Sunday, October 28, 2012

Water Intrusion, Take 2

Will and Guy
Our Broker spoke to a packed house at Zephyr last week, sharing "war stories", though, given the season, and the nature of the stories, it was really more "scary stories" about what could possibly go wrong in a real estate transaction, that might lead to a lawsuit.



Number One subject of lawsuits?  Water intrusion. Given my last post, I thought I'd better follow up with more encouragement to clean those gutters, keep an eye out for plumbing and window leaks (repair asap!), and read your disclosure packages carefully. Number Two is square footage, which is why you often will not see a number in marketing materials, but that's for another post.


Sunday, October 21, 2012

Here Comes the Rain

Stormy weather this way comes.


What a sky this morning, the gold and pink cloud lid so glowing! Red skies at morning, sailors take warning. We've got a day or so to clean out gutters and furnace air filters, plant and mulch, maintain trees, bring in the bicycles and deck chairs, before "THE SEASON`S FIRST SIGNIFICANT STORMY WEATHER". If you work outside, or have some other burning need to know more about how the weather will go, here is the discussion of NOAA meterologists from a few different perspectives, and here is your satellite animation.

AlYoung.org

Not to go all school marmy on you, but this is one of those "stitch in time saves nine" moments. As a Realtor I've seen how astonishingly expensive it can be to defer your roof and siding maintenance. Once your buildings shell is breached, dry rot can set in, You can get more time out of your roof and window frames if you remove accumulated leaves etc, so they don't rot in place, stopping moisture from flowing away and clogging your drainage systems, allowing moisture to collect and eventually invade the structures beneath the buildings shell. Once the fungus gets established, it can move into the dryer sections of the building, happily growing through the dry season, and reinvigorating when the rains begin.

Fred Varley


This is why a pest inspection is such a critical part of a buyers investigation of a home, and why sellers should do one up front (and if you happen to be in inspection mode, maybe have an arborist take a look at any trees on the property- first wind/rain events can shake weak limbs loose to wreak havoc). I've seen homes of the same age, in the same neighborhood, with Pest Inspection Section One amounts ranging from $500 to $75,000. So homeowners, now is your chance to be in the first, happier group with solid dry homes.






Thursday, October 11, 2012

Wild City

Today I must enthuse about the joy of living in/around such a world class city in such close proximity to wildlands and wildlife.  Otters at Lands End, hawks at the Golden Gate, and dolphins and seals and pelicans etc etc etc. So awesome. So lucky are we.


Richmond Blog






Bay Nature