paulharvey
Veteran Member
This is a pet peeve of mine: Why should a person hire a builder if their work needs to be inspected? By whom? The customer who thinks they are paying for good craftsmanship because they don't know how to build it themselves? But they should be knowledgeable enough to inspect a professional's work?
That makes no sense. Why isn't the building company, Lester or whoever, inspecting the work to protect their own interests, let alone the customer's? You wouldn't have to be here defending your company if you used sensible and fair business practices IMO.
When you build anything for some one, low income apartments to very nice commercial buildings, the owner or owners rep walks through after the builder is "done" and makes a punch list of things they feel need corrected. This can be small things like dented panels in a metal building, paint issues, door fit, ect. No, the owner isn't expected to climb up on the roof and check screw pattern, but everything I've ever built professionally there has been an owners walk.
Why? Because you as the builder miss things, you don't know what there quality threshold is, and of coarse so they don't call you in a week about touch up paint (after they scratch it all up moving in).
I'm sure everyone gets the "missing things part" but I don't think people realize what all you can miss when you are working on something every day. You get so used to seeing something you forget about it. The builder also typically has bigger things on think here mind then the things home owners notice. You worry about "ghosting" doors, he's thinking about a 100 yard concrete pour next monday...
Quality threshold is where a lot of people get lost. Nothing built anywhere, ever, is 100% perfect. If we say everything build could be rated 1-10 on quality, there would be very very few 10s. Your average production home would be maybe a 4-6 depending on builder, designer, inspector, ect. Your barn, first; temper your expectations a bit; it maybe is a 3-5 in quality; everyone thinks they deserve a 10, but that's several million dollar hand crafted custom homes... most builders will do what it takes to get done and gone; many will do their best out of pride, but even still you have to insist making sure it meets your standards (with in reason).
There is such a thing as "good enough". What is good enough in a low income apartment would be a joke in a commercial office or government building. You (with in reason again) define what is good enough on your building. This isn't an excuse for crappie work... and you can really get in a dangerous spiral of good enough, but the dirty truth is everything is gray, not black and white.