TL;DR: Custom home inspections happen at every stage where work is about to get covered up: footings, foundation, underground plumbing, framing, rough electrical, plumbing and mechanical, insulation, and a final before you can move in. On a typical Eastern Idaho or Teton Valley build that is somewhere around 10 to 15 separate sign-offs from three or four different agencies, plus the engineer, the health district and usually your lender. Your builder should be scheduling, attending and passing all of them. You should know what they are so you know what “passed” actually means.
Contents
- What custom home inspections happen when you build?
- Who actually inspects my house?
- What gets inspected at each stage, in order?
- What happens if my house fails an inspection?
- Do I need to be there for inspections?
- Should I hire my own home inspector on a new build?
- How do you work with inspectors without slowing the build down?
- Is it different on the Jackson Hole side?
- Questions I get asked about custom home inspections
What custom home inspections happen when you build?
The short version: an inspector has to look at anything that is about to disappear behind concrete, dirt, drywall or insulation. Once it’s covered, nobody can check it without tearing it out. So the inspection schedule follows the build schedule, stage by stage.
On a custom home in Bonneville, Jefferson, Madison or Teton County, Idaho, the core list looks like this:
- Footing (the concrete base the foundation walls sit on) before the pour
- Foundation walls and rebar before the pour, then damp-proofing and drainage before backfill
- Underground plumbing (sometimes called “ground work”) before the slab or crawl space gets covered
- Rough framing once the structure, sheathing, roof and windows are in
- Rough electrical, rough plumbing and rough mechanical (the wiring, pipes and ductwork inside the walls before insulation)
- Insulation before drywall
- Drywall or shear nailing where the engineer or jurisdiction calls for it
- Gas line pressure test before the meter gets set
- Septic installation, if you’re not on city sewer
- Final electrical, final plumbing, final mechanical and the final building inspection, which leads to your certificate of occupancy
That’s the code side of custom home inspections. On top of it, most of my builds also have an engineer’s structural observation, a lender’s draw inspection before each payment is released, and on some projects an energy rater with a blower door. Every one of those is a separate visit, a separate person, and a separate chance for the schedule to slip if nobody’s managing it.
Idaho’s jurisdictions build to the International Residential Code with state amendments. If you want to see the actual rulebook the inspectors are working from, the Teton County, Idaho Building Department lists the code editions it has adopted (the 2018 I-Codes), and most neighboring jurisdictions work the same way.
Who actually inspects my house?
This surprises people. Custom home inspections usually aren’t done by one inspector. In Idaho it’s commonly three or four agencies, and they don’t share a calendar.
The county or city building department handles the structural side: footings, foundation, framing, insulation, and the final building inspection. Teton County, Idaho has its own building department working off the 2018 I-Codes, and so do most of the cities and counties I build in.
The State of Idaho handles electrical, plumbing and HVAC permits in a lot of Eastern Idaho, through the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses (DOPL), unless the city or county runs its own trade program. The state plumbing program schedules rough-in, groundwork and final inspections through its own system, which you can see on the DOPL plumbing permits and inspections page. Which agency covers your lot depends on exactly where it sits, which is why I pull that before the permit ever gets submitted.
The health district permits and inspects septic systems. In our region that’s Eastern Idaho Public Health. If your lot needs a well and septic, that’s its own permit track with its own timing, and I cover the budget side of it in what well and septic actually cost in rural Idaho.
Your structural engineer often has to observe specific work, like hold-downs, beam connections or shear walls, and sign off before the county will pass framing. On Teton Valley builds with heavy snow loads, this one matters a lot.
Your lender sends an inspector before each draw. They aren’t checking code. They’re checking that the work you’re being asked to pay for is actually done. More on how that ties to payments in how your construction draw schedule works.
What gets inspected at each stage, in order?
Here’s the sequence on a typical SwagerBuilds custom home, who shows up, and what they’re really looking at. Exact inspection names and order vary a little by jurisdiction. Your permit card lists the ones that apply to your house.
| Stage | Who inspects | What they’re actually checking | What a fail usually costs you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Footing | County or city building | Depth below frost line, width, rebar size and placement, soil conditions | A day or two. Fix before concrete, re-inspect, pour |
| Foundation walls | County or city building | Rebar, anchor bolts, wall thickness, form layout against the plans | A day or two. Same as footings |
| Damp-proofing and drainage | County or city building | Waterproofing on the walls, footing drain, gravel before backfill | Small, as long as it’s caught before the dirt goes back |
| Underground plumbing | State or local plumbing | Pipe slope, materials, and a pressure or water test with no leaks | Small now. Big if it’s missed and found under a slab later |
| Engineer observation | Your structural engineer | Hold-downs, beams, connections, shear walls built as designed | Can hold up the county framing inspection until it’s signed |
| Rough framing | County or city building | Structure, headers, stairs, fire blocking, window egress, roof and sheathing nailing | The one that holds up the most trades behind it |
| Rough electrical, plumbing, mechanical | State or local trade inspectors | Wiring, boxes, pipe and duct runs, venting, gas lines | Each trade re-inspected separately before insulation |
| Insulation | County or city building | R-values against the energy code, air sealing, coverage with no gaps | A day. Drywall can’t start until it passes |
| Septic | Health district | Tank, drain field and installation match the approved permit | Depends on the fix. Can hold up the final |
| Finals and certificate of occupancy | All of the above | Everything complete, safe, and matching what was permitted | You can’t legally move in until every final is signed |
The framing inspection is the one I watch hardest. Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, insulation and drywall are all stacked up behind it. If framing fails on a Tuesday and the inspector can’t come back until Friday, that’s four trades sitting idle.
What happens if my house fails an inspection?
