Cities struggle to keep up with boom
November 19, 2001 - As the Phoenix area's housing boom has rolled on, the number of city building inspectors watching over construction has lagged.
Pressed for time, many inspectors say they focus on major safety issues and can't sweat the details.
"Will it burn down? Will it fall down?" Mesa building inspector Rich Severson asks as he walks through a home in the Las Sendas community. "I'm looking for structural integrity."
Bob Kaufman, a Phoenix inspector, is equally blunt: "We are not there to look for cosmetic issues."
The number of building inspectors in the largest metro Phoenix communities grew by 73 percent during the 1990s, but the workload increased 120 percent, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of inspection records.
The only three cities that kept pace with demand were Chandler, Gilbert and Phoenix, but inspectors in Phoenix average an hour of overtime a day to keep up.
In Goodyear, inspectors are at a different home about every 15 minutes, on average. In Surprise, the number of homes built in the past five years more than tripled, but the number of inspectors didn't double. And although Gilbert has kept pace with the growth, its inspectors conduct 25 to 30 inspections a day.
Phil Pettice, inspections chief for the state Registrar of Contractors, says city inspectors simply don't have enough time to ensure that contractors are following the hundreds of building codes required for a house. Instead, they look for the most common problems.
Inspectors start their days early, some by 6 a.m., to examine work at new-home sites, as well as remodeling projects, new swimming pools and commercial buildings.
Home inspectors review the foundation; underground plumbing; the slab; framing; electrical, mechanical and plumbing work; and the drywall. A final inspection follows. A home must meet minimum standards at each step to get an inspector's approval to move to the next level of building.
A new Phoenix house is usually looked at by an inspector five to seven times. However, some Valley inspectorssay they can go over a house as many as two dozen times if it fails repeated inspections.
Welcome to the Valley
Home buyers Joe and Jackie Hill learned firsthand how limited inspections can be.
Winter visitors for years, the Hills left Chicago last year to retire to their 3,712-square-foot custom home in north Scottsdale.
To celebrate, they invited friends and family over for Thanksgiving dinner. But shortly after stuffing the bird, they discovered that the oven didn't work. The Hills said they found 50 other problems, including flickering lights and bowed walls, in their home built by VIP Homes.
Evelyn Petersen, VIP's owner, said her employees tried for six to eight months to make repairs but the Hills were constantly out of town. The Hills and VIP are working with the registrar to resolve the remaining issues.
"You couldn't build homes like this in Illinois," Joe Hill said. "I assumed the city of Scottsdale would have the home ready to move in. I had heard so much about how strict Scottsdale was. I thought things would be checked."
Scottsdale Building Inspection Manager Ed Peaser said the building code requires only that appliances be in the house. Inspectors assume that builders insure that everything works, he added.
Building requirements vary by city, and there is no state licensing procedure for someone to become an inspector. Most are required to be certified by the International Conference of Building Officials and have some construction experience.
Inspectors are protected from home-defect suits unless they intentionally cause an injury or are found to be grossly negligent.
Location, location
The level of scrutiny a house receives often depends on the locale.
This summer, Goodyear Senior Building Inspector Ed Kulik examined 25 to 40 homes a day and spent about 15 minutes on a frame inspection for a 1,800-square-foot home.
In Glendale, inspector Chris Dore had less than half the workload and spent 45 minutes to an hour doing a similar inspection.
"They want us to take our time and do it right. In the smaller cities you don't have time to look at all the (building) plans," said Dore, who once worked in Avondale. "The guys who walk through a frame inspection in 10 minutes are not doing their job."
Kulik, who came in an hour early and worked one to two hours of overtime daily this summer, said his workload may be heavier, but builders in Goodyear aren't getting a free pass. Kulik said that in September he stopped working overtime after Goodyear hired more staff, but he still inspects up to 25 homes daily.
On some days, he said, half of the homes fail inspections, meaning that a builder must correct problems before work can continue.
"We have one of the highest loads compared to other cities. We are really booming out here," Kulik said. "With so many inspections, we look at more critical items."
The number of annual examinations that Goodyear inspectors are required to make has increased from 5,600 per inspector to 9,250 per inspector since 1994, according to data obtained by The Republic.
In some rapidly growing Valley communities, it is common for an inspector to go through 25 or more homes daily.
How many is too many?
After Hurricane Andrew leveled entire blocks in Florida in August 1992, government inspectors were criticized for approving home inspections on entire subdivisions in a day. That state's Supreme Court later ruled that an inspector could check no more than 25 homes a day.
In other boom housing markets, the level of scrutiny varies.
In Las Vegas, its 55 inspectors conduct 1,200 to 1,500 inspections a day, or 22 to 27 each. In Dallas, inspectors average 17 a day. But in the Atlanta area, which was the top spot in the country for new home building over the past five years, inspectors in Gwinnett County average fewer than 10 inspections a day. Gwinnett is where the most homes have gone up during Atlanta's boom.
Most Valley cities require inspectors to have construction building experience, and some community colleges offer training courses.
Even with the training, city inspectors say it's impossible to catch everything in a home. And builders don't necessarily expect it.
Steve Davis, president of KB Home of Phoenix, said: "We take our inspections seriously. But we don't rely on them to dictate the quality of our construction. We have superintendents making sure houses are built to meet every code."
Minimum Standards
Peaser, Scottsdale's building chief, said that state law requires a new home to meet international or national minimum building, electrical and mechanical standards. The state has code requirements for plumbing, but cities can adopt their own standards in other areas. For example, in Goodyear and Mesa, a new home is not required to have insulation.
Builders sometimes cut corners and expect inspectors to understandit is easier or cheaper to do it that way, Phoenix's inspector Kaufman said.
"I tell them, 'I'm not inspecting the house for you, I am inspecting for the buyer," he added.
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