This is a fire safety issue and not nitpicking.

Many states and cities have banned smoking on construction sites either through ordinances or fire codes. Check with the local building department and if that is not the case read the construction contract carefully and if it doesn't ban smoking, call your insurance company.

The workers are combining the two highest risks conditions for fire: construction and smoking.

I am a smoker - yet it really irritates me when one someone just throws their cigarette butts anywhere ! It is showing a total disregard for others property. Some smokers think it's ok - to me it's no different then tossing gum, candy or whatever wrapper on the ground and walking away.

I suggest you get a coffee can with some sand or whatever and put it out for them to use. Really, who is going to eventually clean up thier butts? I don't know when they should stop smoking in your home build - but I would hope it's soon. Even as a smoker I HATE the smell of smoke...

"I don't know when they should stop smoking in your home build"

If you enforce no smoking as soon as the house is dried in you should not have any issues.

Until then it is open to the elements anyway.

Follow-up : I met with the GC today and asked if there were any rules as to smoking in the house now. He said that it's a standard rule now that there be no more smoking in the home, since sheetrock is being installed and there is insulation. Of course, he reminded me that he can't promise the issue doesn't need policing. But it is the rule, and that the subs know it.

At least I have re-assurance that this is not acceptable to my GC.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts!

I thought I was being too picky. My wife and I were just up at our site the other day and I was complaining about the amount of trash that has accumulated. We are only at the foundation stage now. Soda bottles, wrappers, butts and such. How hard is it to put the trash in a cardboard box or something? I don't know if it is normal or not. I guess they figure, when they backfill it will all go away?

"We are only at the foundation stage now. Soda bottles, wrappers, butts and such. How hard is it to put the trash in a cardboard box or something?"

And just were are they supposed to get "a cardboard box or something"?

Do you have a GC?

You could ask him to put out a trash can, but small amounts of trash under feet of backfill are one for the archeologists.

Even though we are building a "built-to-order" home with Ryland, I still get pissed at issues like this. Ryland has a big notice in each house and in the job-box stating a $100 fine per incident of someone smoking in the house, leaving trash or debris in the house, or setting tools on the countertops. I check out the house each night about 7pm and find many crews are just cleaning up and heading home... and some are very thankful when I let them know about some material they left in a bedroom or a closet -- they don't want a fine. Does your GC have this written into his contract with his subs? Does he police this at all?

We also know that the landscaping will start pretty soon, so we will head out to the job site this weekend to pick up debris and trash in the dirt around the house. It's not awful, but I'd rather pick up a bunch of roofing nails now than when I'm trying to plant bulbs this fall!

We did notice that the HVAC guy spit chew on the floor (second floor subfloor!), but before we could complain about it a carpenter came along and planed the floor in that exact location, so it was soon gone. :) Oh, and some idiot decided it was too far to walk to the porta-potty in the front yard (we're only on a quarter acre... it's not a long walk) and peed in the kids' bathtub instead. Lovely. Even my three-year-old knows better than that! Building supervisor got it cleaned up ASAP when I brought it to his attention.

I did make sure that everything was cleaned up in the wall cavities before the drywall went in. Due to the cleanup policies, though, I didn't have to take any action because it was all tidy. Yay!

xine,
ask your builder to loan you his magnet on wheels thing
(don't know what it is called) to pick up nails.
much much better than stooping over to pick up nails.
save that back for planting bulbs.

best of luck to all of you.

On the other hand ... I was demolishing a Prohibition-era kitchen and behind the cabinets found an empty "medicinal" wine bottle in the original paper bag.

Someone drank their lunch and chucked it behind the piece they were installing.

Nice bit of history :)

I was too late! They came in and connected the sewer line to the main at the street... and for some reason they are not in a straight line but run diagonally across the property from one side to the other. To do this they had to completely dig up the entire front yard... so all those roofing and siding nails are now permanently embedded in my future front yard. sigh...

Lazygardens -- when we pulled up the flooring in the house I grew up in (built in the 40s) we found newspapers that were laid over the subfloor. It was kind of fun to read those old papers. :)

"...so all those roofing and siding nails are now permanently embedded in my future front yard."

Depending on the soil moisture level and chemistry they might not be there for very long.

Hot dip Galvanized might last a little longer but steel nails or electrogalvanized will rust pretty quickly in most soils.

Final grading will also affect how far down they end up (or even move them to the top of the soil).

Our site was not clean enough for our liking. The main issue that I focused on was keeping debris out of the HVAC registers. I figured everything else would be cleaned up at some point, but not the debris that falls down there and is unseen. So I used to pull it out and re-cover the vents whenever the cover came off. I also hated all the garbage that was thrown outside for the wind to blow into the woods or neighbors yard.

But ... you pick your battles. Remember that a new house is pretty well polluted with all kinds of solvents, paints, carpeting, etc realeasing nasty stuff into the air. I hate cigatette smoke too but it's probably not much worse for you than some of that other stuff.