When my wife and I built our Huntington home in 1991 we visited the building site every day. We selected the lot and the building plan as well as added lots of custom additions ranging from high end fixtures to additional storage areas and a drawing room.
We believed that the builder was one of the very best in our development. We had visited a number of similar floor planned homes and were suitably impressed.
When the contractors had just poured the foundation I measured it for compliance with the architect’s drawings and noticed it was a foot wider than the plans called for. I told the builder and he said it couldn’t be true because he had his best crew doing the work. Sure enough when he remeasured it was a foot wider.
All of the cabinet work, walls and plumbing had to be adjusted. They tried to get me to pay for the extra square footage and I told them I’d let the city know of their error. Turns out they had to get a waiver from the city for exceeding the necessary separation between homes. I got about another 110 sq feet out of the deal, but not without a ton of hassle.
When the builders were framing the house we saw all kinds of lax quality. They used studs, that had been finger jointed to form a single 2x4 and had started to crack, some were severely bowed, they stuffed their lunch trash into the areas which they believed would be covered by sheet rock or paneling, they buried trash in the yard and they tried to cut corners when the walls weren’t true. They would try to force them into shape by hammering them and pulling the joints apart elsewhere.
I raised hell with the builder and told them that we hadn’t closed yet and that I wouldn’t accept the home as it was currently constructed. I also called the city inspectors and told them they should inspect all of Huntington’s homes. Lastly, I raised hell with the contractors themselves. A combination of these things got the framing contractor fired and another came in to do the reconstruction work. It was at least more consistently good, but not excellent even then.
There were a number of areas which required my intervention, too. It was clear to me that the “cheapest” bidder was being hired and not the one that did the highest quality work. The truth is that I don’t think any builder does a much better job than this because shoddy work seems to be the norm among most contractors these days.
Up until I beat on the city they hadn’t sent an inspector to the property either. I’m not sure how useful they were anyway. Moral to the story, “You have to watch your builder/contractor like a hawk and complain loudly if you see something that needs to be addressed.” It still may not be effective, but it will at least make you feel better.
in the closets