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Owner Representatives: New residential construction projects need just as much quality assurance inspection during the construction phase as any commercial project. Normally, commercial or large residential projects have inspectors assigned to this task or quality assurance inspections are provided through the construction manager. In many cases, this is not enough.
The common belief of many owners is that local building inspectors are providing a quality of construction inspection in conjunction with their standard inspection for code compliance.
This, however, could not be farther from the truth. The building inspectors role is only to see that the contractor is complying with local building codes - not to measure the quality of the construction. A few seasoned inspectors will, from time to time, point out questionable quality issues, but they are most often on-site exclusively for code compliance issues.
Many potential problems are beyond the scope of the local building inspector's inspection. These issues include the type and quality of the materials and methods being used, adherence to the building plans in the placement of windows, doors, skylights, electrical outlets, heating vents, and other crucial safety factors. Unfortunately, many of these components are not discussed with the contractor prior to the start of custom residential projects and are extremely important to have been detailed in advance of making financial commitments.
A few areas that we feel are commonly overlooked by owners of residential projects are:
