Stucco Inspections

RAM Builders does do a limited visual inspection on your home, based on conditions you are aware of. Since many of the problems are consistent from home to home, we are usually able to make an accurate recommendation for isolated repairs or for full replacement, base on this “limited visual inspection”. When we first started trouble shooting leaks we would spend many hours, at the home owners expense water testing to recreate the leak, once we found the leak we would then remove stucco to determine what problems existed behind the stucco. What we found was that the problems where consistent from house to house. For example, a leak at the head of the window was caused by missing or improperly installed window flashings and over stapled building paper. So if we came to your home to look at a leak at the head of a window we would assume the problems were related to the window flashings and the over stapled building papers. This is a simplified scenario, and several conditions may exist that we would take into consideration, but it’s an example of how we would “inspect” your home.

In most cases RAM Builders believes every job we do should have an independent 3rd party inspection that determines the problem and designs the repair. In some cases, if the repair is small and localized or if the problem is blatantly obvious, it may not be worth the cost to hire a third party. We have worked with several stucco inspectors and engineering companies that can provide this service. We also know that sometimes home owners don’t want to pay the cost for this service, so we provide this as a free service as part of the bidding process. There are some exclusions to this limited visual inspection, for example we don’t know if there is dry rot behind the stucco unless we remove the stucco. This makes it impossible to accurately determine the cost to replace the dry rotted framing. However, once we have removed the stucco we can accurately and fairly determine this cost, rather than just throwing out a high estimate. Or you for a fee you can hire us to do an intrusive inspection and determine this cost prior to the commencement of work. If some one includes dryrot repair in a contract as a “lump sum” amount then two possible scenarios will most likely follow. First your contractor will make a ton of money by not having to fix his “worse case scenario”, and second he will conceal need repairs because he has not put the money in the job for them.

You should always get your stucco inspected by and independent inspector, an inspector that DOES NOT do stucco repair work. Home or stucco inspectors that do the same type of work they inspect should not be trusted to give un-biased information. The reason you get an inspection is to make sure that you’re aware of all the problems on your home or a home you’re buying. Don’t use someone that profits from finding problems with your home! At RAM Builders we pride ourselves in our ability to minimize repairs, while being fully aware of the particular situations where the only lasting solution to a problem is complete removal of a improperly installed stucco system.

Never use a home or stucco inspector that is recommended by your realtor. Often times, the relationship between the realtor and inspector will encourage the inspector not to find problems that become “deal killers”. Realtors and Inspectors can develop “if you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours” relationships. Inspectors know that they’ll loose the realtor’s future referrals if he finds too many problems that would keep the sale from going through.

RAM Builders and its principles are extremely qualified to offer a stucco inspection. RAM Builders has taught numerous continuing education seminars to real estate agents and inspectors and even to city building inspectors. The owner of RAM Builders is a certified building inspector, but we don’t do stucco inspections that determine the scope of work. We do a visual inspection when we meet with a home owner, with the work being based off the home owner’s concerns and that which is obvious. Even with a much improved level of awareness, homes continue to be sold in Utah that have major problems.