Inspections: A Vital Part of Your New Home Build

Blog By: Miller Contracting

When building a new home, many owners have that nagging feeling after they’ve moved in – how do I know my builder didn’t cut corners?  This is for good reason – I read once that the typical new home has as many as 60,000 potential points of failure.  A new home is complex, and the fact that a competent builder can actually pull off a new build with no deficiencies or maybe two or three at turnover can be viewed as a minor miracle!  Good builders know how to manage the process, however, and site supervisors usually catch errors during construction that are fixed right away.

But, who checks the builder?

After all, we are all human and make mistakes despite our best intentions. Of course, municipalities are the Authority Having Jurisdiction under the National Building Code. So, houses have to undergo municipal progress inspections at different stages such as foundation, framing, and others up to completion. These are vital inspections. But, municipal inspectors check to make sure your house is built to minimum building code only.  What if you want your house to go beyond minimum code?  Holmes Approved Homes Builders implement additional third-party inspections. These inspectors are independent of the builder and importantly, are experts in their field. They are building scientists. So, they not only look for minimum code, they look for “best practices.”  Best practice building means that the builder is looking to improve materials and processes so you get a house that is more sturdy, lasts longer, is more energy-efficient, and requires less maintenance over the long run than a code-built home.

Holmes Approved Homes Inspections can be customized from three inspections to as many as six inspections, covering everything from..

• Foundation,
• Energy efficiency,
• Roofing
• Healthy home aspects among others.

One of the most valuable that we have found is the thermographic scan. The Holmes inspector scans the whole home with an infrared camera to find potential insulation deficiencies.

Thermal camera technology makes home inspections more efficient and thorough

It even helped us find a tiny water leak on a new home that probably would have gone undetected for a long time!  Speaking for ourselves at Miller Contracting, we have certainly utilized the expertise of our inspectors to improve the way we do certain things during a build.  This means that we can be confident that when we turn a home over, we can be confident we are turning over a well-built home that will last.  Most important though, is that the new homeowners can be confident that their new Miller Contracting home is well-built and that nagging feeling stays away with the excitement of a new home remaining for a long time.