Are overscheduled building inspections putting homes at risk?

First of two parts

To the west: In a new townhouse complex at the edge of prairies, a man wakes to the sound of rain sprinkling down in the next bedroom. Next door, a woman stares perplexed at a cockeyed foyer floor.

To the north: A married couple stand in their new home and scowl at the wobbly balcony, the breeze coming through the poorly insulated fireplace, and water leaking through walls and floors.

To the south: High winds blow a wooden chimney off the roof of a new townhouse, and the young couple inside fret over other signs of instability, like a bouncing floor and a leaking basement.

Rush to Inspect is a two-part series exploring how the growing workload of local home inspectors is affecting suburban homebuyers. Stories How many inspections are too many? [11/14/07] Council pushes for federal funds for more inspectors [11/15/07] Video Local home inspectors Montgomery home problems Graphics Running against the clock Related Links ABC 7 coverage And in Chicago: Residents of a newly renovated condo building grapple with sewer and electrical code violations, faucets that drizzle water and dryers that vent directly into their kitchens.A team of watchdogs, called municipal inspectors, is tasked with ensuring new homes are built up to snuff. But a Daily Herald/ABC 7 I-Team analysis of inspection work logs in Chicago and six suburbs found average workloads for municipal inspectors as high as one inspection every 34 minutes.Other signs of a strained system include: bull; The number of new-home buyers who filed construction complaints with the state attorney general's office jumped 40 percent between 2005 and 2006. bull; Similar grievances lodged with the local Better Business Bureau rose 21 percent this year over last.bull; Experts recommend an average workload of one inspection every two hours and, in some cases, no more than two major inspections a day.Officials from towns analyzed in the investigation dispute the results and say their inspectors are not cutting corners in the rush to get the job done. However, industry experts disagree. "If you don't have time to do the job well, that is when things go undetected," said Oswego resident John Ball, a former president of a group of elite building inspectors, called the National Academy of Building Inspection Engineers.Cracked or shifting foundations, leaking roofs and windows, faulty electrical systems and broken plumbing -- all are problems that inspectors often can catch before they become nightmares for homeowners.Critical duty "Inspectors have a very awesome responsibility," says Steve Daggers, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based International Code Council, which creates building rules used by many towns. "Inspections save lives and protect your investment."Unless you are buying a home, remodeling or fretting over shoddy work, chances are inspectors don't cross your mind much."When nothing happens to a building, there is nothing really to talk about," says Nicholas Gadzepko, Arlington Heights' building commissioner.Inspectors stand as the lone independent party to view a house during construction, and they have the power to make builders play by the rules.They visit a home or business a dozen times or more during construction. The codes inspectors enforce can vary from town to town, but they all deal with the nitty-gritty, like the spacing of studs in a wall, the type of concrete in a foundation or the grade of window glass.Generally, the codes are written to ensure a building is stable and safe and can withstand a fire for a certain amount of time or handle high winds. Because inspectors are charged with viewing construction as it happens, they often are the only ones who can catch a problem in enough time to fix it."The idea is that whatever is going to be hidden at a later time needs to have an independent set of eyes look at it and make sure it is OK," says Jamshid Jahedi, an Illinois Institute of Technology engineering instructor and owner of a Clarendon Hills-based design and construction firm.Stretched thinGiven the rise in complaints and critical role of inspectors, the Daily Herald and ABC 7 I-Team attempted to analyze the watchdogs' workloads in some of the fastest-growing suburbs and Chicago.Data from the city and six booming suburbs -- ranging from tract-home-heavy Carpentersville to tear-down-intense Arlington Heights -- found an average workload last year ranging from one inspection every 34 minutes in far west Montgomery to one every hour and 22 minutes in south suburban Beecher. Those figures don't allow for drive time, sick days and often hours of daily paperwork.In each case, the results showed departments to be stretched thin during the construction boom of last year and perhaps even challenged to meet the demand in this current slow year, industry experts say."These guys are being stressed, and their schedules are very demanding," said Ball, who also founded and later sold a Naperville-based building inspection business.The time it takes to do an inspection can range from 15 minutes for a patio glance-over to more than two hours for a final run-through on a new home.Town officials from each of the locales analyzed say the averages don't give an accurate representation of how much time is spent on each inspection or the quality of work.Still, Ball says that in his experience, an average workload that is less than one inspection every two hours means the inspector has too much on his plate to do an adequate job.Nick Gromicko, president of the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors, goes even further, saying two major inspections a day should be the limit.Jahedi says an average workload ratio doesn't paint the whole picture of an inspector's work. Yet he has seen inspectors repeatedly rushed on construction sites who miss key problems."The inspectors certainly need to pay more attention to what they inspect," he says. "(Problems) very well may be because of their overload."Most town officials interviewed for the analysis agree that there are short-staffed inspection teams in the Chicago area -- just not in their own backyards."Over the last few years, I have heard, 'I'm busy. I'm busy. I'm very busy.' Every one is busy," says Gadzepko, who also is president of a local