How to Read an Evaluation Report Before You Use a Product

Why this matters

The time to read an evaluation report is before the product is bought, because that is the last moment a condition of use costs nothing. After the material is on the wall, a condition you missed means tearing it off. The reading itself takes about twenty minutes for a typical report once you know where the load-bearing sentences are, and most shops skip it because the report number printed on the carton feels like the answer. It is the question.

What a report can and cannot establish is a sibling's subject. See related: Evaluation Reports and What They Prove. This card is the procedure, run on one product, with the filled-in worksheet at the end.

The case

A handyman and remodeling shop is insulating the concrete walls of a basement in a 1990s house. The plan is rigid foam board glued to the walls, with the seams taped. The owner wants the mechanical room and the storage area left unfinished, which means the foam would be exposed there, with no drywall over it. The permit is under the 2021 IRC as adopted, which (at R316.4 in that edition) generally requires foam plastic in a building to be separated from the interior by a thermal barrier, typically 1/2 in gypsum board, unless a specific approval allows otherwise. The board the shop prefers advertises "approved for exposed use" on the carton and carries an evaluation report number. Every value from the report below is illustrative.

Step 1: Get the report from the source, by its number

Do. Go to the evaluation service's own website and search the report number from the carton. Download the current version. Note the issue date, the revision date if any, and the reissue or expiration date.

Why. Reports are reissued on a cycle, commonly every one or two years, and revised in between. The PDF on the supplier's product page may be several versions old. A withdrawn report will often still circulate.

What breaks if skipped. You read conditions from a superseded version. Revisions sometimes tighten them, and the inspector will check the current one.

The case. The report was current, reissued eight months earlier, valid for another sixteen months.

Step 2: Match the report holder, the product and the marking to the carton

Do. Find the report holder's name, the list of products the report covers, and the "identification" section, which says how covered products are marked. Then look at the carton and the board itself.

Why. A report covers named products. A manufacturer can sell a similar board with a different facing, a different density or a different name that the report does not list. The identification marking (usually the report number and the manufacturer's name or plant on the product or its label) is how an inspector connects the material on site to the report.

What breaks if skipped. You buy the cheaper sibling product, which looks identical and is not in the report.

The case. The report covered three boards. The shop's preferred one was listed by name, in thicknesses from 1/2 in to 3 in. The board carried the report number on its printed facing, as the identification section said it would.

Step 3: Check the code editions and any supplements

Do. Read the list of codes and editions the report evaluated against. Compare it with the edition on your permit. Check for a supplement written against your state's or city's amended code, and for whether your state runs its own product approval system.

Why. A report proves compliance with the editions it lists and no others. An official working under an unlisted edition has to accept the report on judgment alone.

What breaks if skipped. A report evaluated only against newer editions, used in a jurisdiction on an older one, may be declined at inspection.

The case. The report listed the 2024, 2021 and 2018 IRC and IBC. The permit edition, 2021, was among them. No supplement applied to this state.

Step 4: Read the scope and the uses

Do. Find the section stating what properties were evaluated and what uses are recognized. Write each down as a short phrase.

Why. "Approved for exposed use" on a carton is a summary of a specific finding that applies to specific locations. The scope tells you which.

What breaks if skipped. The carton's phrase gets applied to every room it might reach.

The case. The scope recognized the board as foam plastic insulation on interior basement and crawlspace walls, with a section headed "installation without a thermal barrier" that applied only to certain spaces. That section, not the carton, was the thing to read closely.

Step 5: Read every condition of use against this house

Do. Go through the numbered conditions of use, and for each one write yes, no or not applicable for this job, with the fact that decides it.

Why. The conditions are the terms on which the compliance finding was made. A product used outside one is outside the report, not partly inside it.

What breaks if skipped. This is the step whose omission costs the most, because each condition looks like fine print and one of them always applies.

