The new-build punch list your builder never came back for

There are a lot of new houses around Leander, and a lot of them come with a short list of things that never quite got finished. The crew came back once, maybe twice, and then the calls stopped getting returned. Nobody is a villain in that story. This is the list I get asked about most, and roughly how I would think about it.

What settling actually looks like in the first year

A new house moves. The framing dries out, the slab settles onto clay that swells when it rains and shrinks when it does not, and the seasons here swing hard enough to push everything around. Some cracking in that first year or two is completely normal. It is not evidence that anybody did anything wrong.

The cosmetic ones are hairline. They usually run at an angle off the corner of a door or a window frame, or trace a fine straight line along a drywall seam or where the ceiling meets the wall. That is the house relaxing. They patch and texture out, and if the house has finished moving, they stay gone.

The ones worth a closer look are wider than a hairline, keep opening back up after you have patched them, run in a stair-step pattern, or show up alongside a door that has started sticking or a floor that has picked up a slope. That is not automatically a disaster. It is a different question, and a drywall patch is the wrong answer to it.

Chase the builder before the window closes

Most builders give you a warranty period for exactly this, and most people let it lapse, because the list never feels urgent enough to make the phone call. Anything structural, anything to do with the roof or the outside envelope of the house, and anything that was simply never finished properly is worth putting in writing to them while it is still theirs to fix. Ask them first. I would rather you spend their money than yours.

The things I actually get called out for

• Interior doors that never latched right, or that swing themselves open on their own.
• Trim with corners that have opened up, and caulk lines that cracked and shrank back.
• Texture that does not match, where somebody already took one run at the repair. I wrote separately about why a texture repair shows.
• Shelving and closet systems fitted to drywall instead of to framing, now sagging under the weight of actual clothes.
• Baseboard with gaps over an uneven floor, and quarter round that never got run.
• Blank walls the house was obviously designed around. Built-ins, an accent wall, a mantel that never happened.

What is worth doing now, and what can wait

Anything letting water in gets fixed now, every time. Anything that is getting worse instead of holding still gets looked at now too, because the small version of a problem is always the easier one to deal with.

Cosmetic cracking is the one thing I will genuinely tell you to leave alone for a while. If the house is still in its first year, patching now usually means patching again. I would rather come out once, after it has settled, and have the repair stay fixed. That is not me being generous. That is me not wanting to do the same wall twice.

Related: Home Maintenance & Repairs

I get asked for home maintenance & repairs most often in Leander, Liberty Hill, Cedar Park, Georgetown.

More from the blog

• How I price a job, and why I won't guess over the phone
• Is your shower failing, or just ugly?
• Before you call anyone: the photos to send
• One visit or three? How to group a punch list
• Drywall cracks: which ones matter and which ones don't
• Why a texture repair shows, and how matching actually works
• Choosing flooring that survives a Central Texas house
• Gutters: what they are actually protecting, and when to clean them
• After a Texas storm: what to check, and in what order
• Cabinets: reface, repaint, or replace?
• Interior painting: the preparation is the job
• Building outdoors in this sun: what actually lasts