So I've got my final walk through with my builder this week..

[calgaryblood]

Azure I think you are basing how you do your work different than how most builders are. I also do high end customs homes as a professional painter and know every home owner by name for the last couple years but that's because we only do about 10 homes a year. Back when we were doing 20 houses a month it would be impossible to meet every owner. And nobody would be willing to pay me for those meetings so I likely would not take time out of my schedule to meet someone who wouldn't even understand the basics of painting.

Custom home builds are a completely different ball game. You HAVE to meet the homeowner because you're literally in his house for 30-45 days.

[Azure]

I don't think it is that different for other home builders. We do lower end cabinet work as well, and we still try to meet with every customer.

We have always asked even the contractors to send the customers our way so we can iron out fine details. From my experience, this helps smooth out the process.

Obviously if you have a good project manager and a good crew that goes good work, the homeowner will more than likely be pretty satisfied if they look after it. But I think a lot of the nightmares in this industry come from people relying on builders to do everything for them. Try to be involved. It'll pay off in the long run.

And you don't have to 'meet' every single person involved. Go the job site and have a 5 min chat with the painter. It makes a difference.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Azure

A lot of home builders use locally sourced material. Especially when it comes to cabinets.

But hey, nice job being such an ass about it.

I work for a builder, albeit not as a project manager like, 4x4. So I am somewhat aware of how houses are built, thanks. Your experiences in custom homes is equivalent to someone who build anything else custom, in other words irrelevant to the industry in general.

It is mass production that puts up neighborhoods in Calgary. Mass production does not allow every home buyer to be meddling in every detail of what goes on. That job is the project managers and while maybe the boutique builders in Winnipeg are all incompetent, in Calgary the incompetent ones don't generally work for the big builders.

You are essentially recommending that an untrained, inexperienced person can do a better job themselves then what should be a professional. And I am being the ass? No, I'm pretty certain my analogy is bang on because the world isn't run by amateurs, it is run on the principle that dividing up work into manageable portions that can have a trained professional perform that portion is far more efficient and leads to far better quality.

Maybe if you prefaced your advice with "if you are building a custom home" then it might be useful, however, while CP is the 1%, most of us are still buying our mass produced televisions at Best Buy or Memory Express, and still purchasing our homes from a big builder with a limited selection of options inside a limited number of practically identical models. In such a case, your advice is extremely counterproductive and only serves to give people the idea that they can improve a process where they are far more likely to impede it.

[Azure]

The whole premise of a walk through is that the home owner or buyer should be involved. If he is so inexperienced, why is it happening in the first place? Surely a more 'trained' professional should be able to catch all the obvious and non obvious issues and fix them before the home is delivered to the customer. But of course, you are talking about an industry that is well know for screwing people over. That is why there is a walk through in the first place.

Buying a television at Best Buy is hardly the same analogy considering each model is expected to be produced in billion dollar factories the EXACT same way. Same parts, same process, same everything and with a whole lot of automation thrown in. Even a run of the mill apartment building with 400 identical units isn't built like that.

Your attitude is literally why people take camcorders along before they sign off on their build. Builders, and the people working for them playing the 'I am a trained professional and therefore I can do no wrong' card, which leads to a lot of issues throughout the whole process.

But hey, stick to your belief that the world isn't run by amateurs. There is way too much money in the home construction industry to even for one second believe that every builder is looking out for you.

And that is hardly restricted to 'custom home builds.'

[Itse]

Originally Posted by jammies

And I am being the ass?

Yes. Whether you're right or wrong (I have no opinion on that), you're definitely being an ass.

[GreenLantern]

Walk through went pretty good, he didn't have a check list but I had written everything out ahead of time that we questions about. He pointed most of it out before I even had to ask so that was nice, I would say 75% of it was taken care of within 24 hours before we moved in and the rest there is a plan in place. We've found a few more problems since we moved in and have let him know about them immediately. One of the main problems was the paint job, this painter was horrible. There are still spots I can see the primer through the paint, which I am assuming means she forgot to put a second coat on some walls. I've brought it to my builders attention and he promises it will get looked at, time will tell.

Thanks again for all of the help and advice.

[stampsx2]

Anybody know if long angular cracks in the foundation wall are a problem or what kind of issues it can cause other than water seeping in?