Construction defect term/insurance

[Kyung]

And when you look at -- when you look at the water bill being confined into one month, you know, you have a short-term, large gush of water that's under mindless property and caused this foundation to settle.

It sounds like mindless. Is there such a term? Anybody familiar with this?

[Cathryn Bauer]

It's got to be "gush of water that's undermined this property and caused this foundation to settle." Only thing that makes sense.

[Marla Sharp]

Yeah, maybe "large gush of water that's undermined this property and caused..."?

[Kyung]

Genious. You are all geniouses. I love you. Thank you all for making sure that I don't look like an ass.

It's one of those things that's right in front of your face and you can't even see it.

And the funny thing is that's actually what's written in my notes.

tph r
phaoeupb
-d

Doh!!!

[Marla Sharp]

Any idea if "slab on grade" should always be hyphenated, even when it's not a compound word modifying a noun after it?

[Marla Sharp]

I just discovered Lap Splice is a trademarked term. I don't know if I should cap it all the time or only when it's referring to that particular brand. And how on earth would I know when they're referring to the brand? Wikipedia indicates it's like a generic term for splice joint.

Also, man-hour seems to be hyphenated - at least according to Merriam-Webster.

And I'm confused by definition No. 2 of "man power" on Merriam-Webster:
1: power available from or supplied by the physical effort of human beings
2usually man·pow·er : the total supply of persons available and fitted for service

So is it one word in this instance: "Was it your understanding that more manpower was required to finish the job?"

In what instance would it be two words?

[Kyung]

Just make it one word all the time. Think of it like horsepower.

[April McMillan, CRR, RPR, CSR]

Marla,
I would always cap Lap Splice since it's trademarked. I'm a stickler that way, like Dumpster, Realtor, Kleenex, Jell-O.

I too have "manpower" in my dict. as one word.

[Marla Sharp]

I'm a stickler too, April, so I want to do it the right way. The trouble is when people use it as a verb, like "Lap Spliced." And it seems uncapped everywhere on the Internet.

I'm going with manpower as one word, but how do most people do "man-hour"?

Thanks so much for your input, ladies!!

[April McMillan, CRR, RPR, CSR]

Marla,

I checked SearchMaster (sold with Eclipse and individually) and it has it like this:

man-hour
man-hours

Hope that helps :)

Oh, and w/verb usage for Lap Splice, I would probably do it hyphenated and lower case. I would do it kicking, too, because I hate taking trademarked names and using them generically.