At an inspection a while back, when I was looking across the roof from from the top of my ladder leaning against the gutter, I could see an uplifted area of the roof with some discoloration around it—-just to the right of the chimney near the top.
Can you see it? 
Any guesses as to what might be going on? 
Well if you were able to think WAY outside the box and were able to guess that it was the “vent cap” for the kitchen exhaust fan, you would be correct.
If not, well I guess you could not have made it up either.
By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle
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That roof looks steep. How did you get up there for the close up picture?
Todd, a ladder to the peak at a gable end—then traversed the ridges.
Why not use binoculars and lower the chance of breaking your neck?
Roberta, that is not as easy question to answer as one might think. First of all binoculars are a last resort. There are so many things and areas of roofs that simply cannot be seen with binoculars. If one is going to defer the inspection to someone else that means it is either not going to get done or someone else is going to be at risk of falling. This has more to do with each inspector’s comfort level and the degree of service they are attempting to provide their client than it does with the inspector merely being foolish. If I have to defer the roof to someone else and it holds up the deal then that is one level of service. I personally know how to take care of myself on a roof as well as any roofer so I am inclined to provide that service whenever I feel it is safe to do so. There are roofs that I don’t get on—and I really hate it when I have to defer this to someone else—someone else that is not as likely to be objective. Sometimes one can only do what one can and then we need to be very clear about our limitations.
Well stated! I detest deferring to someone else’s potentially biased expertise. I think in this case I would have tried hard to figure it out without climbing that roof, such as noticing that I couldn’t find the vent outlet anywhere else, and that it was situated in a location that would make that a possible outlet location, and perhaps gaining sufficient access to attic space to confirm that the bump must be the missing vent.
I do not have a picture like yourself ,but i once observed and reported on a basement bath plumbing vent connected to the bath fan .after lifting the ceiling tiles i noticed that the bath fan was ducted in pvc .further examination found the shower / lav connected in at the exterior box sill. people are crazy with this kind of stuff