Simplify Flooring Inspection With a Checklist and Digital Reporting

What Is a Flooring Inspection Checklist?

A flooring inspection checklist is a tool used by a certified inspector in assessing a property’s flooring condition thoroughly. The template contains detailed dimensions of flooring, its relative humidity, temperature, and moisture.

Property management firms, contractors, and homeowners often request floor inspections to help them identify installation errors, defects, unsafe site conditions, and maintenance issues that might negatively impact the entire property.

Floor inspections are often a requirement before buying a house or a property. The comprehensive appraisal presents a piece of unbiased information on a property’s flooring quality. The report usually carries the following information:/p>

• Claim history overview
• Assessment of site conditions
• Environmental conditions appraisal
• Assessment of substrate flatness
• Observations on product performance and installation quality
• Recommendations

In this article, the following points are explained:

1. Common problems found during a floor inspection

2. The nine floor types and their slip risks

3. Digital floor inspection Checklists for efficient inspections and reports

Common Problems Found During a Floor Inspection

A floor inspection checklist ensures that everything has gone through a thorough inspection. The detailed report will help both owners and contractors take the appropriate action immediately.

Here are some of the most common problems encountered during a home checkup:

1. Cupping and Crowning

When you look at a wood floor inspection checklist, you’ll see cupping and crowning as two common flooring problems. You’ll know when you notice the floor is wavy or rippled, and the ridges along the edges are higher. Crowning, on the other hand, has the opposite effect.

These problems happen when there’s excessive moisture underneath the flooring boards. When water interacts with the wooden floor, it expands.

2. Repairs and Patches

Sometimes, the damage is not visible on the first inspection. Check if the house has a basement or space below. Chances are, the previous owners might have put some carpeting or vinyl flooring to hide the holes on the floor. These holes might be where the pipes used to go through. But instead of patching the holes, they covered them with carpets.

3. Molds

Molds are another thing to look for during a floor checkup. Molds grow and eat organic materials like wood, causing the floors to decay. Poke at the flooring and framing to find out if it crumbles or shakes. If it’s solid, then there’s no damage.

4. Cracking

Cracking often happens on tile floors. It is a sign of a weak subfloor and needs replacing.

5. Squeaky Sound

There are many reasons why a floor produces abnormal sounds when you step on them. It could be loose nails, improper installation, weak subflooring, or incorrect lamination. If you encounter this, it’s time to replace the flooring.

6. Peaking

It often happens on laminate floorings. If the planks appear like they are pushing each other and lifting the joints, that’s peaking. It is often the result of expansion pressure because of a lack of space.

The 9 Floor Types and Their Slip Risks

Some floor types are more prone to slip risks than others. Therefore, inspectors should also examine the potential for the selected flooring to promote slips, trips and falls due to its nature. Some of the critical issues to consider when evaluating the suitability of the flooring is:

1. Smooth, hard surfaces are more prone to fall hazards.
2. Contaminants on the floor increases slip hazards.
3. Incorrect cleaning makes the floor slippery.
4. Any changes as small as 1 centimeter in the flooring height can cause slips and trips.
5. Different types of flooring material between areas can cause trips, slides, and falls.
6. A rough surface is more effective than anti-slip footwear in reducing slips.
7. A floor that’s slip-resistant when dry might be slippery when wet.

Here are the nine different flooring types and the recommended application for optimum use:

1. Carpet

Proper installation of carpets should be wall to wall to avoid tripping hazards on the edges. If you install it in entrances or other smaller areas, place it in a recess on the floor.

2. Concrete

Concrete tends to become slippery when it wears. Sealing makes it even more slippery because it cannot absorb liquid.

4. Cork

Cork flooring tends to be slippery when wet.

5. Fiberglass grating

This type of flooring has grit particles added on the upper surface to make it slip-resistance. Fluid drains quickly on fiberglass grating types of flooring.

6. Glazed ceramic tiles

The smooth surface of ceramic tiles makes it slippery when wet, especially with soap water. However, some treatments make it slip-resistant, but flooring experts do not recommend using them on floors.

7. Quarry and Ceramic Tiles

The smoother ones can also be slippery, but molding them with aggregates can make them slip-resistant.

8. Timber

It becomes slippery when polished or highly glossed.

9. Vinyl Tiles

Generally, they are slippery when wet. However, thicker vinyl tiles are more slip-resistant. Molding it with aggregates also increases its resistance to slips.

More Efficient Inspections and Easier Reporting

Flooring inspection by a professional inspector is important to ensure that the flooring is treated with proper care both during and after installation by taking the appropriate action. Therefore, the information obtained should be immediately shared with the property owner, maintenance manager or potential buyer so they can address flooring issues early to avoid costly repairs in the future.

Lumiform’s mobile app and desktop software allows flooring inspectors to use digital checklists for on-site flooring inspections, simplifying the entire documentation process – from inspection to reporting. With Lumiform’s digital tool, they benefit from the following during their daily work:

• Start immediately with a time-saving and efficient inspection process by using one of the digital checklists from Lumiform’s template library.
• Make floor inspection reports more descriptive by adding photos and extensive notes during the inspection to the checklist.
• Notify responsible parties and assign actions when defects are discovered from within the app, and easily track their completion from their dashboard.
• Update flooring inspections at any time, regardless of location, from a central device.
• Minimize the loss of critical inspection data by storing all important information in real-time in Lumiform’s cloud storage.
• Receive an automatically generated report after each inspection and share it immediately with the respective customer – no more time-consuming report generation required.
• Complete inspections up to four times faster and uncover more issues while resolving them faster.