Common Sense and Construction Defects

If you have a problem with something that you purchase in a store, you can simply return the item most of the time and get a refund or another item that isn't damaged. In the new home building construction business, this isn't exactly how it works, all of the time.

All of the products that are purchased are brought to the job site and assembled into the new home. If any of these items are damaged, there's a good chance that they will need to be removed, if possible and returned to the store that they were purchased from to make the exchange.

That's okay and usually works... sometimes. If you install a couple of boxes of floor tile and you notice that there is a flaw of some sort after you have installed them, I don't think the store is going to be happy or interested in having you return floor tiles that have tile grout or adhesive dried on to the back of them.

In other words, some new home construction defects are going to be bigger problems than others. If you notice there's a chip in a piece of tile, bathroom sink or even a light fixture, don't bother to install it in the new house. This is the point when it needs to be returned for an undamaged item.

By now you're probably wondering, wouldn't everybody do this, isn't this kind of stuff called common sense. Not when someone's in a hurry and isn't really worried about the finished product. The biggest problems with construction defects in new homes is building materials that get damaged by other workers or building materials that are already damaged and installed anyway.

There's not a lot that you're going to be able to do about building materials that become damaged after they are installed, but there is something that you can do before they are installed.