A So Cal Girl in the Desert

Finally! Yesterday we attended our pre-drywall inspection. My father-in-law flew out on Saturday evening just to attend it with us. He is an electrical contractor, so it was really great to have his set of eyes on the joint. Not to mention he hadn't been out here to visit, yet, so he got to see it all for the first time. After taking him on a hike on Sunday morning, we all headed down to Maricopa to check out the house. We ended up spending about two hours doing a PRE pre-drywall inspection. We took pages and pages of notes. My father-in-law found things we never would have. Since we weren't really supposed to be inside the house, we spent some time memorizing our notes so that we'd be sure to include everything in the official inspection. Most of the switch boxes were loose, there was some kinked and/or damaged wire, an outlet missing, some switches slightly out of place, and a few broken studs. A lot of little stuff we were hoping they wouldn't give us any trouble about fixing. My father in-law noticed some crucial things such as duct-work and wires resting on can light housings, which could potentially damage the wire, and might eventually push the can-light down so it's not fully recessed into the drywall of the ceiling. He also noticed that the CAT-5 cable in the kitchen was wrapped too tightly around the can lights. Stuff we never would have even known to look for. He said they were mostly quality-of-workmanship issues--not so much pressing safety issues--but we wanted to address them just the same. It was pretty funny, because he found a big piece of lumber in the backyard, which he used to authoritatively point out blemishes and poke at problem areas.

On Monday morning, the three of us arrived promptly at 9 AM in front of the house with the checklist in our heads, and a digital camera as an intimidation tactic. When we arrived, the workers were laying out the roof tile. They lay it all out in neat rows, then the actual work gets done very last, right before escrow closes. I'm not sure why they do things in that order. Anyway, we got to watch them lay tile for quite some time. The construction superintendent arrived 40 minutes late, but was very apologetic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we started pointing out issues in the house, and he told us that he was still going to call the framer and the electrician in to fix most of the problems we were noticing. We came all armed to fight and were deflated in a matter of minutes. We pointed out a few things here and there, and he agreed to fix all of our concerns. He was a really nice guy, and seemed to understand where we were coming from. It was great to have come in with some knowledge from my father-in-law, because now the builder knows they can't mess with us. We know what we're talking about, dammit! Don't even try to sell me a broken outlet box, mister!

I really learned a lot from both my father-in-law and the superintendent. Building a house is definitely a process in which you are forced to learn a lot.

So the good news is that we feel confident that our house is being built correctly, and will stand the test of time. We were also granted permission to enter the house to inspect any time we please. The bad news is, it looks like we won't be moving in until January or February! We are so anxious to get in there, it seems like forever!