Frederick County, Maryland. A garage fire door that would not close on its own, stairs with gaps on every tread, a range hood installed out of line and an attic access painted shut. Every one of them photographed and handed to the builder before settlement.
Counted from the delivered report
102
Findings documented
Across 18 areas of the unit
22
Stair and rail items
Both flights, treads to newel posts
21
Kitchen and dining items
Cabinets, hood vent and appliances
1
Attic
Access painted shut — not inspectable
Estimated buyer savings
$11,000
What the same list would cost the buyer from independent trades if the builder had not corrected it: roughly $8,000 to $15,000 at Maryland rates, most of it in the two staircases and the kitchen cabinetry. It does not price whatever was behind the painted-shut attic hatch, because nobody had seen it yet.
Nothing on a punch list is structural. All of it is what a buyer pays for and what a builder will only fix once. These six were the ones we made sure were on the list.
The door between the garage and the house is a fire door. It did not auto-close completely, the support board under its threshold plate was missing, and green foam insulation was showing beneath the bottom course of drywall on both sides of it. Three gaps in the drywall at the garage door framing had been left open too.
Larger than normal gaps ran along the left side of every step toward the garage, the trim above the stringers had gaps on both flights, the handrail was nicked, and pencil marks showed through thin paint on the rails at the top. Twenty-two items across the two staircases.
The hood vent shaft was not properly installed above the hood, its upper extension did not align with the lower section, and it stopped short of the ceiling. The side panel on the wall cabinet beside it moved when pushed. The tile behind the hood had been mis-cut to fit.
The left barn door would not open at all and the right did not move smoothly. The hardware on the inside of the room was left unfinished and the door handle was mounted crooked. The window in the same room did not tilt for cleaning.
One supply to the washing machine was braided; the other was not. Both should be braided. The clean-out cover above the machine was not flush to the wall and the outlet cover behind it was rotated. Small things, in the room most likely to flood.
The attic hatch had been painted closed, so the attic could not be inspected at all. On a new build that means insulation, ventilation and the roof deck were all unverified. We noted it for the builder to open before the final walk.
Photographs from the inspection, personal details removed
Every item as it was captioned in the delivered report, verbatim. Names, street address, unit and report number removed.
Exterior
Garage
Deck
Lower stairs
Upper stairs and hallway
Kitchen
Dining room
Foyer
Family room
Powder room
Laundry
Owners bedroom
Owners bath
Front right bedroom
Front left bedroom
Hall bathroom
Utility
Attic
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.
The builder’s punch list is written by the builder. Ours ran to 102 items on this unit, and every one was in the buyer’s hands before the final walk-through.
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