Published 15 Aug 2023
What is a Floor Inspection Checklist?
A floor inspection checklist aids certified flooring inspectors in performing industry standard tests to help determine the quality of flooring work and potential causes of failing floor coverings. With the help of this floor inspection tool, inspectors can help property owners immediately rectify issues, prevent further flooring deterioration, and improve safety in their properties.
In this article
- Floor Inspections: Why are they Essential?
- What Do Floor Inspectors Look For?
- Simplify Floor Inspection Reporting With A Digital Solution
- Featured Floor Inspection Checklists
Floor Inspections: Why are they Essential?
Floor inspections are requested by homeowners, contractors, attorneys, and property management firms to help pinpoint installation errors, unsuitable site conditions, maintenance issues, and manufacturing defects in flooring installations before they put the integrity of an entire building at risk.
Often a part of pre-purchase inspections for homes and buildings, floor inspection services also serve as a due diligence measure availed by buyers to obtain unbiased information on flooring quality before they decide on purchasing the property. After an inspection, a comprehensive written flooring inspection report is furnished and used in a court of law for litigation.
What Do Floor Inspectors Look For?
A flooring inspection checklist helps flooring detectives to strictly follow an inspection routine and detail identified issues in a flooring inspection report. Here are the most common flooring issues that can be uncovered during a flooring inspection:
- Cupping and Crowning: These can happen when there is excess moisture beneath the boards or there is a very dry environment above it. Cupping occurs when board edges are higher than the center, while crowning is the opposite.
- Buckling: It is identified as an extreme reaction to moisture wherein the floor lifts up completely in one or more parts of the board.
- Peaking: Often discovered in laminate floorings, peaking appears when the flooring planks push each other and cause the joints to be lifted. It is often a result of expansion pressure in the floor because of the lack of space to do so.
- Sinking/Sagging Floors: Usually a prevalent issue in older buildings, sinking and sagging floors are often attributed to age. Moisture and water can weaken structural foundations over time and cause the floors to subside or sink into their footprint.
- Gaps: Typical in hardwood floors, gaps normally happen when the wood loses moisture content. These gaps can start to appear once the temperature heats up due to higher humidity.
- Squeaky Floors: These are common findings in older properties. It is often caused by unbarred sub-floor structures. They need to be addressed immediately as they can indicate an underlying serious issue.
Simplify Floor Inspection Reporting With A Digital Solution
A professional inspector’s floor inspection report helps provide the necessary solutions to ensure that a significant amount of care to flooring is provided both during and after installation. It is crucial that this information be delivered immediately to a property owner, maintenance manager, or potential buyer to help them address flooring problems early on and avoid costly repairs in the future.
With SafetyCulture, flooring inspectors can use digital floor inspection checklists to simplify the entire documentation process – from inspection to reporting. With the SafetyCulture mobile property inspection app, flooring inspectors can:
- implement a smoother flooring inspection process with the use of digital flooring inspection checklists;
- easily capture and attach photos of flooring inspection findings as you perform the inspection;
- assign flooring inspections through collaborative actions;
- update flooring inspection checklists via a central device;
- worry less about losing crucial inspection files and save flooring inspection checklists in SafetyCulture’s cloud storage; and
- immediately generate clear and comprehensive flooring inspection reports and easily share results with clients.
Featured Floor Inspection Checklists
Wood Floor Inspection Checklist
This wood floor inspection checklist can be used by certified floor inspectors when conducting inspections of different types of wood floorings, such as timber, laminate, parquet, engineered wood, bamboo, and cork. This wood inspection report template can also be customized according to the National Wood Flooring Association’s (NWFA) guidelines on installation and maintenance.
Laminate Floor Inspection Checklist
Laminate flooring simulates materials, such as wood, marble,and granite with the use of a photograph installed beneath a clear protective layer. Use this laminate floor inspection checklist template when identifying causes of laminate flooring failures, which are usually related to moisture, manufacturing defects, improper maintenance and installation.
Sub-Floor Inspection Checklist
A sub-floor inspection checklist can reveal any moisture related problems such as leaking wet areas (bathrooms, kitchens, laundries), site drainage issues, lack of adequate structural support or subsiding piers/footings as well as evidence of termite entry, wood rot and mortar decay.
Tiling Inspection Checklist
This tiling inspection checklist serves as an aid in conducting efficient inspections in adherence with guidelines to successful tile installations.
