Insulating these spaces is critical. Do it wrong and you can have serious wood-rot problems.
Mike told me how he had used the best insulation team in the area for the job. When I heard this I chortled and said, "Mike, you need to listen to this true story."
I then shared the encounter I had with an experienced insulation contractor last spring in Bar Harbor, Maine. CLICK or TAP HERE to read the story and be prepared to be DEPRESSED.
It's important to realize Mike made a grievous error. He had me call him AFTER the insulation job was complete.
You see, Mike's top-rated insulation crew sprayed open-cell foam DIRECTLY to the underside of the roof sheathing. They also sprayed it so it completely clogged the gap at the peak of the roof where the ridge vent is.
They said, "The air will go through the foam and get to the exterior. It's open cell."
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
Mike should stop trusting contractors. Many are ill-informed.
Mike should have taken the time to READ these columns on my website BEFORE he even talked to a contractor:
It's possible Mike could be replacing his entire roof structure at some point in the future. Isn't that crazy?
Don't be Mike.
WARNING!
Insurance Product and Scarcity
Last week I saw a commercial on TV. It featured Mike Rowe, the guy from Dirty Jobs, popping up out of a trench in a front yard.
He was talking about an insurance product for your home's plumbing lines sold by HomeServe dot com. The person who wrote Mike's script for the commercial was using the most powerful psychological button of all: scarcity.
I've been a master plumber since age 29 and this commercial put my head on a swivel. I sent myself a quick email from the couch to remind me to check into it the next day.
I went to the company's website and it has a soft and fuzzy feel. Being the inquisitive guy I am, I started to peel back the layers of the onion to discover exactly what this company is selling, or better yet, what they're NOT SELLING.
After peeling back multiple layers, I discovered this language:
"Not Covered: Appliances; repair or replacement of fittings or fixtures, e.g., water tanks, water heaters, radiators, bathroom fittings, faucets, toilets, baths, shower pans, shower/bath diverters and sinks, pressure reducing valves and backflow prevention devices, pumps or grinders; any non-conforming drain line, such as a basement or storm drain; thawing of frozen pipes; and damage from accidents, negligence or otherwise caused by you, others or unusual
circumstances."
Being a professional writer that deals in words, lots of them each week, as well as an expert witness in building construction lawsuits for decades, the last part of that text really got my antenna up.
If you have a failure in your "basement building drain" - that's the primary drain pipe all others flow into - who pays to fix it? Seems to me they don't cover that.
And WTH is a "non-conforming drain line"? You better get them to define that before you invest in their policy!
What about "damage from ... negligence or otherwise caused by you..."
If you have a grease clog in your drain lines that YOU caused because you put grease down your drains do they pay or do you pay?
Well, if you get into a dispute, you have to go to binding arbitration. You know what arbitration is about don't you? It's about splitting the loaf.
Here's what you need to do before you EVER look at supplemental insurance.
STOP and call your regular house insurance agent and ask if you already have some sort of plumbing failure coverage. There's a possibility you MAY have some relief from your current policy about plumbing issues. You can also take the time to read your policy.
Second, stop and really read the fine print you see in the policies offered by companies like HomeServe. Be sure you understand the language.
Third, consult with a plumber and ask what are the odds of certain failures. In other words, what are the chances that a pipe behind your wall suddenly fails? Is it 2 percent, 0.05 percent, or 50%?
Finally, understand that in the case of HomeServe if you find you have a problem and try to buy the coverage to take advantage of it, good luck with that! There's a 30-day wait period after you buy before the coverage kicks in!
Can you imagine buying house or car insurance where the agent says, "I'm sorry but your car and house have NO COVERAGE for the first month. I hope nothing happens!"
That's laughable. Think about that. Why would HomeServe not want to cover you immediately like most other policies?
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