Background: moved into this house two years ago. Brand new house, never lived in before. Pretty reputable builder, building maybe 60 homes a year. Finishes a notch up from the regular new home builder. So all in all good.
To save us money we decided to finish of the majority of the basement ourselves. For various reasons we did not catch these issues when we did our walk through before we moved in.
1. Problem: basement window frames sticking out further than the drywall. Remedy: saw and sand off excess and re-attach original window trim. (on a side note the frames are made of MDF, do you know how much mess that makes when sanding it?)
2. Problem; a/c making a horrendous noise on the weekend.
3. Problem: Hardwood floor squeaking in the dining room. The installers did not put the "nails" correctly so they squeak against the beam below.
Remedy: Dh installed shims on the beam to put a barrier between the beam and the nails. Builder's remedy, jump up and down on the fall, to see if it will stop squeaking..........
4. Problem: Trim around doors cut too short, so gap filled with DAP. This is so sloppy what they did.
Remedy: Well to remedy this problem means taking all the trim off and putting new trim up. Not sure what we will do. If I knew this was our forever home I would replace it all, but it isn't so will have to think about this.
5. Problem: driveway stones (interlock stones) loose due to water coming down the downspout onto the side of the driveway. Builder been told about this and has done nothing to remedy the situation.
Remedy: Redirect the downspout. Relay the stones and everything would be good. With being in a "Condo situation," we are not supposed to touch anything outside but something has to be done?
In the scheme of things none of these issues are major, but getting down to the nitty gritty of it all, if the workmen had done a correct job in the first place none of these things should have happened (other than the furnace.) They were taking short cuts and didn't care about the finished products.
Anyway, just thought I'd mention this and warn other's, just because you buy a brand new home, doesn't mean it won't have it's problems.
9 comments:
They do present problems!
We also bought a brand new home in 2002. Same thing as you, lots of little things but the builder didn't remedy any of them. One of the most frustrating? They installed a corner "lazy Susan" cabinet in the kitchen upside down. They refused to fix it because the countertops wer already installed and they woul have had to purchase new countertops. We just had to live with it until we remodeled the kitchen a few years ago to be the way we asked them to do it originally. Frustrating in all, so I DO understand. There seems to be no pride in workmanship anymore. This, too, is supposed to be a very reputable builder.
Blessings,
Betsy
There is no pride in a job well done any more. It's all quick get them built and get onto the next one. It's all about the dollar. Same problem with caravans. They pump them out that quick they are never finished correctly and they allow in their budgets for a 20% return. What ver happened to self respect and having a good name I business. I just don't know
well, it may not be major in the world arena but in your world it is. The thing is, you paid good money for what you figured was good quality work and now you are seeing where things weren't done as well as you would have liked. We moved into new construction about 10 years ago and ran across the same sort of things. I think it is just the nature of the animal, I am sorry to say. Workmanship just isn't what it was in the past.
Such a shame, I think this happens world over.
That certainly reflects badly on the builder! You shouldn't be dealing with any of those issues but thank goodness they're not too serious.
I've always bought "broken in" houses for exactly the reasons you write of. Good luck!
XO
WWW
I thought only old houses caused aggravating problems. They should have done it right the first time.
Builders just don't have any pride in workmanship anymore. The only trade we got on our reno who had extreme pride was the man who tiled our kitchen backsplash. Took him five days and he undercharged us (we tipped him in the end) based on time, but I have to say it looks fabulous and could not have been done any better. It far exceeded our expectations and if we knew how to do it, that is how it would have been done. Our brand new floors had to be refloored within one year which we lived through this week so I completely get what you are going through. This time it was the flooring company's responsibility to put the baseboards back on and touch them up. Hubby says he wants to go around and retouch up everything as again, they never get done the way you would want them. You shouldn't have to do this but unfortunately that is what new build means now.
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