First, in order to qualify to attend training courses to become a CFSIC-certified professional, a person must already be licensed in the state of Connecticut as a home inspector or as a person carrying a valid licensed Professional Engineer designation.
In the case of a home inspector, CFSIC requires that that professional already possess a minimum of three years of active continuous experience in the home inspection field.
CFSIC-certified professionals enroll in an initial day-long training course covering every aspect of the science of pyrrhotite-related foundation failure, its causes, and its visual manifestations. The training course concludes with a vigorous examination requiring a significant number of correct answers in order to receive or maintain CFSIC certification.
Each existing certified professional must become re-certified every year by taking all of the coursework again and passing the examination, and cannot continue in the program on a renewal basis without having complied.
CFSIC believes strongly that the following statement applies to the work done by CFSIC-certified home inspectors and professional engineers:
“Opinions expressed by the inspector shall only be based on the inspector’s education, experience, and honest convictions.”
That statement comes from Section 20-491-14 (Code of Ethics) of Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies, TITLE 20. Professional & Occupational Licensing, governing the conduct of licensed home inspectors. But CFSIC believes it is equally applicable to those certified professionals separately evaluating residential foundations to determine the extent of the crumbling foundations crisis.
CFSIC’s Minimum Report Standards
CFSIC does not dictate the way in which a CFSIC-certified professional writes their report and renders it to a homeowner or other person who has requested a foundation evaluation.
However, CFSIC requires that any report rendered by a CFSIC-certified professional always contain, at a minimum, the following information:
- If a CFSIC Severity Class Code is assigned, or when circumstances dictate that it cannot be assigned, that Severity Class Code designation (or the professional’s inability to assign a code) must be referenced a minimum of two times in every written report.
- Photographic evidence must be provided in the form of high resolution images (able to be easily expanded for closer viewing and assessment). The photos must be sufficient in number to support not only the certified professional’s conclusions, but also the conclusions of anyone peer reviewing that certified professional’s work. Photographs must be taken at varying distances from what is being assessed, including but not limited to a distance sufficient to view the length and breadth of the wall area under examination, as well as close-up (tight) images revealing measurements and the evident visual manifestations associated with map cracking.
- Certified professionals must refrain from unnecessary “filler information” (information meant to expound on the crisis itself or information not germane to the task the professional has been engaged to perform). References to the professional’s experience are permitted, as are other references as to how the professional conducts their work. (It is important to remember that a CFSIC-certified professional is conducting a foundation inspection...not a home inspection...and, as a result, the nature of the report rendered and its content will be entirely different and is being rendered for a different reason.)
- Whether it is at the beginning of a written report or at the end, regardless of the actual length of the written evaluation report, CFSIC requires that findings and conclusions always be summarized in a single paragraph, not only for ease of understanding and reference by a residential homeowner, but also for the convenience of any CFSIC claim adjuster reviewing the report for purposes of prioritizing the availability of claim funds.
- Certified professionals MUST NOT comment on or attempt to interpret or explain CFSIC’s Underwriting and Claims Management Guidelines, its operations, and how it conducts its business. Certified professionals must limit their written and/or verbal comments to the task at hand: the evaluation of the foundation in question.
These minimum standards are designed to:
- Identify and therefore prioritize access to CFSIC claim funds set aside for the remediation of crumbling foundations.
- Assure reasonable conformance and consistency with the stated CFSIC goal of identifying the severity of evaluated foundations in the affected area.
- Be easily understood and immediately useable by a homeowner or other person in order to comprehend the potential existence of a crumbling residential foundation.
- Represent and therefore be evidence of the status of that foundation as respects the effects of pyrrhotite on that foundation at the stated fixed point in time of the date of the written report.