Some houses were on slabs; some were over basements. The floors in houses with basements were cupped, while the floors in slab houses were not. What does that tell you? Some floors (over basements) had also buckled along walls and were pretty noisy.
Other factors that I found out about these homes were that they were commonly second homes with seasonal or weekend occupants, and they were all Energy Star homes. The construction schedule was pretty quick: 70 days from foundation to completion. One problem with this kind of multi-home construction is that if you do something wrong, you do it wrong a lot of times.
In these homes, the poured basement walls and floor contained a lot of moisture that needed to off-gas. But the short construction time didn't allow much off gassing, the Energy Star construction created tight homes with minimal ventilation, and the seasonal/weekend use reduced ventilation and drying even more. So the humid basements affected the floors in a lot of houses.
After I collected all my data, I again made a bunch of right turns to go left, checked my tool box at the airport, and hashed over the data on the flight home. I can hash over data with my eyes closed, can't I? When I got home, I found an e-mail from one of my earlier inspections wanting a report after all. I guess it wasn't as easy a week as I had claimed. And a court case scheduled for next week was canceled.
My question of the week is: If you get bumped from a flight that someone else is paying for, do they get your voucher? Do you discount the bill the amount of the voucher? Or do you pocket the voucher and use it for a vacation?
