Windstorm program
Certifying Coastal Work That Is Already Finished
There is a route for work that was never inspected. It runs on a sealed post-construction report rather than on observations, which makes it slower, more involved, and occasionally impossible without opening the building back up.
The route
WPI-2E in, WPI-8E out
Completed construction has its own application and its own certificate.
Where a structure was finished without windstorm inspection, the path is the completed construction route rather than the ordinary one. It runs on a signed WPI-2E application together with a sealed post-construction inspection report and supporting documentation, submitted to the Texas Department of Insurance.
What the department issues at the end of it is a WPI-8E rather than a WPI-8. The two are different documents recording different things: one records that the work was watched as it happened, the other records an engineer's sealed conclusion about work that was not.
The difficulty
The evidence is inside the finished building
A post-construction report has to establish what a sequence of inspections would simply have recorded.
The problem is evidentiary rather than procedural. Roof deck attachment, framing connections, and anchorage are the things that matter and the things a finished building conceals. An engineer sealing a report about them has to have a defensible basis for what is inside the assembly.
Sometimes that basis can be assembled from construction photographs, permit records, product documentation, and targeted observation. Sometimes it cannot, and the honest answer is that parts of the work have to be exposed again before anything can be sealed. An engineer who seals around an element they could not verify is risking an appointment and a license against somebody else's schedule pressure.
This is the whole argument for filing the WPI-1 first, made in retrospect and at considerably greater expense.
A document you may already have
The WPI-8-C, and why it is not a TDI certificate
Coastal files still contain these, and they came from somewhere else.
For construction completed between January 1, 2017 and May 31, 2020, certificates were issued by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association rather than by the Texas Department of Insurance. Those carry the designation WPI-8-C. The process changed on June 1, 2020, after which completed construction certificates come from TDI as WPI-8E.
This matters when a coastal property changes hands. A file can legitimately contain a WPI-8-C, and finding one is not evidence that something irregular happened. It is evidence about when the work was completed. Somebody searching the department's records for a certificate that was never a department document will not find it and may reach the wrong conclusion.
Practical order
What to establish before commissioning anything
Establish when the work was completed, because that determines which route and which certificate are even in play. Establish whether a WPI-1 was ever filed, because a project already inside the program is in a different position from one that never entered it. Then establish what documentary record survives from the construction itself, since that is what determines whether a post-construction report is a matter of assembly or a matter of demolition.
Those three answers usually determine the cost of the whole exercise, and all three can be established before anyone is engaged to inspect anything.
Questions
What people ask about this
- Is a WPI-8E worth less than a WPI-8?
- They are different certificates for different circumstances rather than a better and a worse version of one thing. What differs is how much work it takes to obtain one after the fact, and whether the evidence to support it still exists inside the finished building.
- We have a WPI-8-C from 2018. Is it valid?
- A WPI-8-C was the certificate issued by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association for construction completed between January 1, 2017 and May 31, 2020. It is a real certificate from that period. It is not a Texas Department of Insurance document, which is why searching TDI records for it does not find it.
Elsewhere in the program
The rest of the windstorm system
Each part of this program is decided by a different party, which is why they are separate pages.
The designated catastrophe area
Does this address fall inside the program at all?
WPI-1 and the inspection sequence
What has to happen before the first nail, and in what order?
The TDI appointment
What is an appointed engineer, and why can't any engineer do this?
The program overview sets out who decides what, and the windstorm capability page covers what this firm is built to deliver once it opens for work.
Start a job
Tell us what the letter is for and we will tell you yes or no
Send the address, what the document is for, and the date it has to be in hand. Some jobs this firm cannot take, and you will hear that in the first conversation rather than after you have paid and waited.