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I could have benefited from this in the construction of our house. Riddled with inaccuracies, the engineer signed off on the foundations, but we found out when the walls were up that the builders used the internal dimensions as exterior dimensions. So our house is smaller by ~250mm on each side.

We had to make so many compromises and wastages as a result. Bathrooms now smaller if we want to keep other rooms the same, bathtubs couldn't fit, aw man.

Then when the house went up to 2nd and 3rd levels, the staircase was narrow and wasn't connecting between the levels. That alone delayed us by 3 months as we had to get the architect to build a 3D model of the affected area so we could figure it out. We have to hoist furniture up through balconies as it can't fit through the stairs.

I think having some machinery that minimises human error would be very helpful.

I am an architect who worked as a contractor and as a consultant and I made an account here just to comment on this.

When you found out the builders did that, what you should have done is stopped the work and have them correct their mistake on their own dime. This is an unforgivable mistake and a team of professional should never make something like that.

Obviously I am not in your shoes, but this is insane to me. Any supervisor or consultant or surveyor visiting the site should've caught that.

This seems like the just-world response. But how can one force this? If they just say "No" you end up taking them to court and delaying the construction of your house. You endanger the contracts for downstream work.

I had a landscaper screw up just about everything they could building a retaining wall, and they couldn't even get me an extra bag of grass seed after the fact.

Depends on the country. In France, and I think in Europe, you have 4 (IIRC) legally mandated visits during the construction. At each one of those visits, you have the right to suspend the next payment (you pay a legally mandated percentage of the house after each one of those visits).

I also had measurements issues and a contractor that tried to force it to me. I just said I will not pay until it's fixed. The next week everything was fixed.