The Inspector Rector

06/19/2025

03/13/2025

I had a great first day of work today! I had to spend all day in the conference room filling out paperwork and going through safety binders. The sweet gal that was helping me set up a glass with some girl scout cookies for me. Another female welding inspector found out that I had Miss Ember out in my car and told the boss that I should bring her in. So Miss Ember got to practice down for several hours. 😊 People would walk by and see Ember and come in to say hi. She had a great day! She did mostly good... She was extremely friendly and did not growl nor nip at anyone. ✔️

The boss took me and the other female inspector out to lunch at a great Mediterranean spot, Dish N Dash. The food was delicious! Everyone who I have met here is so friendly, AND everyone keeps telling me how friendly everyone else is. I am so happy. This seems like a really great company culture, something I have really missed! It seems like people actually care and honestly want to help each other.

I just came back from a long vacation, and I'm really excited to start this new chapter of my life.

01/17/2025

This was the very last weld that I looked at today. It was on the back of a beam around the elevator shaft. I had looked at it the other day, but it was covered in slag, and I had to use my mirror on a stick, Inspector Gadget tool to see it. Today, the slag was cleaned off. The picture doesn't actually do this weld justice. This is the ugliest, most horrible looking weld. Like you took a handful of peanut butter and threw it in the corner. Splatter!

I so wanted to go home! Sigh. No. The foreman offered to grind it down. Still it had holes and embedded slag. I said, grind it all out. I told the welder who had done the weld to grind it out. "One more pass?" he asked me. No! I'm tired of welders trying to cover up their s**tty welds by running another pass and making it oversized. He only ground part of it and then ran another pass next to it. Nope. Grind it all out and start over.

Did this guy actually think this was an acceptable weld? Or was he hoping I might miss it? Sometimes, I drive myself nuts with my attention to detail. But then I find something like this. The last weld of a long day on the backside of a beam that had little access. So glad that I looked.

01/15/2025

What a mess today was! I arrived on time in the morning. The welders were just arriving and setting up. The generator they wanted to use needed oil or an oil change. They said they were headed to O'Reilly to buy some oil. They said they'd be right back. After 1.5 hours of sitting outside on a bus stop bench in the cold breeze waiting for them, they finally came back. They told me it would only take about one hour to do the welding.

I went to my car to warm up and came back in an hour. Nothing had changed. Apparently, the generator needed more than just an oil change. The foreman wanted to know if he could use a different type of wire and a different generator. Another hour of waiting for the welding shop to send me the welding procedures, the general notes, and the welders' certs. A replacement generator was finally delivered after about four hours. They finally started welding.

When it was time for inspection, there were serval large craters of porosity in several welds. Repair time. More waiting... At least when we were done, they thanked me for sticking around and allowing them to finish. A lot of other inspectors would have left.

01/09/2025

Today was a mess. I woke up at 5:45 am and was about to leave my place at 7 am. I received a text from my dispatch that my 8am job had been rescheduled to the afternoon. I had gotten out of bed and gotten ready for work for no reason. I was pi**ed. Canceling the morning of is just seriously fu**ed up. It threw a wrench into my whole day.

I finally made it out to that jobsite, scheduled for dowels and rebar. All the dowels had already been installed in the morning without inspection. It took me 20 minutes to determine that dowel inspection was not required by the city. I spent about 20 minutes inspecting and discussing the rebar for the mat slab. It turns out that wasn't in our scope of work, either. I had not been scheduled for anchors, but that was what they wanted inspection for.

First, they didn't have a brush long enough to get to the bottom of the hole, which was nearly 24" below the sill plate. I directed them to use some tie wire and make it work. Then, they were not going to use a long enough epoxy applicator to reach the bottom. Air nozzle, brush, and epoxy applicator need to get to the bottom of the hole. They were on the last tube of epoxy, and the tube blew a hole. That was their last tube. We were only able to finish two of four anchors. Tomorrow morning, they get to drill out the hole that was partially filled with epoxy and try again.

01/07/2025

I had a re-inspection for some field welding today. I had done the original inspection about three weeks ago. I go to so many jobs that sometimes it's hard for me to remember what the work was or what the issue was. I looked it up in my diary, but all I saw that I had written was that all the welds had slag on them.

Once I spoke to the contractor, I remembered that, yes, first, all the welds had slag on them. So I went to another job and then came back. I had a second diary entry after the second job. It took a lot of time and compromising to get someone to operate the lift for me to access the welds. Once I had, more than half of them had porosity. I marked all of the welds to fix. The contractor said he appreciated that. It makes it clear for the contractor to understand exactly what I am expecting to be fixed. It also reminds me when I come back exactly what I had wanted done initially, so I don't have to waste time reinventing the wheel.

Today, it didn't take too much effort to access the lift. No welds had slag. No welds needed repair. I'd call that a successful day.

