I can only guess as a customer you hope and pray that your new home is what you paid for and to be honest that’s what you should expect. After all it’s the most expensive investment you have made up to now and probably will be for the rest of your life.
The day you get your keys is exciting and sometimes a blind eye is turned on some things you may see. The dust settles and you look deeper into the quality of your home and you will start to identify the easy visible things. Where this fails is what you can’t see and what you don’t know what to look for.
This is where I believe a professional snagger is 100% required. There are a lot of things that I find on a regular basis.
Below is a list of some of the re-occurring items.
- Insulation missing in the eaves of the roof
- Roof bracing cut short or missing
- Fixing missing to bracing in roof construction
- Soil pipe in roof space not leaving through roof via a vented tile, or the durgo valve is missing
- Insufficient insulation in the roof space
- Fire cavity barriers missing or installed incorrectly
- External timber framed walls out of tolerance for plumbness
- Fire door margins not within tolerance
- Holes penetrating the floor not sufficiently sealed if sealed at all
- Cavity trays missing
- Breaching of cavity
- Electrics wired incorrectly
- Plumbing with leaks
- Insulation in porch ceilings
- Handrails installed at incorrect heights
- Access hatches missing for the maintenance of durgo valves
- Fixing mixing from china ware
- External brickwork poorly constructed
- Weep vents missing on externals of building
- Incorrect DPC detail
This list will go on and on with an average 3-bedroom property averaging between 200-300 snags. These stats are shocking but very much a reality. In my opinion, all build contractors should be made to have independent snagging companies snag all their properties throughout the build. I’m sure things would be so much better for them if they took some pride in what they do instead of thinking of targets and bonuses. It only takes that one call to settle your mind at rest.
