Blatant violations approved in residential final

[infinity]

1- Several 18 Cubic inch nail on boxes that have as many as 15 #14 conductors not counting EG’s and the device.
2- AC cable on basement poured walls with one strap at the top plate and one 6” above the 4” square box. Just over 6’ of dangling cable. Top strap is a plastic NM staple in the bottom of the floor joist.
3-As many as 5 14/2 NM cables in a 3/4” NM connector entering the panel.
4- Two of the boxes I opened had the equipment grounds twisted with no wire nut or crimp securing them.
5- #6 bare Cu GEC attached to the exposed rebar ufer with 3 clamps. (Why 3 ????) Min#4 required.

I would expect any decent inspector to find the things on this list since they're so obvious.
1) A quick eyeball on the rough would find the overfilled box without even looking inside the box.
2) The cable should not be dangling and should be properly supported. Maybe the inspector thought it was MC cable which requires no more than 6' between supports.
3) This one should have been noticed in two seconds.
4) Another indication that they never looked inside the boxes.
5) Not sure why they used 3 clamps but that's not an issue. The #6 may or may not be an issue depending on the size of the service. The GEC for a 100 amp service can be as small as #8.

 

[James L]

I've seen one - only one - KCMO inspector who handled it right.

I tried wiring some new homes a couple of years ago, and I was going round and round with one builder not having his jobs ready. He was compounding problems by not having the framing complete. When he would call in the roofers, then HVAC, them plumbers, than me

Nobody was able to get more than about 90% of their work done because everybody in front of them was incomplete.

Then the guy would schedule a rough-in inspection and leave everybody scrambling to try to close everything up in a couple of days.

His failed inspection reports were always four or five pages.

On the last one I wired for him, the inspector came in and looked him right in the eyes and said, "I'm not writing a five page punch list for you again. I'm going to walk around and look, and if I notice three items for the same trade I'm going to write it as a non-inspect"

I didn't take the guy 2 minutes to find the three items he was looking for. The builder was all kinds of upset because the inspector wouldn't tell him what he saw that was wrong or incomplete.

 

[infinity]

On the last one I wired for him, the inspector came in and looked him right in the eyes and said, "I'm not writing a five page punch list for you again. I'm going to walk around and look, and if I notice three items for the same trade I'm going to write it as a non-inspect"

I didn't take the guy 2 minutes to find the three items he was looking for. The builder was all kinds of upset because the inspector wouldn't tell him what he saw that was wrong or incomplete.

Something like this needs to be done because incompetent GC's cannot do their job and coordinate the construction. Glad to hear that someone is putting their foot down. I love hearing that part about the inspector not going to be writing the punch list.

 

[junkhound]

Don’t know if calling him out would be wise.

Hmm, ya want to fail every job you work on? Read some old Roman republic history on what happens to 'critics'.
My approach to AHJ is 'yessir' or 'yesmam' ......

 

[James L]

I love hearing that part about the inspector not going to be writing the punch list

That was the guy's whole M.O.
He didn't want to have to do the work to unravel the mess he had created.

 

[grich]

I've been watching some home inspection videos on YouTube for tract houses built by big commercial builders. The amount of horrible work and violations is astounding. One can only assume that the building inspection departments doing these inspections are either incompetent, corrupt, or both. It has gotten so bad that home buyers are asking for their own open wall inspections and some of these builders are denying them the right to hire their own inspectors.

One of the guys in our shop wanted his home inspector to look at the new build they were wanting to buy. The developer refused, so he walked.

 

[infinity]

One of the guys in our wanted his home inspector to look at the new build they were wanting to buy. The developer refused, so he walked.

This is becoming more common as these shoddy builders are having their shoddy work exposed on the Internet. If they refuse an independent open wall inspection what do you think that they're hiding? Probably more shoddy work.

 

[augie47]

Some of our State inspectors will make 30+ stops per day so you can surmise the depth of the inspection,.

 

[hillbilly1]

One of the guys in our shop wanted his home inspector to look at the new build they were wanting to buy. The developer refused, so he walked.

I was prewiring for a surround sound system for a customer, on a new house he was buying for his son. It was so shoddy built, it was rocking back and forth upstairs from the vibrations of a bulldozer a couple of lots down. He canceled the contract.

 

[VirutalElectrician]

When my (now deceased) brother was doing work, he told me the company he was working for was trying to get the inspection stickers counterfeited. They were doing work on public housing, and the only thing the overall site inspector was looking for was the sticker, he apparently never checked to see if actual permits were pulled.

 

[letgomywago]

Our townhouse is about 6 years old. The "violation" that stands out to me is the lack of receptacles on walls that should have them (or not within 12 feet of the next one). I am not confident that the other receptacle rules (e.g., SABC, bathroom receptacles, laundry receptacles, etc.) are in compliance. We are the second owners, so I doubt we could get anything from the original builder. I just am surprised that the inspector did not flag the receptacle issues.

Are there any buried pigtailed outlets?