01/04/2025

Today was an anchor/dowel inspection gone wrong. They had used a hollow bit drill, which unfortunately is a manufacturer's approved product, but it is not very effective. I cannot tell people that they cannot use that procedure. I just know it does not clean out the holes in an effective manner.

They had a blower instead of an air compressor, which does next to nothing. I gave up on the idea of checking cleanliness, and we proceded with epoxy. When the rebar was twisted down into the hole, a bunch of muddy water came up in the first hole. Nope. Not a clean hole. I told them that this wasn't going to work. The holes were dirty, and they needed an air compressor to blow them out. It had rained that morning, so concrete dust had turned to mud. They went to the store and bought a compressor.

1.5 hours later, we tried again. They also had some interior anchors. Most of the holes were not drilled wide enough. For epoxy anchor/dowel installation, the hole needs to be drilled 1/8" larger than the rod or the rebar to go in it. That had not happened. If you have to hit the anchor/rebar with a hammer to get it to go into the hole, the hole is too small. Most of these guys were pretty young, so they were learning. But someone should have been directing the work properly. They drilled out the holes and cleaned them again. Sigh. We were almost finished, and the DeWalt epoxy gun battery ran out. Fortunately, someone found another Dewalt battery, and we finally finished. For about five minutes it seemed like no one had another Dewalt battery. That was one problem that I had not encountered before.

12/31/2024

Happy New Year's Eve! One way to end the year is to have one of the worst CMU block inspections that I have ever seen.

Only four courses of block have been placed in running bond. Should be a simple inspection, right? No! The first portion of the wall that I looked at had two of the first four courses filled with what appeared to be mortar. Mortar does not belong inside the cells, only in between the blocks to keep them together. Masonry code only allows 1/2" of mortar protrusions inside of cells for most projects. The block was laid in running bond, but the blocks were not lined up properly in the middle of the block below, which created about a 1.5" shelf that was filled with mortar in every other cell. The second half of the wall had up to three courses filled with mortar.

Mortar has significantly less strength than grout. Grout has pea gravel sized aggregates, which help with the strength. On some projects, mortar is not even tested in the lab because it has a tendency to not meet the strength criteria. On top of the mortar in some of the cells, there was a thin layer of sand. Also not allowed in the cells.

Not sure what can be done to fix this f**k up, unless the SEOR decides to sign off on it. They will probably have to tear the wall down and start over.

**k

12/30/2024

Too few people will ever know the pain and suffering of a welding inspector stuck at a welding shop for eight hours. The inspection takes maybe 1.5 hours. The rest of the time is soul-crushing and wasting-my-life-away. Yes, I get paid. But I'd rather be doing something with a purpose that helps the time go by more quickly.

Good thing that I had the little baby girl, Emberini, to talk to. She had a lot to tell me.

At least the quality of welds were not in question.

12/28/2024

This is my buddy, Geronimo. He is a metal stud framer with Daley's Drywall, . We've worked together a few times. I'm so impressed with him! He is one of the smartest and hardest workers with whom I've had the pleasure of working. He makes s**t happen. He just turned out to a Journeyman.

He is super friendly and very capable. Any obstacle that he encounters in our path of inspection, he works through. He has a positive attitude and a friendly smile every time that I see him. He's only been doing metal stud framing for about five years, though it seems longer. It's so nice to work with someone who cares about their job so much and always tries to do his best work.

Way to go, Geronimo!

**thappen

12/27/2024

It's a big day today! After nearly 11 previous non-conformance inspections, the L2 lower and upper mid-rise landings have actually passed the welding inspection! Such a relief! I dread coming to this job knowing that the welding has been so fu**ed up. I the beginning, I was failing about 80% of the welds. Simple 3/16" fillets. That welder is no longer on this site, and we've worked through correcting all the horrible welds that he had done.

I passed both L2 landings and inspected L3 and L4 landings. There were some corrections, but a somewhat reasonable amount. We're making progress! Now, it won't be so overwhelming for me, the client, the superintendent, nor the welding company.

12/24/2024

I was so impressed to find out about this robot today! It now does all the layout for the walls for Daley's Drywall's projects. There is an operator who has a tablet that is connected to the tri-pod level. The tri-pod level connects to the circular camera on top of the robot. The tri-pod needs a clear line of sight to the robot. If someone interrupts the connection while the robot is drawing the line, it continues moving but stops drawing while the connection is broken.

This nifty little gadget costs $250,000. The operator highlights the area that he wants the robot to mark, and it does its thing. There is a way to put obstacles into the plan so that the robot avoids them. It is supposed to have an edge sensor that stops it from going over the edge. The operator told me that he actually had to save it one day with his foot when that sensor did not work properly.

It actually prints in HP ink. No more chalk lines that need to be sprayed with sealant to stay.