Most newly constructed homes and apartments have accommodations in place for hiding the wiring that goes with wall mounted TVs. However, it’s seldom that as a new tenant or homeowner, you know exactly what’s behind that convenient little opening in the wall and how exactly to get from there to the other little opening inside a cabinet or book case down below. Such is the case as I tried to run cable for a modem through said holes the other night. Both openings were there and I could sort of see what was going on in the walls at either end but that cable never got from one end to the other, despite my best efforts.
It reminded me of a recent pre-sheetrock inspection I went on where one of Sterling Homes’ Construction Managers walked the homeowners through their house before the sheetrock went up. Until participating in this effort, it never dawned on me how important and interesting this walk-through is from a homeowner’s perspective.
First, it’s the first time the homeowners have really walked through their new house in 3D. Even though the sheetrock isn’t up yet, the space takes shape and the vision starts to come to life. Second, it’s the easiest time to take notice of something not quite right; whether an outlet is going to get stuck behind a bed frame or dresser, or a closet really needs a light in it. My new place was definitely not built by Sterling Homes for many other glaring reasons, but had it been, those two openings in my walls would have been connected by a length of wide flexible hose to feed wires through so bare cables didn’t get hung up on everything in its dark path through the wall. This small yet impactful attention to detail was not lost on me as I tried to fish wires through the interior of a wall unsuccessfully.
Every house Sterling Homes builds has the pre-sheetrock inspection as part of the home building process. Having now experienced one myself, I can say that it’s a level of detail not often found in the fast paced world of home building. Every Sterling Home homeowner is shown where outlets, switches, and light boxes are. Where radon mitigation pipes, sewage pipes, and heating ducts are. How everything is connected and where it lives in the walls. Once sheetrock is up, all of those details are hidden forever and it’s nice to know where they are ahead of time.
For more information, check out Our Process.