Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Two safety hazards, a roof the builder had already patched with caulk, and a kitchen with 18 items of its own. The house had never been lived in. Our buyers handed the builder the list before they signed.
Counted from the delivered report
86
Findings documented
Across 19 areas of a never-occupied house
2
Safety hazards
Porch fall, panel cover gaps
1
Major concern
Roof shingles patched with caulk
18
Kitchen items
The most of any single room
Estimated buyer savings
$13,000
What the same list would cost the buyer from independent trades if the builder had not corrected it under warranty: roughly $9,000 to $17,000 at Maryland rates, with the porch guard rail, the trim carpentry and the kitchen making up most of it. Every item went back to the builder at no cost to our clients.
A builder’s walk-through checks paint. These are the items we flagged for correction before our buyers accepted the keys — two of them safety hazards, one a major concern.
We measured the fall on the side of the front porch with a tape on a straight horizontal line three feet out and straight down: over the 30 inches the code allows without a guard. The grade had also slumped on that side, making the drop worse. A railing was required before anyone moved in.
The cover on the main panel did not fit. Larger than normal gaps ran beneath the breakers and the main disconnect, wide enough to push an object into. On a house built for a family, that is a hazard on day one.
From the front right bedroom window we could see damaged shingles on the porch roof, likely from ladder footings during construction. Someone had already tried to fix them with caulk. That is not a repair. Every damaged and caulked shingle needed to be replaced.
On the right side of the porch the fill had settled enough to expose the foundation below the stone veneer. The sump discharge line ran unsupported across the ground, and the drain covers at the bottom of the driveway still had their protective film on.
Three outlet cover plates rotated off square, crown mold missing in two places, a large gap between the range and the wall, a paint spill in a drawer, a chipped cabinet panel and a range control panel bent out of position. Individually small. Together, a kitchen nobody had checked.
Gaps above the garage door framing at the drywall needed to be sealed for fire blocking, the opener’s power cord was resting on the door track, and the fire door into the house was already dented at the hinge. None of it shows on a builder’s checklist.
Photographs from the inspection, personal details removed
Every deficiency as it was captioned in the delivered report, verbatim. Orientation photographs — shutoff locations and equipment labels — are left out. Names, street address and report number removed.
Safety hazards
Major concerns
Exterior
Front porch
Roof
Garage
HVAC
Electric
Kitchen
Foyer
Dining room
Powder room
Lower stairs
Upper stairs and hallway
Laundry
Master bath
Left rear bedroom
Right rear bedroom
Hall bathroom
Finished basement
Basement bathroom
Every Century report is confidential and prepared exclusively for the client who ordered it. This page is published with written permission, with anything identifying removed before it went up.
A builder’s walk-through is a sales appointment. This one took 26 pages and turned up two safety hazards on a house that had never been lived in. We inspect new builds to the same standard as a 40-year-old log home.
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