International Code Council group called the Suburban Building Officials Conference, which trains inspectors. "Just take a look around. We have had an influx of new homes. Northern Illinois will never be the same."Some town officials say the crush in home building was a stressful time, but they say it didn't lead to shortchanging inspections."Have things been hectic in the last few years? Yes, definitely," said Tim Brophy, Montgomery's building director. "But we get all the inspections done, and they are all done properly here."St. Charles building commissioner Bob Van said his inspectors were in a similar situation. "We had some hot spots where it got busy," he said. "But I'm not asking for any more (inspectors), and, if it got to that point where I felt I needed more, I would be asking for it."St. Charles, which handles new subdivisions that can add several hundred homes in a few years, has four inspectors who tackled an average workload last year of one inspection every hour and 12 minutes. For the first six months of this year, that workload average dropped to about one inspection every hour and 36 minutes."At times, it does get to where we can't get to all the places people want us to be," says Steve Herra, St. Charles' lone full-time plumbing inspector. "But it is not right to just leave (an inspection) and then have something happen to somebody."Building commissioners and inspectors also point out that they cannot be onsite 24/7. If a builder really wants to get away with cutting corners or breaking codes, there often are opportunities for them to do just that."The worse the builder, the better they are going to hide things," says Cindy McCammack, Carpentersville's development director.McCammack said that her four inspectors' busiest average workloads of one inspection every 36 minutes last spring, don't mean they were rushed. She says good scheduling and the extensive experience of her inspectors can balance out the heavy workload.And, like other building commissioners, she points out that inspectors are allowed only to enforce the code. They do not check for general quality issues, like whether cabinets are installed correctly or if a linoleum floor is popping up."What we do is a cursory inspection," she says. "We do not check everything. That is not our job. We do not warrant the work. #8230; We are going to look for the big stuff."Ironically, McCammack said the builder of her home in Addison mistakenly linked hot water to the toilet. She said that is something inspectors should have caught, but she understands why they didn't."It is on the second floor and probably the farthest plumbing room there is. I can reasonably understand how it was missed #8230; but I would hope our inspectors wouldn't do that," she says.Dream or nightmareCostly problems with houses across the region are turning proud home buyers into riled residents worried they made a bad choice that could wreck their finances for years to come.When Teresa Albee bought her townhouse early last year on the outskirts of Montgomery, she was so excited she visited the construction site repeatedly.Once she moved in, Albee found her front foyer concrete floor was a half-inch off kilter, her heating didn't work right, and costly cold drafts were sneaking in between the house's frame and foundation because of a lack of caulking."Why did I pick this place? Why me?" Albee says today. "What is going to happen in three or four years? Are the walls just going to start falling over?"Neighbor Brian Wojciechowski feels the same. He awoke in spring 2006 shortly after buying his home to find water had pooled in his attic and was pouring into a bedroom."I'm emphatically upset," he says. The developer eventually fixed the problems, Wojciechowski and Albee agree. But their worries remain.In Ingleside, Jeanne Stratford and her husband at first were happy to be back in the North suburbs after living for a few years in North Dakota."We really liked the house and were real excited about it," Stratford says.Within the first few days, though, problems started. Water leaked from their bathtub's plumbing, the guardrail for the kitchen balcony wasn't secured and drafts seeped in from a poorly insulated fireplace.The Stratfords recently settled with their developer for a financial reimbursement. Getting a developer to settle such matters, however, is not always easy.In Beecher, Karen and Philip Stimach have been feuding with their developer since shortly after buying a new townhouse in mid-2005.At first, the problem was a second-story floor that shook easily, and then basement drywall started crumbling from water damage. A few months ago their wooden chimney blew off the roof in a powerful storm."I broke down and cried," Karen Stimach said about the latest incident.On Chicago's far West Side, residents of a 50-unit building still are feuding with their developer over kitchen faucets that dribble water, some dryers that don't vent outside and electrical systems that haven't been separated by unit."When you move in, you are happy. A lot of people (here) just got married and have families," says Elvina Rodriguez, who lives with her baby in a two-bedroom condo. "If I had known then what I know now, I would have never moved in here."Given all the various factors involved with home construction problems, it is difficult to conclude with certainty whether any of the flaws described here could have been prevented by an inspector or whether they were the direct result of poor construction.Still, Ball and Jahedi say they clearly are issues that fall within an inspector's purview. They say such problems, in addition to a litany of others, can be expected to increase if inspectors are rushed on the job. "This does point out in particular what a lot of people have to deal with when buying a new home," Ball says. "There is supposed to be a lot of checks and balances in the home building process, but that is not the way it is working out. Many of these things just go totally undetected." 512292The sun sets on a field of new homes in Montgomery, a town that may record a 56 percent increase in housing between 2000 and 2010.Laura Stoecker | Staff Photographer 512328St. Charles plumbing inspector Steve Herra, far left, questions a contractor at a new building.Brian Hill | Staff Photographer 347512Click on image to enlarge