On Thursday, August 7, 2014 2:16:24 PM UTC-4, Rebel1 wrote:
On 8/7/2014 1:41 PM, trader_4 wrote:

On Thursday, August 7, 2014 1:15:33 PM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:



I don't think the inspector is being hard-assed, he's just following



the code. AFAIK, neither a supply nor a return is allowed into a



garage space. Think about what happens when the system is off. You



have an easy path for CO into the house. Depending on which way the



wind is blowing, pressures, etc, CO could go into the house.



Forgot to add, if you're buying this place, for me, this would be a big

red flag and an indication that you need to do a careful inspection for

other problems. How it got built and inspected to begin with, who knows.

Could be that some owner added it after.



Last week the inspector hired by the guy buying my house gave a very

thorough inspection, and said nothing about this.

Not unusual. Many of the "home inspectors" miss a lot more than that
because they don't know what they are doing.



I mentioned to the

municipal inspector that this house has changes ownership seven times

since being built in 1967 and was never cited for this reason. He

replied that this became a item to check only since 1996.

That sounds about right.



I bought the

house in 2000, so it should have been flagged at least once before.



The concern about CO seems rather theoretical. How many cars are left

running in garages for extended periods? When the heat/AC is running?

The HVAC doesn't have to be running for fumes to go from the
garage to the living space via the duct. It also would be highly
dependent on the layout of the house. If a bedroom were close by on
the duct layout, it would get there a lot easier and be worse than
if the bedrooms were on the opposite end.



With today's stringent emissions, I don't think very much CO is

generated to begin with. Besides, the house has two CO/smoke detectors.



I agree it's questionable as to how big of a threat it is. If you ever
watch the Mike Holmes TV show from Canada, he finds this and goes
ballistic. CO! CO! I agree, cars typically are only started up with
the doors open and then they quickly leave. And, as you point out, cars
today emit a tiny fraction of the CO they once did, assuming they are
working properly. Another aspect is that unless the area around the duct opening is properly sealed with fire resistant caulk, it's a potential
path for fire into the house. Code requires a fire rated door between
the house and garage for the same reason. Overall, it's probably made
out to be much worse of a threat than it really is.

On another note, what is one register going into the garage suppose to
do exactly? I would think it's pretty much a waste, not enough heat to
make a big difference anyway?