Why it matters
A buyer scrolling listing photos sees a floor, a ceiling, a wall. Casaroo's job is to tell you when what you are actually looking at is water, or movement, or a structure that has shifted. Get this wrong in the optimistic direction and you budget for flooring when you needed to budget for a foundation. The five that matter most. 1. Floorboards that are cupping, crowning, peaking, or lifting. Wood moves because of moisture, full stop. Cupped boards (edges higher than the middle) mean the underside is wetter than the top. This is never a flooring finding. It is a water finding, and the question is where the water is coming from: a crawl space, a slab, a leak, a humidifier, or a basement that breathes. 2. A stained ceiling. Water came from somewhere: the roof, a bathroom above, a pipe. A tide-line, a brown ring, or a blistered patch is a moisture finding. Painting over it changes the photo, not the house. A single freshly painted patch on an otherwise tired ceiling or wall is the same finding with an extra question attached: what was covered, and when? 3. A crack running in a line across tile. Tile does not crack in a straight line for cosmetic reasons. A continuous crack, or repeating cracks along the same grout joint, means the floor beneath is deflecting or the structure has moved. Isolated chips are a dropped pan. Lines are a question. 4. Doors that will not latch, stick, or swing on their own. The door is fine. The frame around it has racked, because the floor or the structure carrying it has moved. Look for doors trimmed at an angle, or a visible taper in the gap along the top of a door. 5. Cracked plaster or drywall above door and window openings. Diagonal cracks running up and out from the corners of openings are the classic signature of movement. Hairline settlement cracks are common and usually ordinary; the ones that repeat, widen, or run diagonally at multiple openings are the ones to have looked at.
How to spot it
Look for deformation, staining, and lines. That is the whole rule. Worn is cosmetic. Deformed, stained, or cracked in a line is mechanical.
What it costs
None of its own. This card exists to route you to the right one: mould and moisture, crawl space moisture, sagging and uneven floors, or foundation cracks, all of which sit on the mechanical side and carry the real numbers.
What to do
Do not price the finish. Ask what caused it. If a listing shows any of the five above, that is a Walkthrough or an inspection question, not a decorating budget.
Education and triage, not a home inspection. Casaroo will name the cue it can see in your photos and tell you which side of the line it falls on. It will never tell you a house is dry, level, or sound. We flag; we don't inspect, and we never clear. The rule, in one sentence. If the finish is worn out, it is cosmetic and it prices per unit. If the finish is deformed, stained, or cracked in a line, something behind it is doing that, and it is mechanical.