A framing inspection isn't a mystery. Inspectors across Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin work off the same short list on every job, and after 1,000-plus units we can tell you what's on it. Timing first: the framing inspection happens after the roof is on and the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing rough-ins are complete — because every hole those trades cut is part of what's being inspected — and before anything gets covered with insulation. Here's what they're actually looking at.
Shear Wall Nailing and Hardware
On commercial and multi-family jobs this is the first stop. The inspector will have the shear wall schedule in hand and check edge nailing spacing against it, wall by wall. The classic fails: field nailing at edge spacing (or vice versa), overdriven nails blown through the sheathing face — which don't count — and missed panel edge blocking. Hardware gets the same scrutiny: hold-downs installed, tightened, and on the correct anchor; straps and clips with a fastener in every hole, not most of them. Simpson didn't punch those holes for decoration.
Load Path: Bearing, Headers, and Stacking
Inspectors trace point loads down. A girder truss lands on a header, the header lands on jack studs, the jacks land on a wall below, and something carries it all the way to the foundation — squash blocks or blocking through the floor system where a bearing wall crosses floor trusses. The common miss is a beam with full bearing on the plans and an inch and a half of bearing in the field, or jack studs that quietly became one where the schedule said two.
Truss Bracing and Alterations
Two things here. Permanent truss bracing has to match the manufacturer's layout package — web bracing, bottom chord bracing, and it needs to be there before inspection, not on the punch list. And no truss gets cut, notched, or drilled, ever, without an engineered repair letter. A plumber's notch in a truss chord without paperwork is an automatic fail, and the repair letter takes longer to get than the fix takes to install.
Fire Blocking and Draft Stopping
In our experience this is the single most common framing inspection fail in multi-family work. Concealed vertical spaces have to be blocked at each floor line and at ten-foot intervals: tops of walls, soffits and dropped ceilings, stair stringers, mechanical chases, and the gap behind that furred-out wall nobody thought about. Every trade penetration through a fire block has to be sealed. Inspectors carry flashlights for exactly this.
Notching, Boring, and the Trades That Came Behind Us
The frame that passed a walkthrough in week six can fail inspection in week ten because of what got cut during rough-ins — over-notched bearing studs, joists bored too close to the edge, missing protection plates over pipes and wires. It isn't the framer's saw that did it, but it's the framing inspection it fails on. That's why we walk every building behind the rough-in trades and repair or flag damage before anyone calls the inspector.
Our Pre-Inspection Walk
- Shear schedule in hand, spot-check nailing on every tagged wall
- Every hanger: correct hanger, correct nails, every hole filled
- Hold-downs, straps, and clips complete and tight
- Fire blocking at every floor line, chase, and soffit
- Truss bracing checked against the layout package
- MEP damage documented and repaired, letters in hand where needed
A failed framing inspection usually costs a week or more once you count corrections, rescheduling, and the trades stacked up behind insulation. Passing on the first call is a scope item, not luck — it's built into how we run our framing services, and it's how buildings like our Rogers senior living project kept drywall crews on schedule instead of waiting on corrections.
Want a framing sub whose buildings pass on the first call? Send us your plans and let's talk about your next start.