The case. Four conditions mattered. Exposed installation was recognized only in basements and crawlspaces not used as habitable space: yes for the mechanical room and storage area. Maximum thickness for exposed installation was 2 in: the shop had planned 2.5 in to hit an R-value target, so no. The foil facing had to face the room: yes, planned. Seams were to be sealed with a named tape type: the shop had a different tape in the van, so no until purchased.

Step 6: Read the installation details the report names

Do. Find the installation section and any figures or tables: fastening or adhesive, substrate, spacing, joint treatment, required accessories, and whether the manufacturer's installation instructions must be on site.

Why. These are the details the inspector compares the wall against. Many reports also state that where the published instructions and the report conflict, the report governs.

What breaks if skipped. The carton's instructions get followed where the report is stricter. See related: When the Instructions and the Code Disagree.

The case. The carton said exposed use was approved "up to 3 in". The report said 2 in. The report governed, and the shop dropped to 2 in board in the exposed areas, accepting a lower R-value there, and kept 2.5 in only behind the drywall in the finished rec room, where a thermal barrier was going in anyway.

Step 7: Give the inspector a copy

Do. Print the current report. Mark the scope paragraph, the conditions of use you relied on and the installation table. Put it in the permit box, or hand it over at the inspection, with the carton or a cut-off of the printed facing.

Why. The inspector's job is to connect the material to the report. Making it easy turns a twenty-minute conversation into a two-minute one.

What breaks if skipped. An inspector with no report on site may fail the exposed foam and ask for drywall over it.

The case. The estimator printed the report the morning of the inspection, not the day of purchase, so the copy matched the version current at inspection.

When the report cannot give you what you planned

The case resolved cheaply because the report allowed a thinner board in the same spaces. Sometimes reading it ends the plan instead. If the owner had wanted the exposed foam in a finished playroom, no condition would have covered it, and the shop's choices would have been a thermal barrier over the foam, a different product whose report names that use, or a request to the building official to approve the assembly as an alternative, with the test data to support it. See related: How to Request Approval for an Alternative Method. The one choice that is not on the list is reading the carton's "approved for exposed use" as covering the room.

The worksheet the shop filed

EVALUATION REPORT CHECK         Job: basement, 2021 IRC
Report no.: (from carton)  Status: current
Issued/reissued: 8 mo ago  Valid: 16 mo more
Holder matches carton: yes  Product named: yes
Marking on board: report no. on facing: yes
Editions listed: 2024/2021/2018  Permit 2021: yes
Supplement for this state: none
Use: interior basement wall, exposed in
  non-habitable space
COND exposed only non-habitable    yes
COND max 2 in exposed       no -> change to 2 in
COND foil faces room               yes
COND named seam tape        no -> buy before start
Instr vs report: carton 3 in, report 2 in
  -> report governs
Copy to inspector: printed, marked, in permit box
Checked by: estimator   Before purchase: yes

Two "no" lines, both turned into a change before anything was bought. That is the worksheet doing its job.

Installing it, briefly

The crew cut the board with a utility knife and straightedge rather than a hot wire, which releases decomposition fumes from heated foam; ran the basement's exhaust fan with a window open while the foam adhesive cured, using it as its safety data sheet directs; and held the board back from the water heater and furnace by the clearances on their data plates. The inspection passed with the marked report in the permit box.

How to verify you got this right

Read your worksheet's condition lines against the finished wall, one at a time: thickness measured at a cut edge, facing direction seen, the tape's type printed on the roll in the trash, the rooms with exposed foam matching the rooms the report allows. If the owner later finishes the storage area into a bedroom, the "non-habitable" line flips to no, and a thermal barrier goes over the foam. Note that on the invoice now, because the owner will not think of it then.

References

• International Residential Code R316.4 and R316.6, 2021 edition, foam plastic thermal barrier and specific approval, as adopted by your jurisdiction.
• The evaluation service's own online directory, for the report's current status, revisions and supplements.
• The product's safety data sheet, for adhesive ventilation and cutting precautions.
• See related: Evaluation Reports and What They Prove; How to Keep Installation Instructions for the Inspector.