[4X4]

Originally Posted by Azure

As someone who also workers in the industry, in my opinion the builders and designers are almost always the problem. We have dealt with 3-4 unreasonable home owners but for the most part they are never a problem to work with.

Most issues with a home build stem from designers who have no clue how the actual 'build' works, i.e. they don't know how to frame a wall, to the builders not being able to schedule stuff properly. In other words if you're still painting, the cabinets should not be delivered or installed. Who will pay for the damages to the cabinet doors when they are properly covered by painters who got lazy? From there everything snowballs.

Home owners who are proactive in the build of their home and demand to talk to the actually people MAKING the product; such as the cabinet manufacturer, flooring guy, painter, etc, etc.....they will have the least amount of issues because their message is being conveyed properly. As a home owner if you leave that to the project manager, good luck. Unless he is superman, chances are he'll screw up.

Good home builders get the customer involved from the start and make sure they have face to face meetings and sitdowns with everyone involved in their home build. That means a sit down with the electrician to talk about how they want their home theatre room wired up, or if they want Cat6 in every room, etc, etc. It means sitting down and talking about the cabinets, and what they expect, and how different designs affect the price point. Do that from the start and you'll have a much more satisfying result.

As for the walk through, write everything down and be reasonable. The issues aren't a big problem if everything is recorded and dealt with. Having to get the different trades in time and time again to fix problems because the project manager keeps forgetting about the different issues is a huge hassle.

Lol. You must build about 1 house per year.