Independent Building Inspectors - I had my first one

Hi Everyone

We had our first ever independent building inspection yesterday, and I want to share the experience from a builder's perspective.

As background, I have spent the last 5 years on this forum, being critical of other builders work, often going out to forum members homes in my spare time and picking apart other builders work, and even sometimes helping certifiers with framing inspections, but I have never had my own work independently assessed.....until yesterday.

One of our key principals as a business is to welcome our clients on site as much as they like. We truly believe that building a home is a partnership between ourselves and our clients, and if there are any construction issues, quality wise we all tend to know about it in our whatsapp group ie if we have missed something and our clients are on site they will post a photo as do we. We work with some really amazing people and have an honest open dialogue.

Probably for these reasons we have never had a client ask for an independent inspection before even though there is a clause in our contract that says the clients are more the welcome to do it.

So, when this particular client told me that he wanted to get one done, my initial reaction was "bring it on!" my partner who wasn't as excited at the idea of being critiqued by an independent expert took a little bit of convincing. He's a slab nerd, I'm a bit of a timber framing nerd so I promised him I would have us covered on this one.

At the end of last week, we had forecast that the frames would be finished by Tuesday, so I informed the client he could book his inspection in Thursday or Friday this week. That would give my boys enough time to finish and us a day or 2 to rectify any defects. Unfortunately 2 days of rain slowed us down.

The inspection was booked for 1.30pm Thursday. All good

Got to site yesterday morning, the carpentry crew are still finishing the last bits and pieces, we do a room by room walk where I was playing the part of an overzealous inspector demanding my head carpenter justify a number of things from the code such as "you have used angle bracing instead of speed bracing, how many nails are in each end, where is the code does it say that?"

We did a room by room, wall by wall walk, checking every joist, stud wall and connection. Other than a few bowed studs due to the rain ( easy fix) and some bugles tying my upper frames to my lowers, my conclusion was that I would be super happy if this was my home.

So the boys were given a plan to have everything completed by 1.30pm, including a site clean. I would stay a safe distance, working from my car just in case anything came up.

At 12pm I decided to send the drone up to get a few roof framing snaps. The inspector turns up early, I am busy trying to dodge the attacking crows, if anything goes wrong, there is nothing I can do. My drone hits a tree whilst trying to avoid a crow attack, almost crashes into the road, but I saved it just in time.

By the time I had recovered the drone, the inspector is leaving with a straight edge in hand. He would have definitely picked up on our bowed studs.

My carpenter comes over, tells me he loved the work and yes had picked up on the bowed studs and maybe some other minor items.

Now I have to wait on the report to find out what they are. The anticipation is killing me, every time my phone dings with a new email I check to see if that is the report.

I am expecting the bowed studs down the main hallway to be noted and my upper frame bugles which were still missing at the inspection ( will all be done today), but not sure what other items he has found. There could be some code interpretation issues, but at this point I am just guessing.

I will post some snippets or commentary once I get it so we can all learn together.

In the meantime, here are some drone shots

Cheers

Simeon

Did your engineering call for speed race running down the Ridge line?

Hi Ardo


No it didn't

Cheers

Simeon

Hi Everyone,

So the report came in.

Overall it was quite good.

As the boys were still working, most of the items he picked up on we were already across and have since been fixed, but interestingly there were 5 things we had missed.

The 5 things we missed were:

1. A double stud under a support beam in the main bedroom. There is a double stud next to the beam but it should be directly under it.
2. There is a second double stud missing in one of the other bedrooms
3. He wants a 2500 support beam in the ceiling in Bed 3 ( We will put it in but I need to investigate why he thinks this is needed)
4. One of the laundry walls is slightly out of plumb ( my 17 year old has my ute today so I don't have my square to see how far out it is). I am actually kicking myself that I missed this one.
5. He says one of the garage walls is also out of plumb, again I just need to determine the extent.

I have posted a few screenshots from the report.

From our point of view, I think having another set of fresh eyes come in and pick up on some things we missed which are all easy fixes has been a good experience. None of us are perfect.

Putting my client hat on, I think having a good inspector who is thorough is a really good idea to protect yourself. The key is whether or not your builder is open and amenable to be being told that there may be some rectifications needed. I can imagine that there would be some builders who would take this as a personal attack rather than constructive criticism.

This inspector is from a well known company who has been mentioned quite a few times over the years in this forum, and I have to say that I think he was thorough and very fair. It also helped that the report was issued within 24 hours so we can jump straight onto it.

So overall, I think the whole process has been a good one for both ourselves and our clients. At the end of the day we want to give our clients the best home we can.

I hope this has given everyone a little insight.

Enjoy your weekends

Simeon

Hi Simeon

Great info for forum

Is first floor walls hebel? If so is hebel going above windows

Interesting about the beam inspector requested. Is the frame engineered for roof load, hebel, floor load etc? Fascinating if not engineered, or that inspector could request a beam .

Im fascinated in the fact they have rafters which what looks like 90 x 35 spanning around 1.5m pitching to a ridge board that is also spanning 2 to 3m. It's hard to tell if they have triples, ties, or hangers anywhere. Suppose I'm not used to a N2 class frame.

It's obvious from this post that you take pride in your work and also take full ownership of any mistakes. Well done Simeon.

Hi Pedro

Thanks for your input.


So I spent this morning with the carpenters going through the report.

In answer to your questions:

1. Yes upper walls are Hebel and we put hebel above the windows as well.

2. The roof isn't engineered the carpenters work from the code.

There was a misunderstanding about the roof beam. It was actually just a door header for a cavity slider above a bathroom door which hadn't been installed.

Cheers

Simeon

Thanks Benny

Hi Ardo

They are 90 x 45mm. Triples aren't needed as everything is tied down with bracing.

Good questions though, thanks!

Simeon

Pedro

Here are some pictures from site showing how the Hebel finishes above windows

Cheers

Simeon

There are some independent inspectors that want to impress you by quoting standards and regulations, ad nauseum, and throwing the book at the builder which is fine only if the contract has ended. (have look at Tik Tok and Yu tube)

Yes building defect happen and yes i'ts builder's fault and yes builders do know law, regulations, standards and tolerances so you don't need to remind them.

However your best chance of finishing is with your builder and it is counter productive to throw mud (even when justified) and expect co operation. You could instead provoke defensive reaction leading to dispute escalation. Disputes cost time and money, you lose.

I always try to work with the builder to sort out defects and omissions and get to the finishing line, only when this becomes impossible, or the contract ends, then the gloves come off.

That is a really good attitude akin to you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

I do enjoy watching that tik tok inspector from Victoria but he does go a little overboard at times. Although, some of those homes are pretty terrible. I saw the steel frame one the other day and OMG, that was horrific.

But I think you are correct, if you are reasonable then you will get better co-operation from the builder from the outset.

Thanks for your informative post

Simeon