The day you get the keys to a new home in Vancouver is a happy one. It is also the best time to record what needs fixing, before your furniture hides any of it. In this post, we will walk you through the handover walkthrough, show you how to use BC Housing's own standard to judge drywall, ceilings, cabinets, doors and tile, and explain which repairs the builder is allowed to wait on.
The standard is BC Housing's Residential Construction Performance Guide. It is free to download, and it gives measured limits in millimetres. With it, you and your builder can look at the same crack or gap and agree on whether it needs a repair.
What the Performance Guide Measures
The Performance Guide works through a new home section by section, from foundations to flooring. For each condition an owner might notice, it gives an "acceptable performance" line, the warranty coverage period, and what the builder has to do if the condition fails the test. The pages we quote in this post are dated August 2014 in the copy BC Housing publishes today.
Two definitions shape every check you make:
- Normal lighting is daylight or the home's own light fixtures. Extra light brought in to make a flaw stand out, such as a flood light, flashlight or camera flash, falls outside that definition (Performance Guide, definitions, page 16).
- A normal viewing position is the usual way you would look at a surface. For most wall, ceiling, paint, trim and tile checks, the guide sets that distance at 1.8 metres (6 feet), looking with your own eyes and no magnifier (Appendix A8, page 331).
So stand back, use the room lights, and judge what you see from there. That is the same test a warranty provider will use.
For the interior finishes in this post, the guide lists 12 months of warranty coverage, or 15 months for the common property of a strata building. That period comes from the guide itself. Your own policy and contract set the terms for your home.
The Handover in Five Stages
A handover is a short series of steps. Each one affects what gets fixed and when.
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Final Clean and Open Items
The builder cleans the site and closes out the work that is still open. Ask for the list of those open items in writing a few days before the walkthrough, so you know what should already be finished when you arrive.
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The Joint Walkthrough
The Performance Guide calls this the pre-delivery inspection: a walk-through the builder and owner do together before the home changes hands. It says the two should check that the contract terms are met, the home is complete and the major items work, and that they should examine the whole inside and outside of the home (page 7).
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Signing the Inspection Form
Anything damaged, unfinished, missing or not working goes on the form. The guide says warranty providers usually supply one, and may call it a completion certificate or a certificate of possession. The next section explains why this form matters so much for warranty coverage later.
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Move-In and the First Heating Season
New wood and drywall dry out once the home is lived in and heated. The guide links small drywall cracks, nail pops and shrinking cabinet panels to this settlement and shrinkage, and it lets some of those repairs wait.
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Return Visits and the One-Year Mark
Near the end of the first year, the guide allows the builder to repair qualifying drywall cracks and nail pops. The wait lets most of the settlement and material shrinkage happen first.
What Goes on the Deficiency List
A deficiency list is the list of unfinished or faulty items you and the builder agree on at handover. The Performance Guide gives a clear reason to be thorough: warranty providers "will generally rely on information recorded (or not) and agreed to" on the inspection form when they decide whether to cover physical damage to finished flooring, countertops and plumbing fixtures. Damage that may have happened after you moved in "will probably be judged to be not covered" (page 7).
Several standards in the guide apply only when the damage was on that form:
- Drywall dents and gouges (section 9.6, page 174).
- Scratches or scuffs on stained or painted wood trim (section 10.17, page 202).
- Chips or scratches in ceramic or stone floor tile (section 12.39, page 265).
The guide adds one more point. A builder may agree at the walkthrough to fix a number of items and record them on the form. The guide says that record alone does not mean home warranty insurance will cover those items if the builder does not follow through, because the insurance is limited to the defects set out in the policy and in the Homeowner Protection Act and its regulations. Get every promise on the form, and ask for a date next to each one.
What to Check, Room by Room
These are the limits the guide sets for the finishes this post covers. Each one is measured from 1.8 metres under normal light unless the guide says otherwise.
