Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 21, 2010 11:09 pm My brother build with PD and moved in nearly 3 months now. Speaking to him the other day he mentioned some 'rules' that was applied by PD when he inspected his house at hand over. To me those rules sound absurd and whats more he said his independent inspector (one of the ones some on the forum uses) said it was the norm! I'm thinking he has been given the wool treatment by the builder (he is not one to protest at things). Anyway the rules is: 1) When inspecting your house at final inspection you only have one chance to inspect the house and if you don't pickup things/imperfection then anything found afterward won't be accepted 2) (This sound even more absurd) When inspecting the house you can only use natural lights, things / imperfections is only fixed / accepted if they show up under 'natural' light!!! and you CAN'T turn on the lights. Umm one of his toilet is in the middle of the house entry via hallway with NO natural lights so unless your superman with xray night vision you won't see much if anything Is the above TRUE????? If this is not the case then pls let me know so I can tell my brother he has the wool treatment. If the builder does a good job then whats with the only 'visible under natural light' rule. What have they got to be afraid of?? (well lots base on the experience of this forum). What is your experience with final inspection of your house / builder 'rules' (if any). I am not going to accept the above 'rules' if this is indeed an industry 'standard'... Re: builder's rules... for final inspection 2Jan 22, 2010 7:45 am hi fruitty not sure what the rules are. but i have my final p.c.i next monday. i have been through my house so many times without the builder bieng there. ive got a list of things that i will hit him with through the final walkthrough. eg. doors not painted top and bottom. door hinges, doors not properly tightened, as holes have been threaded. mortor , tile pieces still ****** in the guttering. the odd rough paint job. ensuite cupboards, not siliconed properly. i could go on. i am not going to be shy about pointing these out, if it was the ss house he wouldnt exept this, so why should i anyone else have any tips for what to look for. cheers Re: builder's rules... for final inspection 3Jan 22, 2010 7:52 am fruitty, Both rules are half right. The first rule is that you can only submit one defects list (there is no limit to the number of visits). The reason for this is to stop owners coming up with never ending lists. Having said this, if things break after you move in then you are covered. Also, if something which was obviously not damaged by the owner after they moved in was wrong, I'm sure most good builders would fix it. The second rule is that you can only reject things under natural light. You can inspect with any light you like, but when it comes to accepting or rejecting you need to use natural light. Of course, if a room has no windows common sense should prevail. Here's what I would do to counter any onerous "requirements" from the builder. 1) Arrive for the “one” inspection first thing in the morning - like 7:00 am. Bring a room by room checklist and take your time. Go to 4:00 pm if you have to. There, it meets PD "requirement" of only one inspection. 2) As you enter each room turn on all the lights. "Hey, I'm checking that the lights work. I also need to leave them on for a while to see if they shut down when they warm up. Got to be careful you know." (Take a strong torch along also, as backup). Use all the lighting you can get your hands on to inspect. However, to be fair, once a defect is noticed, use natural light to make a determination. I would also: 1) Have an independent inspector do a full inspection, preferably at the same time. This is on top of you doing a full inspection. 2) Turn every tap on and check for water flow and that hot and cold are the correct way round. 3) Flush every toilet 4) Try every power point (a small night light would do this) 5) Turn on every light (and leave them on for a while to check for shutdowns ) 6) Open and close every door, cupboard, drawer, etc 7) Inspect every surface for scratches, marks, etc. If the house is not clean, then insist it is cleaned and you'll be back for the (first) inspection. Don’t forget floors and ceilings. 8. Try every electrical appliance (oven, etc) 9) Don't forget outside (taps, gates, etc) Bring a packed lunch, take your time and thank PD for giving you an inspection (one should do ) If you can, get a friend or spouse to also check the place out on top of the other checks. They can stay as little as they can, but you need to reserve the full day. Of course you can always enter your site and at least do an outside inspection before the big day. Cheers, Casa Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: builder's rules... for final inspection 4Jan 22, 2010 8:51 am Casa2, that is excellent advice. I will be sure to bookmark this for when it comes time to do our inspection! Masterton Santorini Grande 23/01/09 First Tender 17/11/09 Contract signed 25/01/10 Slab 27/03/10 Frame 7/5/10 Bricks 1/07/10 Roof 9/7/10 Lock up 24/8/10 PCI 16/09/2010 KEYS! viewtopic.php?f=31&t=16418 Re: builder's rules... for final inspection 7Aug 31, 2010 5:40 pm Nice start, just one point to cover with "Natural Light". It's actually "Critical Light" that should not be used to identify an issue. That means a light can shine on a surface up until about a 30 degree angle from the ceiling or along the wall to pick up flaws. So if the light is directly shining on a paint imperfection that is OK to be called a defect, if the imperfection is picked up because it is casting a small shadow along the wall then that is not deemed a defect. Reason being is that if you really wanted to, you could go through the whole house with a high powered torch and pick up everything, which the builder wouldn't like. Just remember, ******* SS's generally like to down play defects and they will use a lot of BS to con you. Having said that we were told the same thing "critical light means no light" and then after the inspection we were given a inforamtion sheet explaining what angles of light constitutes "critical light". What a f**king prick of a SS. Re: builder's rules... for final inspection 8Aug 31, 2010 11:18 pm Adam.M is right on the money. Those SS who are good at BSing and downplaying defects are promoted to be handover SS. This is from experience! if you keep insisting that it is a defect and repeatedly point it out they will still fix it anyway but obviously won't admit it! They will say something a long the line of we normally don't fix this (a load of BS) but will anyway. One less thing they can BS their way out more profit for them. In my experience this whole industry is mostly a load of BS artist who are great at being vague. The relevant gov department are not the consumer friends either if they were there would be a plain English enforceable clear list of standards instead of 'guidelines'... Re: builder's rules... for final inspection 9Sep 01, 2010 9:09 am The unfortunate the thing here is that you are up against a numbers game. They have built more houses than you so you would expect they would know their way around things. The ******* SSs (I do not deny that there are good SSs out there) will try and wriggle out of work. Albeit they are generally overworked at about 10-16 houses which means they only have a chance to work on each house between 60-30min per day. Is this a good excuse (and every other one they give)... HELL NO! The 2nd SS we had for our build (1st one got fired) was a d**khead. First thing he said was "I've built $2M houses before and this is nothing compared". By the end the the Construction Mngr had to defended him by saying "He's only been at X Homes for 3 mths". I'm like WTF, is my house a practice build for him? Re: builder's rules... for final inspection 10Sep 01, 2010 12:18 pm Adam.M The 2nd SS we had for our build (1st one got fired) was a d**khead. First thing he said was "I've built $2M houses before and this is nothing compared". By the end the the Construction Mngr had to defended him by saying "He's only been at X Homes for 3 mths". I'm like WTF, is my house a practice build for him? Well Adam ..... your experience with this company was certainly the same as ours! As they were struggling to construct our front facade after first attempting to build the wrong facade!!!!! ....... they told us that we had to realise they hadn't built this house in this area before!!!!! Well that really gave us the confidence we needed whilst dealing with this bunch. Honestly though they had absolutely no idea of how to go about it and they call themselves builders! Fruitty, agree with you too in relation to the whole industry. You just have to be one step in front of them every step of the way. Research everything and ask many questions ..... in our case they have been stumped many times to provide us with the answers because they know we know what the true answer is! Oh yes and then there is those "Guidelines"! i would suggest nothing is unreasonable for PCI. we did all sorts, including checking the hot water, checking all the GPO's had power, testing that the showers were… 9 98548 The significant date is when receive final payment invoice Check that section of contract Bit of fluff by builders prior to that 1 15835 1 1906 |