Inspections Reports Review to help you save your profis

Puppy Review

A homeowner called from south eastern Tennessee asking for help. 

There had been a leak in the house. After the remediation, new vinyl planks flooring was installed in many areas. The planks cupped where the leak happened and no where else. 

Instead of asking the right questions, and doing an actual inspection, the inspector saw two large dogs and found dog urine on the vinyl planks in an area that was not cupping. 

The report stated the pet urine, found not on cupped planks but on the flat and smooth vinyl planks, caused the planks to cup in the other area where the leak happened.

The answer was simple, the subfloor wood panels, OSB or Plywood, had not been dried sufficiently by the remediation company and then the vinyl planks cupped after gaining moisture from the wood.

Dog urine did not cause the planks to warp or cup. No dog urine was found on the cupped planks. 

Any thinking person should see the inconsistency in this report but it was accepted by the manufacturer. 

Using either a Delmhorst or Tramex moisture encounter meter would have found the truth, but was not used. 

If moisture measurements had been done,  the "so called inspector"  would have measured moisture differentials between the non-cupped and cupped sections. 

No pH tests. 

No moisture measurements. 

This was a walk-in and walk-out inspection to find no manufacturing defects. 

This report was accepted and claim denied. Claim denied was the right decision because there were no manufacturing defects but was based upon a bad report. 

Who was harmed? 

The homeowner was blamed, when he should not have been. 

There was actual harm done to the homeowner based upon a bad report

The puppies should have bitten the inspector while he was there. 

A retailer on the West Coast asked for the warranty in effect the year he bought the flooring, sold and installed it, 2019.

The claims analyst told him they do not keep old warranties and he would have to go by the new warranty, not the one from 2019. 

The thing is, the installation  instructions and warranty changed after he bought, sold and installed it. Using the new installation instructions and warranty, his claim was denied.

Legally, only the installation instructions and warranty in effect at the time of sale can be used to evaluate a claim. 

An inspection report used the current installation standards and warranty. Either the inspector was dishonest in his bias to the manufacturer or ignorant and should not have been inspecting flooring. 

Warranties and installation instruction have to be kept for years, and years. 

This claim was originally denied. 

Cracked ceramic tile inspection cracked and ledged tiles.

A ceramic tile inspection report stated the tiles had gained moisture, water, when the kitchen and hallway were flooded from a broken water pipe and had swollen that caused them to crack and develop "ledging".

The subfloor, plywood, and joists were dried using fans and exhaust fans in the crawl space. The tiles were not replaced. 

The report did not state moisture content measurements of the plywood substrate or wood joists. 

The report did not describe the condition of, or shape of, the joists. 

The report did not state what type of type the subfloor was. 

Here is some important information that should have been in the report but was not. 

It is information that was not taught in his "advance" ceramic tile class. 

There are  water absorption classifications as defined by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) to be aware of. 

Impervious: Tile with water absorption of 0.5 percent or less. 

• Porcelain Tiles are Impervious

Vitreous: Tile with water absorption of 0.5 percent to 3 percent.
Semi Vitreous: Tile with water absorption of 3 percent to 7 percent.
Non Vitreous: Tile with water absorption in excess of 7 percent.

• No report making the claims the inspector did, should be written without Identification of the types of tiles and this information. 

The inspector did not identify what type of tiles they were or water absorption percentage. 

The tiles were impervious porcelain 0.5%

He did not look at the joists. If he had, he would have seen the joists had developed a significant creep or sag under the weight load after the leak 

How much weight was on the subfloor before and after it all got wet? 20-22 pounds per square foot. 

The inspector claimed to be a certified ceramic tile inspector after taking a 1.5 day class, where there was no teaching about ASTM or ANSI standards were taught or even mention. 

Claim was denied for manufacturing defects, as it should have been, but again, the wrong reasons based upon a bad report.

What happens to wood when it gets wet? 

This will be covered in our Spring Advance Wood Class. 

The homeowner had to hire a real ceramic tile inspector and then he got satisfaction and resolution of his problem. 

He was harmed but he got resolution of his claim but not before long days of conflict, a bad reputation developed and a ruined business relationships. Harm was done. 

Truly, someone “CERTIFIED” a ceramic tile inspector in a 1.5 day class? And not even an ASTM / ANSI book given out?

No experience with tile flooring but, thinks he can learn it all in 1.5 days. 

This is harm to all who work in the ceramic tile industry, from the mills to the retailers and contractors to the consumers. 

As Penny Sures says, UNBELIEVABLE!

The complaint was extremely small  gaps between 4" X .75" planks, and also larger gaps between sections of the planks approximately 4' apart. 

The house was a remodel. New flooring. 

HAVC was operating at the time of the installation. 

The wood was acclimated.

The inspector did no span measurements of the planks or individual width sizes. 

There were no distance measurements between the repeating large gaps every four feet apart apart.

This is the size of the OSB subfloor panels the wood is installed on.  

He also, did not look into the basement or he would have seen a large dehumidifier in the basement that the homeowner installed after the installation was completed. 

More? No moisture content measurement because he said, he was unable to stick his pin meter into the wood flooring. 

Yep, actually put that in his report and blamed the installer / contractor. He justified this faulty report in his conclusion by stating he was an "advanced inspector". Nuff said. 

The so called advance inspector did not know how to use his Big Box Cheap Meter. 

Do you know the answer to what happened? Another class in our Wood Science class coming later this year. (Yep, a teaser)

Because the homeowner believed the inspector and spent large amounts of money hiring a lawyer, and then the remodeling contractor had to hire a lawyer. 

Everybody ended up harmed. 

The inspector did not know the basics of wood science, building science, the nature of the products used, in fact,  he knew nothing other than he had paid money to attend a class taught by a manufacturer and then given a certification that then he was an "advance inspectors". 

This is bad for everyone, Everyone is harmed by such inspectors. 

Thanks to the Peer Reviewed Inspector, John Paul  Viveiros

In the photographs, the inspector saw the vinyl tiles were warped. 

The first photograph to start watching is the whole vinyl tile on the floor with the raised curled edges. 

He pulled loose and peel back the vinyl wear-layer from the core underneath the surface. 

He then set the tile in normal environmental conditions. 68f to 72f. 

Within 12 hours, the vinyl surface had shrank. He measured the amount of shrinkage. 

The core underneath the surface that had been pulled loose had flatten, no longer curled upward. 

Anyone who has worked with vinyl knows it has what is called a tensile memory. It tends to shrink. 

If the core material it is bonded and pressed onto, laminated together, does not have the "strength" to prevent the vinyl from shrinking, then the vinyl, as it shrinks, will pull the core upward.

As can be seen in the photographs,  once the pressure of the shrinking vinyl surface is removed, the core flattens. 

This is what happens when the product is not "balanced". 

This is a manufacturing concern, issue, defect.