New build issues with local area builder.
- Thread starter cdnlngld
- Start date
Gotta be the pink bathroom tile or maybe the avocado kitchen appliances.
There are some good and bad about 1950's - 1960's house. The bad being the poor windows and poor insulation. When it was -25 the other night I put my hand on the argon filled e-glass windows and they were cool but not that cold. Same night a friend was posting pictures of an ice glacier growing on his 1970's window.
Before we bought our house built in ‘52 the previous owners had blown a **** ton of the highest quality insulation in. It’s real nice. The original windows do get cold but taking those things out in this neighborhood you might as well kiss reselling the place goodbye.
Glad to hear OP finally got the builder to inspect the problem better. I hate to admit it but for some reason certain types of businesses think they can pull a fast one over on a female too as it sounds like they didn't put the effort into inspecting it closer until after you personally got involved. Had to deal with that kind of crap myself with a car dealer trying to screw my wife over on a car repair until I took the car in myself and got a totally different story about what needed to be done. If you don't get it resolved to your satisfaction a complaint with the BBB should hopefully get their attention.
And 20's for humidity is nothing, he is full of it thinking that is the root cause. We have a whole house humidifier on our furnace and I keep our humidity in the 40's and never had it cause problems like yours. We tend to keep ours a little on the higher side because both our kids would have problems with ear infections if they got a prolonged cold so we try to keep the air from getting too dry which helps out.
And 20's for humidity is nothing, he is full of it thinking that is the root cause. We have a whole house humidifier on our furnace and I keep our humidity in the 40's and never had it cause problems like yours. We tend to keep ours a little on the higher side because both our kids would have problems with ear infections if they got a prolonged cold so we try to keep the air from getting too dry which helps out.
Our previous home was built in 1956 and agree that the older builds seem to be better quality than new these days. The only thing about older homes around here though is the basements tend to have water issues because the foundations usually weren't built with as great of water proofing as they do today. Ours didn't even have a sump pump in it when we bought it and when we had one put in we found that the basement floor concrete was barely a few inches thick in some places and was nothing but clay underneath that so didn't have a layer of gravel to help filter the water to the sump pit as well as it should. There was a clay tile around the outside that drained into the floor drain but had my doubts how effective it was not knowing if any of it may have collapsed or plugged. Looking back wish I had them install new tile inside all around the exterior walls as the sump did help some but when you got a really wet period like we had last year with flooding it would eventually start seeping water in around the footings.
Kinzler is pretty conscientious about doing good work, but sometimes the applicator doesn't care enough. 14" is about an R-40, so yes, 4" inches more would be a help. I've worked with them enough to know that they will rectify any of their screw-ups. They will come out and use a thermal laser to figure out where you need more insulation blown in. You definitely should not be getting anything freezing on the drywall.
Go about 45 minutes east of you and you will see that in a few towns. One town has houses built by only 2-3 main builders since WWII. They were tight with the city and would buy all new development, then require they built the houses. If you didn’t want them, be prepared to buy an acreage or buy an old house and tear it down.
Our builder only has one complaint with the BBB, so I trust they have a LOT of satisfied customers in the Ames area.
An update for those that are interested: Saturday, while at the game, I get a call rom my wife stating that there is now a drip in the living room ceiling! I leave the game early to go home and see what I can see. Not much to see from the outside.... most of the snow has melted by this point, but I am thinking that we did have a resulting ice dam from all of the warm air leaking out. We made some calls and after a few tries to the emergency contact # we get a response. I asked if we should drill a hole in the ceiling to help drain any possible water buildup and they said don't worry about it we will make some calls and get someone out as soon as possible, but it may not be until Mon. before they can get someone. Fast forward to today, the insulation guy goes up into the crawl space and snaps a picture of a gaping hole in the insulation behind the siding in the soffit! My wife had previously mentioned that she asked to see the pictures that the previously mentioned foreman had taken, but he refused to show her. I guess we now know why! Hopefully this is the extent of everything so far, and they can make the repairs and get everything up to snuff. If they don't make it right what are my recourses? Anyone have any experience moving into a a new build lemon house?
Yes, we ave a 1 year builder's warranty..... And to be fair, they are getting people out here to look at things, and get them fixed, but My concern is, if they had an issue like this after less than two months, what other things are we going to find? I think we might have dodged a bullet with this one, but what if this had been a little less severe? It could have been something that we might have missed, and after years of not knowing it was there and not addressing it, we could have been looking at thousands of dollars in repairs for mold, rot, etc. It just shakes my confidence in the overall quality of the build.
You might consider hiring a good home inspector to give your place a going over, before your warranty expires.
@cdnlngld I'm still curious who the builder is. Drop the dime on them!
Unfortunately there is never a way to know unless you get a quality inspector to go through everything. I have a buddy in Ankeny that I would trust with all my home concerns. He's a great friend from church. It will cost a few hundred, but if you are worried I think this is the only way to ease your mind. Maybe you could get the builder to cover the cost. My guess is that they won't, they will say they have done what Chuck will do for you.
https://wiemannhomeinspection.com/
Yes I am strongly considering doing this. Just so we have an independent eye on things.
When we moved in to new construction we had a 3rd party inspector come out. They found a ton of ****. A ton of stupid lazy **** to be more precise.
It doesn’t really matter who the builder is—it’s who the subcontractor was for any particular problem area that comes up. The framers are their own company. The roofers are subs. The finish carpenter isn’t an employee either. Each trade is independent and most builders are fishing from the same big pond. I’ve seen the same subs working on $500,000 homes and the a month later are banging out work on $200,000 spec homes. You’d think with the half million dollar home you’d get better quality. Maybe you are with materials—but the same joes are doing the work and if they suck or are lazy then it doesn’t matter.
But it is the responsibility of the contractor that hired them to ensure that their installations are completed to the quality that it should be.
