After an insanely LONG planning process my build is finally starting. I spoke to my site coordinator today for the first time, Gary, who seemed lovely however he was very against me engaging with an independent building inspector ( I have engaged with New Home Inspections). He said it would make the whole process negative and unpleasant, which is kind of a red flag! What's been everyone's experiences? My initial building coordinator stated it was very common to engage an independent inspector and was quite open to it.
Gary is our site supervisor and he didn't seem to have a problem with our building inspector. We're at lockup now so have been through a few inspection stages already. Having said that, we engaged one and advised TA from the beginning so he didn't have a say in it.
Site supervisor shouldn't be against with that and any builder who is building right should not be worried of that as well.
End of the day it's your money and you should be comfortable the build is done to the correct standards. I am in the middle of building (now lock up stage) with a similar builder like TA. We picked up many things which had been missed by the surveyor and got corrected during the process. My advise is , if you are not knowledgeable to inspect things yourself , get one. This is more important in frame & lockup (pre-plaster) stage . Other stages are also important but you can spot the issues if you have a good eye.
Some site supervisors leave certain things to be done at latter stages ( ex: some frame items to be done by lockup carpentors). This is ok . Inspectors would normally pick these up and put in their report so the builder has to do it as a part of the frame stage. This is why they don't like private investigators.
Provided that builders like TA only have 7 year warranty, I would strongly recommend getting one. Be good with the supervisor and let the inspector be the bad guy