Drywall and Walls
Walk each room slowly and look at the walls straight on. The guide says cracks, blisters in taped joints, trowel marks, extra joint compound, dents and tool gouges are unacceptable when they are easy to notice from 1.8 metres directly in front of the wall (section 9.6, page 174).
For cracks, the guide gives exact limits (section 9.4, page 172). A crack is a defect when it is:
- wider than 2 mm, or
- longer than 300 mm and wider than 1 mm, or
- a tape or corner bead joint that has lifted more than 2 mm from the surface.
A crack wider than 12 mm, or wider than 6 mm and longer than 100 mm, should be checked for a structural cause. Smaller cracks from normal shrinkage are generally outside warranty.
Nail and screw pops follow the same viewing test. The guide calls five or more pops within 1 square metre excessive, and any pop that has broken the finished surface is unacceptable (section 9.7, page 175).
Check the paint at the same time. The guide judges paint from 1.8 metres straight in front of the surface, and it accepts brush marks where paint meets trim and on the trim itself (section 9.10, page 178).
Ceilings
Look along each ceiling with the lights on. Where a sag, bulge or wavy area does not come from a structural problem, the guide allows no more than 6 mm of variation over a 600 mm support distance (section 9.1, page 169). It also says some waviness from joint finishing is common even when the ceiling meets the Building Code, that some lighting and glossy paint make it look worse, and that spray textures and matte paint make it less visible. If you are still choosing finishes, that last point is worth knowing.
Watch the line where the ceiling meets an inside wall. A gap there can come from truss uplift, where the bottom of the wood roof trusses bows upward and pulls the ceiling drywall away from the wall. The guide says differences in temperature and moisture between the top and bottom of the trusses can cause this seasonal movement. The guide says seasonal conditions may delay this repair, and that covering the gap with crown moulding is an acceptable fix (section 9.5, page 173).
Cabinets
The guide gives measured limits for cabinets (section 11.1, page 206):
- Cabinets should fit tight to each other. A visible gap wider than 3 mm is not acceptable.
- Where cabinets meet a wall or ceiling, trim pieces may cover gaps, and a visible gap wider than 3 mm is still not acceptable.
- A gap from 3 mm to 5 mm may be filled with a suitable caulking.
Cabinets meant to line up should look even from at least 1.8 metres away (section 11.2, page 207). Open every door and drawer. A cabinet door or drawer face may not warp more than 3 mm corner to corner when it is under 150 mm tall, or 6 mm when it is larger (section 11.3, page 208).
The guide also says adjusting cabinet doors from time to time is normal home maintenance. Keep the screwdriver that fits your hinges in a kitchen drawer.
Interior Doors, Stairs and Trim
Open and close every door. The guide sets these limits:
- An interior door should not warp more than 6 mm corner to corner on a standard 6 foot 8 inch door, with a larger allowance for taller doors. Minor warping or shrinkage from indoor humidity is not considered a defect (section 10.1, page 186).
- A door should close without rubbing on the frame. Temporary rubbing when seasonal humidity makes the door and frame swell is acceptable (section 10.4, page 189).
- A door should not drag on the floor. Some doors are cut up to 25 mm short on purpose to let air move through the house (section 10.6, page 191).
- A door should stay where you leave it and not swing open or closed under its own weight (section 10.7, page 192).
On stairs and trim, the guide uses the same 3 mm figure. Gaps between exposed stair parts, between railing parts and at trim joints should not be larger than 3 mm (sections 10.9, 10.12 and 10.14, pages 194, 197 and 199).
Tile
Stand at the edge of each tiled floor and look across it. Chips and scratches in ceramic or stone tile are judged from 1.8 metres, and only when they were reported at the pre-delivery inspection (section 12.39, page 265). Then run your hand or a sock foot across the joints. Two tiles next to each other that differ in height by more than 3 mm are not acceptable (section 12.40, page 266).
