said by Timmn:You mean you've never watched Holmes on Homes? If you believe him, probably more than half the builders in Canada can't do anything correctly.
Correct according to code doesn't necessarily equate to a 'satisfactory' customer experience.
For example, code specifies different size floor joists to span different distances based on span tables. So the structural engineer looks up the distance and, in the absence of instructions otherwise from the builder/owner, specifies the size of joist which costs the least for the span. It's all legit - the structure will carry the loads and not fall apart. BUT if the room is to be purposed to carry stacks of bookshelves or used as a dance floor for parties of 40 people at a time, the load characteristics are far different than the basic assumptions. And architects/engineers/builders don't always know what people will use rooms for.
Or to give you a real-world example, a while ago in a 30' span Code told me that I could use 12" TJI 200 at 16" O.C. with 3/4" plywood subfloor glued & screwed. But having prior experience walking on floors built that way I knew that would never be acceptable as a choice for a discerning user - me. So we built the floor as TJI400 @ 12" O.C. for what is colloquially called 'No China Rattle' - meaning that bone china plates and crystal glasses touching one another will not rattle as you walk anywhere on the floor vs. the rattle that would have been heard with the other joists.
Another example - a friend's home renovated a while ago has 5/8" plywood screwed-only subfloor but he has a duct installed very close to the subfloor. But because the subfloor isn't stiff enough (ie. 3/4" plywood glued & screwed) whenever he walks over the duct the subfloor flexes enough to impinge on the duct, resulting in a distinct metal compression noise to come out of the register. And this is code compliant and arguably NOT a building defect.
