The plaster on a house's exterior and interior walls needs to pass a series of tests to confirm the contractor applied it correctly, including a pull-off test. Skip it, and you risk plaster falling on people near or inside the house, and losing the insulation that plaster provides against summer heat and winter cold. That's why a plaster soundness test matters.
Beyond the tests done right after construction, a building also needs soundness checks over its lifetime, once it's been in use for years, to see whether the plaster has weakened and needs reinforcing. The end-of-construction tests mainly cover the plaster's bond strength and its thickness on both exterior and interior walls, checked against the relevant sections of Israeli Standards 1920 and 1555.
Specialist companies also run tests for lightning protection, pull-off strength of screws and anchors, paint bond strength and galvanizing thickness, walls clad in ceramic tile or mosaic, the gas supply system, and the installation of acoustic ceilings of every kind.
In the safe room specifically, testing covers plaster thickness and bond strength, plumbing and sanitation fixtures, the installation of shared TV antennas, piles, whether the railing meets the standard, walls clad in artificial or natural stone, solar system installation, the ventilation and filtration system, and the room's overall sealing, among other things.
Standards Institution plaster testing
These are basic tests, and they are not carried out by a home inspection company but by the Standards Institution's own plaster-testing service, unless we suspect the contractor did not run them properly, in which case we order the test from the Institution ourselves.
One test every contractor must run at the end of construction covers the whole plaster system, exterior and interior alike: verticality, flatness, waviness, and bond strength under axial pull. The thermal plaster system, the insulating plaster applied mainly in safe rooms, needs its own thickness test, and where natural stone cladding is used, the contractor must also order a test of the rigid cladding system.
That covers testing plaster in a contractor apartment, done through institutes authorized by the Standards Institution. But a plaster test matters just as much in a resale apartment, sometimes enough to change its value outright, since a plaster surface that fails a pull-off test is a real problem.
Home inspection for plaster: testing in a resale apartment
A plaster inspection is essential in a resale apartment too. If a plaster problem is not caught before ownership changes hands, it becomes the buyer's problem to fix out of pocket, since he cannot prove it existed before the purchase, even though a simple pull-off test would have caught it at the time.
What matters most in a resale plaster test is the plaster's verticality and bond strength, and the safe room's plaster should not be skipped either.
If you have found this article before buying a resale apartment, or even before taking possession, you are ahead of most buyers: the majority of people who order a home inspection in Nahariya, for a resale or a contractor apartment alike, are thinking about dampness, leaks, flooring, waterproofing, radiation, plumbing and electrical systems, but rarely give the plaster a thought.
It deserves one, both in its own right and because it can uncover other defects hiding behind it. We are a home inspection company in Nahariya, and we handle every type of home inspection test. Reach out now for a quote from a home inspection engineer in Nahariya, whether for a plaster pull-off test on its own or as part of a full plaster inspection for a resale apartment.
The engineers of Arad Bedek Bayit, led by building engineer Ron Arad, whom courts appoint as their own expert on construction defects. The company has been inspecting apartments and buildings since 2001. Engineer Ron Arad · More about the company