What a builder needs from us before the drywall crew shows up

The call I used to get every time

A builder would call me on a Wednesday. "Rock goes up Friday. You good?"

I was never good. I would drop everything, drive out, and walk the house with a flashlight looking for what I had missed. Half the time I found a wall that needed a box and no box in it.

The problem was not the builder. The problem was mine. I never told him what I needed, in writing, early enough to help.

Builders are not withholding information

A builder is running twenty trades. He is not hiding the drywall date from you. He assumes you know it, because everybody else on site knows it.

He also cannot read our drawings. A system diagram with lines and boxes means nothing to a framer. It gets printed once, gets wet, and ends up in a truck.

What he can use is a short list of decisions and locations. Plain words, one page, in his hands early.

The one page I send now

I send this before rough-in starts, not after. One page, no jargon.

• Where the rack goes. Room, wall, and how much space. Include whether it needs air and power, and how much power.
• Where the panel or wiring board goes. Same deal. Give him a rectangle on a wall.
• Every wall that needs a box. Room name, wall, and roughly how high. Say if it is a keypad, a touch screen, a thermostat, or a TV.
• Every ceiling that needs a hole. Speakers, sensors, wireless access points.
• Anything that needs blocking. TVs, big speakers, anything heavy that lands on drywall.
• Anything that needs power from the electrician. Say which outlet, where, and switched or not.
• The shade situation. Pockets, headers, and depth. This one has to be settled before framing, not after.
• What I need from him. Rough-in date, drywall date, a call before insulation.

That is it. If it does not fit on one page, I cut it down until it does.

Say what you need by name

Vague asks get ignored. Not out of spite. They just do not turn into a task for anybody.

"We will need some power at the rack" does nothing. "One dedicated circuit and four outlets, on the wall behind the rack in the mechanical room." That turns into a line on his list.

Same with blocking. "Blocking for the TVs" is not a task. "Two by ten blocking behind the great room TV, centered, sixty inches to center, forty inches wide" is a task. The framer can do it while he is standing there.

Ask for two phone calls

I ask every builder for two calls, and I ask on day one.

The first call is before insulation. That is my last chance to see my own work and add anything the client changed their mind about.

The second call is the week before drywall. That is my last chance to fix a wall.

Builders give me those calls almost every time, because I asked for exactly two and I explained why. Asking for constant updates gets you nothing. Asking for two specific calls gets you two calls.

Put shades and lighting on the earliest page

If there is one thing to move up, it is shades and lighting.

Shade pockets are framing. Once the header is built, changing it is a real cost and a real argument. I want the pocket depth and the header decision settled before anybody frames that wall.

Lighting layout matters just as much. If the client wants keypads instead of a wall of switches, tell the electrician early. He is about to pull home runs. Tell him late and you are paying for rework, or living with a gang box you did not want.

Write it down while it is fresh

The reason most of us send this late is not laziness. Pulling the list together takes a night at a desk. There is always another job on fire.

That is the part I got tired of. I was building the same one page from scratch for every house. Out of a walk-through I half remembered. So I made TrimOut turn a walk-through into the paperwork, install guide included. No rebuilding it by hand every time.

However you produce it, produce it early. Give a builder one clear page before framing. He will hold walls for you all job long.

What you get back

Do this for two houses with the same builder and something changes. He starts calling you before you call him.

You become the trade that does not cause problems. On a busy site, that is the whole reputation. It is worth more than any brochure you can leave in his trailer.