New House Framing Inspection Tips For Homeowners
If you don't know anything about home building or new
house framing, I would like to give you a few tips on things to look
for. Don't get carried away on your new house wood framing inspection,
but it's not a bad idea to have the ability to inspect the house your
cell for construction defects.
1. Make sure that the right post and beams were installed? This would
require having a basic understanding of the building blueprints. Examine
the blueprints, locate certain sized posts and beams and make sure that
they match the sizes of the ones called out for on the building
blueprints.
2. Check for large gaps between framing components. Look for large
spaces of a quarter of an inch or more between all framing components.
Structural framing components shouldn't have more than 1/ 16th of an
inch gap and should be relatively tight or there could be problems as
the house settles.
3. Your framing contractor shouldn't use any defective lumber. Look for
lumber with large knots and cracks. If these pieces of lumber are
holding up other sections of the house, you could have problems, if you
don't already. All construction lumber grades should match the building
plans.
Obviously we don't want large gaps between framing components like
structural beams and posts. These are usually the easy ones to find.
However, defective lumber that's covered up by plywood or other framing
components might be a little more difficult to find.
The best advice that I could get any home owner or new home builder is
to take as many pictures with a digital camera as possible. Try to take
these pictures on a weekly basis, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to stop
by the job every other day after the workers are gone.
Pictures can also be used later after the house is built to locate
structural beams, electrical, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning
ducts.