Playing Hide & Leak in Middle Tennessee? New Home Builds: Why you need a Roofing & Exterior 3rd Party Final Inspection

Middle Tennessee, Greater Metro areas of Nashville, Gallatin, Franklin, Thompson Station, Columbia, and Murfreesboro continue to experience explosive growth. What does that mean to the new homeowner? The builds went up as fast as possible and were awarded to the lowest bidder. Usually that means comers will be cut. The most expensive, unnoticed problems sneak through after the 1 year builder warranty.

Slow unnoticed leaks rot wood gradually, and years later these leaks show up suddenly, as a posthumous witness to builder error that has no recourse. Often these are written off as building or material movement. Sadly, most issues were there, just waiting, for the right person to address the issue. Many occur at areas where two trades intersect. The intersection of Roofing with Siding, or Masonry, also Electrical.

What does a 3rd Party Consultant like Roofing Consultants of Tennessee notice where the trades meet: Holes, gaps, and a lack of water proofing, backer rod and a lack of properly designed sealants specific to the scenario. Trades damage is also noted and a common cause for later repair costs because the trades are sequenced on the job site and may not know the final condition or damages another trade accidentally incurred. The trades do not respect each other, nor do they have the specialized tools of another trade readily available, and lastly, they often lack the desire to fix something that no one will see and they will get charged back for. So almost always, the homeowner will pay for it later.

Each incident be it a slow water leak gap at the conjunction of two trades or gouges in the roofing from the scaffolding utilized for masonry or siding, cuts or burn throughs from tools or abandoned fastener holes used to hold something and never filled or corrected. Each incident will typically cost $700 to $1,200.00+ later like a fun dice roll each year after the warranty, they show up like a magical thief. You do not need to accept this as a typical condition of buying a new home. Prevent through RCofTN.com where their trained crew provides the necessary review that is not covered by typical home inspectors who have too much to handle in a very generalized report that cannot be compared to the level of importance and scrutiny that a Final Inspection from RCofTN.com provides.

This visit was originally for a leak investigation and turned into a full New Home Final Inspection Report because of several glaring issues that John Simpson the President of Roofing Consultants of Tennessee noticed. John and rightly called attention to multiple installation issues and explained that a written document will hold the builder legally responsible for all the building standards and warranty items that needed to be corrected before the Homeowner’s 1 year New Home Warranty expired.

The roofer attempted to cheat with a reverse shingle for the starter and still messed up putting the cellophane strip at the edge instead of the shingle adhesive side. There are cheaters and then there are incompetent cheaters both are bad and because roofing is a high turnover perilous difficult job these types of errors are common. Supplies are often mangled on new build sites and rather than ordering new materials they often just work with what is there and try to hide damaged material where no one will see.

Basic water proofing and moisture intrusion issues that are well known to RCofTN.com are head scratchers or just escape the thought of possibility because the issue falls at the junction of two trades. This home also had masonry cracks and voids, electrical and other flashing issues that were identified.

This Final Inspection example yielded over $5,000.00 in needed, necessary and immediate repairs, this figure would more than double if left to the Homeowner to deal with; a little at a time over the next few years. In this case the Homeowner’s 1 year builder warranty was expiring and they were tired of being limped along and still having leaks and felt like the builder was not being forthright with them.

All photos are excerpts from a Final Inspection Example in Franklin TN. performed by RCofTN.com.

Fortunately, RCofTN.com was brought in just in time and the immediate leak items plus all the looming leaks were caught just in time and most importantly all the items were properly documented.