Minnetonka Wood Flooring has handled wood-flooring in Minneapolis for more than 20 years, and a good share of the calls we get from the city start with a report rather than a wish list. A seller has a Truth in Sale of Housing evaluation in hand, a floor item is marked, and a closing date is already on the calendar.
That changes how the work is scoped. The evaluation is about whether a floor is sound, free of holes and safe to walk across, not whether its finish looks tired, so we start by separating the items the report actually requires from the cosmetic work a seller may still want before listing photos. Structural repair and finish work then get separate lines on the quote.
We put a written price per square foot in front of you before a crew is booked, with a recoat and a full sand priced next to each other. Stairs are quoted by the tread and riser. Whether you are the seller racing a closing or the buyer who inherited the repair list, you know the number before anyone touches a board.
What a Truth in Sale of Housing Evaluator Looks At on a Minneapolis Floor
Who Performs the Evaluation and How Long It Lasts
Minneapolis Code of Ordinances Chapter 248, the Truth in Sale of Housing ordinance, applies to the sale of every one- or two-family structure, townhouse or first-time condo conversion in the city. The city describes its program as disclosure with required repairs, which is a different thing from a report that only informs a buyer.
The seller hires an evaluator licensed by the City of Minneapolis. Evaluators are independent contractors who set their own prices, not city employees. The report is valid for two years or one sale, and a copy has to be displayed so buyers can see it at showings.
Item 31 and the Room-by-Room Floor Grade
Floor Condition is item 31 in the kitchen, and the guidelines repeat it as a separate line for the living and dining room, bathrooms, hallways and stairwells, sleeping rooms and porch. Under item 31, deficiencies or damage in the floor are marked B. By visual inspection, the evaluator decides whether the floor is structurally sound, free of holes and capable of supporting normal loads.
An apparent out-of-level floor gets a C comment rather than a B, and a floor with potential for immediate structural failure is flagged as a suggested correction. That is why we walk the marked rooms with the report open. A B in a hallway and a C in a sleeping room call for very different amounts of work.
What the Codes on the Report Mean
M means an item meets minimum requirements, B means below them, and C is a comment. SC is a suggested correction, advised but not required, and LIC calls for a safety check by a licensed contractor. RRE is a required repair with the evaluator returning to sign it off and no permit needed, while RRP is a required repair that needs a permit and a city inspection.
The letter on a floor line decides the schedule. Minnesota Rules 1300.0120 exempts painting, tiling, carpeting and similar finish work from a building permit, though the exemption does not authorize work that violates the code. We read the code letter on each marked line before quoting, because an RRP item adds a permit and a city inspection to the calendar.
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Holes, Soft Spots and Tripping Hazards That Become Required Repairs
Why a Worn Finish Is Not the Problem
The guidelines say plainly that the evaluator is not required to grade floor coverings such as linoleum, tile or carpeting unless their condition presents a potential risk through traffic areas. The city’s own checklist puts torn carpet or broken tile among the items that are looked at but do not result in a required repair. A dull, scratched oak floor is a cosmetic question, not a report item.
Where a covering does create a tripping potential, such as a lifted board edge or a curled section in a hallway, the evaluator may mark it SC. We fix that kind of edge with board replacement or a weave-in, not a whole-room sand. Refinishing the room is still an option, but it is your choice and not something the report demands.
Soft Spots, Holes and Water Damage
A soft spot under a hardwood floor often means the subfloor or a joist below it has given way, and that goes straight to whether the floor can carry normal loads. We open the area, check the plywood subfloor or older plank decking, and price the structural repair as its own line, separate from the finish work above it.
Bathrooms are where we see it most. The city’s common repairs sheet treats a leaking toilet as unsafe if the leak is bad enough to rot the floor, so the flooring repair follows the plumbing fix. We take moisture readings on the subfloor itself with a pin moisture meter and record them before a new board goes in.
Basement Floors Below the Living Space
The basement floor is graded too. Holes or raised edges exceeding one-half inch are marked B, as are heaving, buckling, large cracks or holes that point to inadequate soil bearing. If wood flooring is going over that slab later, the B item gets corrected first, and we test the slab for moisture before any board or underlayment goes down.
