New Home Inspection

New Home Inspection

Building a new home is a major project and your builder has worked hard to complete it.  It takes a great deal of coordination of sub-trades and attention to detail to bring together all the components of a new home in a way that ensures that the end result is a home in which all systems are well built, complete, and work together in harmony to provide a comfortable and safe environment.

One common misconception is that the municipal building inspector will examine the home in detail.  Municipal building inspectors are code compliance inspectors, and although they may visit the building site a number of times, they may not examine all the systems of the home, and do not evaluate their performance, only their compliance with the building codes. While in general terms, both the builder and the code compliance inspectors all do their best to avoid issues, despite their best intentions, things do get missed.

Below are photos of several conditions found during a recent inspection of a relatively new home.  Each of these conditions was present prior to the owners first occupancy of the home, and they were not identified or noted during the Pre Delivery Inspection by the builder and the new owner that is a requirement of the New Home Warranty programs in British Columbia.

This shingle was probably broken when the installer installed the roof jack over this vent pipe.  Instead of replacing the shingle properly, the installer simply nailed the broken piece in place, and did not even protect the nail heads with some roofing mastic as a sealer.

These gutters were installed with improper slope, and do not drain towards the downspouts until they are about half full.

This furnace vent pipe penetrates the vapour barrier, putting the floor register on the “cold” side of the air/vapour barrier.  This will promote condensation, moisture and mould growth when the warm moist air meets the dry cold from outside.

The rust you see on the top of the furnace and the ducting was caused by a condensate pipe from the air conditioning coil not being properly glued when installed.  It rusted the furnace housing, and some of the internal components.

In order to facilitate the installation of the water supply pipes, the plumber apparently removed part of the cold air return duct work in several locations.  By doing this, the entire return air duct system was compromised.

This will affect the efficiency of the heating and cooling provided, and the overall comfort of the entire home.  This is a classic example of one trade — the plumber, in this case — not understanding the impact of their actions on another equally important system in the home.

While some of these conditions are minor, the compromised furnace air distribution system is not, and neither is moisture and rust in the area of the heat exchanger of the furnace.  A new home inspection completed before the end of the first year of occupancy would likely have discovered all of these conditions. It would have ensured that the homeowner’s interests were protected and also would have ensured that the builder would accept responsibility to fix the issues under warranty. Unfortunately, in the case of this homeowner, none of these issues were discovered until well after the warranty period had expired.

Summary

Whether you are buying a completed new home or having a home custom built, part of the process prior to occupancy and registration of the new home warranty, is a “walk-through” with the builder to identify any outstanding issues or deficiencies.  By having your new home inspected by a professional home inspector, you have an opportunity to learn a great deal about how your home was made and how to look after it before you complete the sale.  An independent inspection provides reassurance that any deficiencies that are found will be corrected by the builder before you sign off on acceptance of the property.

Alternately, an inspection completed about 10 or 11 months after you occupy the home, but just before the one year standard warranty expires will give the home’s systems and components time to settle in, and any performance based issues are more likely to be apparent.

In either case, a new home inspection will provide assurance that any deficiencies that are identified at the time of occupancy or that occur within the first year will be resolved  by the builder’s warranty before it expires.