Ideally, cans need to be wired before drywall.

This is your third thread about this builder and none seem to make you feel confident, so the question becomes, why are you still planning to build with this guy?

Wire before!

To have lights located the way you want may require adjustments to framing. Which can necessitate a major teardown after the build.

Neither!

Agree with above and only mean to challenge you into better lighting styles while preaching importance of air-sealing the upper levels. Not trying to Ban the Can, just get people into rethinking recessed lighting.

You are building a new house and you want to wire and install recessed lights throughout the house, AFTER the house is built?

That is just crazy.

Find a different builder who will do things right the first time.

Always during normal construction. Why would you do otherwise?

But you have to fully understand your furnishings plan and interior design.

But you have to fully understand your furnishings plan and interior design.

You also have to trust your builder.

Honestly, if you can't trust your builder and his electrical subs with something as basic as properly locating recessed lighting, you really shouldn't be trusting him with anything else, starting with the foundation and framing.

I'm leaning towards hiring someone better after the build.

As the wife of a builder, I would suggest that you save yourself a bunch of money, time, and angst and hire someone better BEFORE the build.

We came in and adjusted our can lights to exactly hit where we wanted them to in our kitchen in our existing house - EVERYTHING needed slight adjustment - but they are all in line North/South AND East/West when you look at the pattern in the kitchen and other rooms.

But it would be INSANE to think you could do this "after".

Adding some electricity here and there in a house sounds pretty simple. It isn't most of the time. I am gutting my kitchen and added some appliances so I needed some more dedicated lines. The electric panel was on the other side of the garage slab so no easy way to get that extra power. It took 3 guys 10 hours to run lines over/above the garage, then back down through a wall, down into the crawlspace and all the way across the house to the kitchen. It's never as easy as it looks!

Assuming you are locked in with this builder....

If you are willing to spend the money to remodel right after building, instead spend less money and hire a lighting designer now. Then they can tell your builder exactly where the lighting needs to go.

"Then they can tell your builder exactly where the lighting needs to go."

"I would ask the builder if you can oversee/guide where the cans go during the processes."

It is a developer building a spec house, the odds of either of these things ever happening is next to zero....................

The rough installation of all lighting should be done during the construction process, before insulation and preferably before heating and plumbing.

Frankly, there are many more important things to be anal retentive about.

After drywall it would be difficult if not impossible to position recessed lights or modify framing to accommodate the layout you want. During construction its easier to do but you need a drawing showing the dimensions of the fixtures from the walls,

You don't have the right, but the builder might do it if asked. This is a home financed, built and owned by the builder until completed... that you are purchasing.

ditto what cp said......also.....NEVER wire for can lights 'after' build. That's insane.

Definitely before drywall goes in. In our case having used a significant # of lights, and despite extreme care, a bunch of cans in the great room were misaligned following ceiling drywall. I had the electrician come and realign the lot even though it meant cutting ceiling drywall. Then the drywall guys came and cut large squares around cans realigned and replaced, textured and primed the areas leaving the ceiling in prestine condition.

Framing->Wiring->drywall->Can fixes->drywall fixes->painting->happy customer