For grout, the guide calls a crack wider than 1.5 mm excessive and accepts hairline cracks from normal drying (section 12.44, page 270). In showers and around tubs, the joints between tiles and the surfaces next to them must be finished to resist water getting in behind them (section 9.16, page 185). Tap a few floor tiles, too. The guide expects tile to be installed so it does not crack or come loose from the floor below (section 12.37, page 263).
What the Guide Lets the Builder Wait On
Some repairs are better done later, and the guide says so in plain terms. If you know these ahead of time, a delay will make sense to you instead of worrying you.
- Drywall cracks. Repairs "may be completed towards the end of the first year" so that most of the settlement and material shrinkage has happened. The builder fills and sands the repair and leaves it ready for you to paint. The guide requires touch-up painting by the builder only after extreme cracking (section 9.4, page 172).
- Nail and screw pops. The same end-of-first-year timing applies, and again the repair is left ready for your paint unless the number of pops was excessive (section 9.7, page 175).
- Ceiling and wall joint gaps. Seasonal conditions may delay the repair (section 9.5, page 173).
- Shrunken cabinet door panels. Wood panels float inside a frame and shrink as they dry, which can show a strip of unfinished wood at one edge. The builder or warranty provider may ask for one complete heating and cooling season before the repair, and staining the strip to match is an acceptable fix (section 11.6, page 211).
One more point applies to any repair: the guide says colour, finish and texture may not match the original exactly. It repeats this for the drywall, paint, cabinet, door, trim and tile repairs in this post.
Practical Tips for Your Walkthrough
Print the Pages You Need. The PDF runs to 342 pages. Print the sections on wall and ceiling finish, interior finishing, cabinets and flooring, and bring them with you.
Bring a Tape Measure Marked in Millimetres. Use it to stand at the 1.8 metre viewing distance and to measure gaps against the 3 mm limits. Hold it next to a crack in your photo so the width is on record.
Use the Home's Own Lights. Turn on every fixture and open the blinds. The guide's test uses daylight and the home's own fixtures.
Photograph Every Item. Take one wide photo that shows the room and one close photo of the flaw. Number each item on the form to match the photo.
Write the Promise Down. If the builder says "we will fix that", ask for it on the form with a date.
Keep the Paint. Drywall crack and nail pop repairs come back to you ready for paint. Ask for the colour name and sheen for every room before the painters leave.
Put Claims in Writing. The guide says a warranty claim must go in writing to both the warranty provider and the builder, describing the problem in simple terms and where it is in the home. A phone call should be followed quickly by written notice (page 10).
Wait Before You Wash the Walls. The guide's maintenance tip for new paint is to wait at least three months before cleaning walls, and to avoid abrasive cleaners (section 9.11, page 179).
Seal the Grout on Schedule. The guide suggests a clear liquid silicone sealer on tiled tub and shower grout at least every six months (section 9.16, page 185), and yearly sealing for floor grout (section 12.42, page 268).
How Costar Handles Handover
Costar's process page describes handover as the fourth of five stages. In the company's own words, the site is cleaned and outstanding issues are resolved, then a joint pre-occupancy inspection takes place. The client gets an orientation on the home's features and upkeep, the keys, and a project binder with manuals, warranties and a list of contacts for the trades and the appliances installed in the home.
The fifth stage, as the same page describes it, is a set of return inspections at 3, 6 and 12 months to check that the home's inside and outside systems work. Costar's page says needed fixes are addressed within a few days. The 12-month visit falls near the end of the first year, which is when the Performance Guide allows qualifying drywall crack and nail pop repairs.
Before you sign a contract, ask your Costar consultant to confirm in writing which warranty programme and terms apply to your home. On a custom home in Vancouver, the walkthrough and the binder close out the five-stage process that Costar's page describes, which starts with a first meeting about your plans.
If you are planning a custom home and want to see how our handover works, tell us about your project today and book a consultation.
Related on this site: Custom homes in Metro Vancouver · Our five-stage process · Custom home costs in Metro Vancouver · Book a one-hour project consultation
