If you are attending the home inspection & want to follow your inspector around, then read this article published in the ASHI Reporter of how you can protect yourself, children & the inspector while he does his job to serve you. Some of these tips can save your life & your children. From roofs to basements to cars, inspectors work to protect their personal safety. The work of inspecting homes is not simply a matter of looking, testing and reporting as it might appear to clients. Each home is unique, in both its flaws and its hazards, and every inspector must protect his or her personal health. We spoke with inspectors in each of five regions to learn what concerns they face day to day — and the unexpected issues that can surprise (and hurt) them if precautions aren’t taken. The most common issues are related to roofs, correct ladder use and safety, electrical hazards, crawl spaces and attics — probably what you would expect to hear. But some inspectors offered fresh perspectives on these commonplace issues and some others that may surprise you.

Attics and crawl spaces
Surprisingly, some inspectors still do not wear respirators when working in crawl spaces and attics. This poses a danger “that’s not immediate, but comes out in later years. You really don’t know what you’re breathing in doing it on a daily basis, and years down the road, you have some sort of pulmonary issue.
Not wearing it is like driving without a seatbelt.

Considering Client Safety
It’s not enough to think only of your own safety on an inspection. There are also plenty of ways for your clients to get hurt. Keep your eye on clients at all times while inspecting electrical boxes or other equipment. I have had to swat a client’s hand away as he tried to reach into an open electrical service panel to point something out to me. Remind clients that they don’t have to follow your every step. Be clear about your ladder rules. Do not let your client follow you up the ladder. They are most safe when both their feet are on the ground.

This article below is from The ASHI Reporter. Homeowners need to know the seriousness of maintaining the water heater. Retrofitting or installing TPR valves can prove disastrous & dangerous.

The most important part of your client’s domestic hot water system

“The steam-powered tank hurtled across the busy intersection at First Avenue South and South 152nd Street — over at least six lanes of traffic — before landing more than 439 feet away in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut.”

This excerpt from a July 28, 2001, article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer describes what happened when a water heater with a capped Temperature Pressure Relief (TPR) valve overheated and exploded.

High limit controls

Water heaters have thermostatically controlled devices that keep them from overheating. Both gas and electric water heaters have temperature-limiting devices that shut off the energy source when their regular thermostat fails. Electric heaters have a high-limit switch that interrupts the power when overheating occurs. Many of us have seen and perhaps reset the device by pushing a small red button under the cover plate and just above the thermostat dial.

Thermostatically controlled gas valves found on most residential gas water heaters have a safety shutoff built into the gas valve itself. When they react to excessive temperature, the gas flow to the burner is stopped. Generally not resettable, the entire control valve has to be replaced to get the water heater up and running again.

These devices are the first line of protection against water heater explosion. Should they fail, a temperature pressure relief valve, which should be installed within the top 6 inches of the tank, should prevent the heater from suddenly becoming a bomb or launching like a rocket. In both of the explosion events described earlier, it appears a properly installed TPR valve would have prevented the carnage.