We class a lower level as below, on or above grade by the three-inch soil rule, so a walkout is quoted as below grade when it is. That decision sets which products belong on the slab and which test, such as an ASTM F2170 in-situ relative humidity test, we run before installation.
Stairs and Handrails: The Numbers in the Evaluator Guidelines
Tread, Rise, Width and Headroom
Basement stairs are held to the Housing Maintenance Code minimums: a tread of at least 9 inches, a rise of no more than 8 inches and a width of at least 30 inches, otherwise the stair is marked B. Headroom has to be at least six feet four inches. Those are dimensions of the stair itself, so a new tread does not change a rise that is already out of range.
When we replace worn or split stair treads, we keep each nosing and riser consistent from step to step so the stair reads the same underfoot. We quote that work per tread and riser rather than folding it into a square-foot price, which keeps a stair repair on a TISH list from hiding inside a larger number.
Handrails on Four or More Risers
Every stairway with four or more risers needs at least one handrail, and a missing required handrail is marked RRE. The rail sits 30 to 34 inches above the nosing under the Housing Maintenance Code, or 34 to 38 inches with returned ends or newel posts under the Minnesota State Building Code.
Where a missing rail and worn treads share one stair, the order of work matters. We schedule our tread work around the handrail fix so the evaluator’s return visit finds both finished. Because RRE means no permit is required, that rail item can stay on a short timeline when the rest of the list is longer.
Guardrails on Open Sides
Guardrail openings are checked as well, under Section 244.555: no object 9 inches in diameter can pass between two intermediate rails. On an open stair, that means checking baluster spacing before any floor finishing starts, since a fresh finish on the treads is wasted if the rail section has to come apart afterward.
Finishing the Repairs, Then Refinishing a Prewar Minneapolis Floor
Before Closing: The Certificate of Approval
If the report carries no required repairs, the city issues a Certificate of Approval online. If it does, the seller completes them, they are reinspected and signed off, and the certificate is then issued online to be used at closing. When a seller calls us with a marked floor item, the closing date sets our schedule, and we say on the first visit whether it fits.
The repair and the sign-off come from different hands. An evaluator may not repair a property they evaluated, or evaluate one they repaired within the last 90 days, so we handle the floor work and the evaluator or a city inspector checks it. We give you a written scope of the floor work to hand to whoever signs it off.
After Closing: The Buyer’s 90 Days
When repairs are not finished before closing, the buyer signs an acknowledgment of responsibility, submits it to the city within one day of closing and completes the required repairs within 90 days. Once those are signed off, the city issues a Buyer Certificate of Completion online, which cannot be used to sell the property later.
Ninety days in a new house overlaps with moving in, and in winter it overlaps with furnace season. We read indoor relative humidity on the first visit and write it on the quote, because a Minnesota house with the heat running sits below the range wood flooring is made for. Boards acclimated to the wrong conditions can cup or gap once the season turns.
Refinishing a Prewar Floor Once the Report Is Done
Minneapolis is an older city underfoot. Of 209,080 housing units, 89,537, or 42.8 percent, were built in 1939 or earlier, and 57.0 percent predate 1960. Where a house of that age has its original solid oak, a full sand and refinish is a separate decision, made after the TISH items close and on the owner’s schedule.
The city is known for cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers, and an old oak floor moves with both. We check for cupping, crowning and seasonal gapping before quoting, and we look at how much wood remains above the tongue, since a floor sanded several times over the decades has less to give.
Lead is the part a TISH report does not settle. The city’s checklist lists lead-based paint among the items that are not looked at, so a clean report says nothing about it. Minnesota is not an EPA-authorized state for the Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, which means the EPA runs that program here directly.
We sand pre-1978 houses under that federal rule, and we describe the dust containment by its equipment, such as sealed doorways and HEPA vacuums, rather than calling it dustless. Finish chemistry, cure time and the day furniture, rugs and pets can come back are all written down before we start, so the new owner can plan a move-in around the floor.
- 20+ Years on Wood Floors
- Per-Square-Foot Written Quotes
- Stairs Priced Per Tread
