Proving it
You cannot inspect a rebuilt wall. Get it checked before it closes.
Checking after the work is the sampling that usually earns its cost, because unlike a test beforehand it answers a question whose answer changes something: whether you accept the job as finished.
- 00Ask for it before the wall closesOnce the plasterboard is back, there is nothing left to look at.
- 01Use someone independentWhoever did the removal has an interest in it passing.
- 02Get the final readings in writingDry means a number, measured against unaffected material in the same building.
- 03Keep it with the invoiceTogether they are the file a buyer, a surveyor or a future insurer will ask for.
Goes to an independent contractor. Nothing is booked until you say so. Calls may be recorded.
What a verification actually looks at
Four things: that the visible growth is gone, that materials are dry to a measured reading rather than to the touch, that the containment held and the rest of the house was not contaminated during the work, and that the moisture source was dealt with.
Air sampling may be part of it, but the first three are visual and instrumental and do most of the work.
Who should carry it out
Somebody independent of the company that did the removal. In New York, Florida and Texas that separation is required by law for assessment work generally; elsewhere it is simply the only way the result means anything.
Cleanest of all: the person who wrote the scope checks the work against it. The standard was written down before anyone started, so passing or failing is not a matter of opinion on the day.
When the document matters more than the work
Before a sale, before a new tenancy, while a dispute is live, and whenever the job was large enough that most of it is now hidden. In each of those, what you hand the other party is the document, and its value comes from who signed it.
Do you need one
Not every job. These four.
- 01You are selling or lettingGet it. The document is worth more at the table than the work is on its own.
Ask them: do you arrange verification, and is it a company you have a relationship with? - 02The work was large or hiddenGet it. You cannot inspect what is behind a rebuilt wall.
- 03A dispute is liveGet it from someone with no relationship to the remediator, and before the wall closes.
- 04It was a small patch you watchedProbably not. Keep the photographs and the invoice instead.
Goes to an independent contractor. Nothing is booked until you say so. Calls may be recorded.
Where these figures come from
Published by someone other than us. Each link goes to their own words rather than to our summary of them.