Then they would not go to that extreme holding down the house as they would in Florida.
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The pictured wall is a party wall of a townhome so I definitely wouldn’t be able to see from outside.
Does that fact have an impact on your opinion?
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I used hurricane straps when I built in New Mexico. Wind gusts of 75 mph in the Spring are normal.
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That is because you are in a hurricane zone.
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Yes wind zone II.
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I would just mention the lack of visible anchors and ask that it be evaluated by a licensed contractor.
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I don’t see any other way as an HI.
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You could look for telltale sighs where the builder tightened the anchor bolts too tight and distorted the sill plate, then do a little probing if you want to put the time into it. That is what I would do. If no luck, then call it out.
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@sbridges2 @mcyr The foundation anchor ties that @mwilles posted are very common for multi-unit townhomes around here. See them quite frequently. There’s a bit of a shortage of rebar, wall ties, and anchor bolts right now in these parts so builders are using what they can. Typically though on the party wall they are stagered and can be seen from both sides with larger spacing.
@bcawhern1 I have learned CO allows each municipality to adopt what ever version of the IRC they want. Makes it tough sometimes. Some have recently reverted back to codes from 2008/2009. Stupid really…
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Good info. Thanks.
From what I see, I see the good old anchor Foam.
But if the house passed the foundation and framing inspection I’m sure there are some kind of anchoring system in place.
Things that make you go hmmmm…sure 'bout that?
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The last pre-drywall inspection I performed there were five anchor bolts missing. The city inspector caught one and missed the other four.
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City/county inspectors are just like home inspectors; they can miss things and/or be unqualified…
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You nailed it Jesse.
The mudsill anchors are probably the ones they used, like Martin said. Pretty common now for new construction. Only visible at the exterior during pre-drywall in most cases. Hurricane ties are used for uplift bracing on joists in some cases now too.
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With that being the case, I’m probably going to create a stock narrative about this saying that while they may be in place, I am unable to visually verify the anchor connection and the connection method is excluded from the inspection.
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Excellent Jesse.
That’s a good idea Jesse. You can sometimes see them under the starter strip for the siding, but depends on the siding product.
Try to get as many pre-drywall inspections as you can, you can really see the framing defects during those, and it’s much easier to verify these types of connections. I’ve spent the last few years pushing per-drywall inspections into the brains of the realtors I work with and now they won’t do new construction contracts without one.
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That is a good one, but I would just cut off the sentence here. (it is not really an exclusion, more of a limitation)
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