The inspector writes a correction notice, the work gets fixed, and they come back. That’s it. A failed inspection isn’t a disaster, and it isn’t automatically a sign your builder is bad.
What matters is what failed and how often. A missing nail plate or a mislabeled breaker is a ten-minute fix. A footing that isn’t deep enough, or a beam that doesn’t match the engineering, is a real problem and it should make you ask questions.
Your next worry is probably “who pays for it?” If a fail is the builder’s workmanship, the fix and any re-inspection fee should be the builder’s cost, not yours. That should be written into your contract with any builder. If it isn’t, ask. I cover the rest of what belongs in that contract in how to protect yourself in a custom home contract.
The real cost of failed custom home inspections is time, not money. Every re-inspection is another spot in the inspector’s queue, and in a busy summer that can mean days.
Do I need to be there for inspections?
No. Your builder or the trade’s licensed contractor meets the inspector. That’s their job, and the inspector wants to talk to the person who can answer technical questions on the spot.
What you should get is proof. After each of your custom home inspections, your builder should send you the result, pass or correction, with the signed card or the inspector’s notes. A lot of our clients are building from out of state. Between that and the 24/7 site cameras we run on every job, they can see the inspector’s truck in the driveway from California and know what happened that day.
If you want to walk the house at framing, do it. That’s the best time to see what’s inside your walls. Just do it with your builder, not in the middle of the inspector’s visit.
Should I hire my own home inspector on a new build?
You can, and I don’t take it personally. A private inspector works for you, not the county. The two moments where one adds the most value are a pre-drywall walkthrough, when the framing, wiring and plumbing are all visible, and right before your final walkthrough.
Here’s the honest trade-off. On custom home inspections, a code inspector checks minimum code, not quality, and spends a limited amount of time on your house. A good private inspector can catch workmanship issues a code inspection isn’t designed to look for. A bad one generates a 60-page report of cosmetic items and non-issues that burns a week of everybody’s time.
If you hire one, tell your builder up front, schedule it at pre-drywall, and ask for a report that separates safety and code items from cosmetic ones. When it gets close to move-in, pair it with my final walkthrough checklist so nothing falls through the cracks.
How do you work with inspectors without slowing the build down?
Inspectors in small counties are stretched thin. Treat their time with respect and your house moves faster. Here’s how we run it, and what you should expect from any builder you hire.
We know which agency covers the lot before design is finished. County building, state trades, health district and engineer each get mapped during the design agreement. That happens alongside drawings and engineering coordination, which SwagerBuilds handles in-house, so nothing about the permit path surprises us after the price is set.
We call for inspections only when the work is actually ready. Calling early and hoping is the fastest way to get a correction notice and lose a spot in line. We walk the work ourselves first with the inspection checklist in hand.
The approved plans and engineering are on site, every time. The first thing an inspector asks for is the stamped set. If it isn’t there, some won’t inspect at all.
We schedule the trades around the inspections, not the other way around. The insulation crew isn’t booked until rough-ins are signed. That’s the difference between a tight schedule and a build that drags for months. There’s more on how that sequencing works in how I manage subcontractors on a custom home.
We don’t argue in the driveway. If I disagree with a call, I ask the inspector to show me the code section, and if it’s still unclear, I take it to the building official. Nine times out of ten the inspector is right, and the tenth time you still need that inspector next month.
I’m involved in every phase of every build, and inspections are one of the places I want eyes on it personally. A pass on framing tells me the crew built what the engineer drew. That’s the whole point.
Is it different on the Jackson Hole side?
Custom home inspections work the same way in Wyoming; the agencies are different. On the Wyoming side, the Town of Jackson and Teton County, Wyoming run their own building departments, and projects there tend to carry more engineering and more review steps, including heavier snow loads and wildfire and energy requirements in some areas. Expect the permit and inspection side to take longer than it does in Driggs or Victor, and plan the schedule for it.
For a county-by-county breakdown of how permits start in the first place, see Idaho building permits by county. For how custom home inspections fit into the full sequence of a build, start with the steps to building a custom home in Idaho.
Questions I get asked about custom home inspections
How many inspections does a custom home need?
Most custom homes in Eastern Idaho and Teton Valley need roughly 10 to 15 code inspections from start to certificate of occupancy, plus engineer, health district and lender visits. The exact count depends on the jurisdiction, whether you’re on septic, and how complex the structure is.
Who schedules custom home inspections, me or the builder?
The builder, or the licensed trade contractor for electrical, plumbing and HVAC. Homeowners generally only schedule their own inspections if they pulled an owner-builder permit. You should get the result of every inspection in writing.
Does passing inspection mean my house is built well?
It means it meets minimum code on the day the inspector looked. Code is the legal floor, not a quality standard. Workmanship, finish quality and how tightly the house is air-sealed are on your builder, which is why who you hire matters more than any single inspection.
What happens if a custom home fails an inspection?
The inspector issues a correction notice, the work gets fixed, and it’s re-inspected. Minor fails cost a day or two. If the fail is the builder’s workmanship, the fix and any re-inspection fee should be on the builder, and your contract should say so.
Can I move in before the final inspection?
No. You can’t legally occupy the house until every final is signed and the certificate of occupancy is issued. Your lender will usually require the certificate before converting a construction loan, and your insurance may depend on it too.
Want a builder who handles every inspection for you?
On a SwagerBuilds custom home, permitting, engineering, inspections and the paperwork between them are ours to run, from the design agreement to the certificate of occupancy. Custom homes in Teton Valley and Idaho start at $400/SF and go up; Jackson Hole starts at $1,000/SF and goes up. Design work is a fixed design fee, quoted per project. If you’re planning a build and want to talk through your lot, start the conversation here.
Built different. Built right. Built by SwagerBuilds.