That would explain it. He got the HE furnace in, but forgot to:
A. Re-install the water heater flue.(It was laying in pieces)
B. Close up the gaping holes in the return vent 5 feet away.
C. Have a license to do any of the work.
To top it off the 70 year old lady living alone in the house didn’t have a working CO detector and all the furnace work happened 3yearsago.
Perhaps he figured the return holes helped provide more makeup air the burners as he decided to pull in basement air anyway and the water heater he decided to decommission thanks to the flame rollout observed .
My other guess is he wanted to get away from the rats and mold down there.
Better yet he left to go yell at the plumber for a trap over 24 inches of tail length between fixture and trap weir.
Simply forgot to return seeing as he was out of Beer and the Plumber bribed him with a few cold ones out of his trunk.
Dont you love the color combination of paint and efflorescent salt .
It’s at about 4 1/2 hours and I did it all on site, but I do not print off reports on site. I still think it’s best to go back to the office and give yourself time to mull it over or do exactly what you’re talking about, review your photos one last time just to make sure. I had about 160 photos on this house and used about 80 in the report.
Sick as a dog with a super nasty cold and had a home with 2nd floor added but my walk pattern was horrible and there were tons of items off kilter from normal inspections here besides me.
Thank Goodness I take pics or would have returned the darn fee for fear.
Still unsure and will post later about a little bit of it.
Cat 4 so it would always be schedule 40 unless drawing from the top knockout or in this case the picture looks like a side knockout with a straight shot to the return unless it is being used to stop vibration and not actually drawing from the return.