FED UP!

I haven't  blogged in a while and unfortunately, this isn't a loving review of my current situation.....

It’s actually sad to feel this way but after trying time after time to overlook and hope things get better…but NO!  Things have not gotten better and the more time goes on, the more those “Ryan Home Myths” seem to be our reality.

We have been in our home for a little over 1 year. We closed on February 20, 2015 and today is May 9, 2016…

From our poor project manager who came off as a cheap used car salesman only trying to hit a quota to our sad excuse of a NEW HOUSE…I would say NEW HOME, but it doesn’t feel like a home.  It feels like that house on Money Pit...

From day one we have had issues.  Our banisters on our stairs were the wrong color.  He pulls another set from the storage container that are supposed to be close to our stain…better yet he claims they are new.  I mentioned how bad the banisters felt and was told that’s just a product of the material. The finishing’s are not done right they have cracks and chips, but yet again we are just supposed to accept it because that’s how it is.  You know what I think- he had an extra banister laying around from another mix-up so let’s try to pull one over on the new homeowners. As long as he gets his 10’s on his survey everything will get fixed…yeah right…

Next issue…flooring…we have the carpet in the entire upstairs minus the bathrooms and laundry area. Downstairs we have vinyl and carpet.  We have questioned the flooring since the framing stage.  When we noticed nails in the subfloor were not actually in the studs we were told “Oh that’s normal.  That’s why we screw and glue the floors as well”.  From week 1 we have had issues with the floor.  At the top of the stairs we had a crown in the hall between bedroom 2 &3.  Workers came and pulled the carpet up brought in a new piece of plywood and sander to try and fix the area.  The crown is gone but now it’s like a depression…I know it may seem like I’m complaining but as a public school teacher I took a huge risk to go with Ryan Homes and trusted them with my savings and my families future with this investment. 

Our floors to this day are not right…we have pops and creaking in almost every room.  The kitchen, and upstairs bathrooms are the worse.  You can almost bounce on the floors and hear them pop and squeak.  My house sounds like a 100 year old home, yet it’s not even two years old.  The service manager and his team have tried and tried to fix our floors.  They have been in the crawl space trying to shim the joist, they have cut holes in my ceilings trying to fix squeaks upstairs. These guys have put in countless hours trying to get it right…but you know what even they are puzzled as to why our floors are so bad.  I can tell you why…poor project managing…they sub contract out to the cheapest bidder in certain areas and they are trying to meet deadlines as opposed to building quality homes.   

We are so fed up we wish we could just give the home back and move.  I really wish the CEO or COO would come walk my home and tell me that this is an acceptable Ryan Home finished product.  We’ve even been told “we don’t promise you a squeak free home”.  Well you know what a few squeaks might have been ok.  However, it’s quite embarrassing to have people over and when they walk around your NEW HOUSE they stop and ask is everything ok?  Is it ok to walk over here?  It’s just sad and extremely frustrating to put your trust in people and they constantly fail you. We are past our one year walk-thru and our floors are still horrible.   Seams from previous repairs are undone.  Floors still popping, squeaking, cracking…..it’s bad.

What’s next?

Drywall.  So after your first year you get a courtesy drywall repair for nail pops, cracks, bulges etc.  Well let’s just say ours didn’t go well.  Our Naples is 3011sqft…we asked on the day of our walk through would they be sending a crew or just one person.  We were told they would send a crew.  Well they sent one guy and his female assistant.  Neither spoke fluent English, so trying to explain or address our issues wasn’t easy because of the language barrier.  To speed this up…they did NOTHING to repair nail pops.  They scrapped over it and then added putty.  After the putty dried they sanded certain areas and then attempted to paint.  Needless to say after arriving at 8 it was approaching 6:30 and they weren’t close to being done.  But here is the main problem…they used the wrong paint on our home and so therefore it looks like someone played Tetris on our walls and ceiling.  They also left a HUGE mess and missed several spots.   There’s more but honestly I’m just tired of it…Thankfully, the service manager came two days later and was appalled.  He had our house cleaned (which was amazing) and is sending a new TEAM to come work on our drywall.  Hopefully this TEAM doesn’t leave their trash behind for me to clean, they actually REPAIR the nail pops, and they use the correct paint. 

 

Here is the ceiling in my daughters room....See all the paint squares?

 

Some of the spots they missed the first time around.

 

Lastly because honestly I’m just sad and frustrated…yesterday I noticed a stream of water running between my house and the neighbors.  So after looking into I find that a pipe is leaking under my home in the crawl space.  Leaking is an understatement…..Of course I’m worried it’s not covered but plumbing is covered for two years.  I read the manual over and over before calling.  I even had my husband read it when he came home.  All of this to be told oh no it’s not covered by the plumber and Ryan Homes.  The plumber says you must pay $95/hr to get the work done.  I was furious so I called back to Ryan Homes customer service and the gentleman proceeds to try and find any and every way to not cover the repair.  I point out the pages in the homeowner manual where it says it covered.  He puts me on hold to try and find the exclusions.  Then he says he has to call me back so he can go and check somewhere else to prove me wrong.  Thanks again Ryan Homes. Way to make me feel appreciated. NOPE you’re still up to the same tricks…get your money, get through your first year and then kick us to the curb.  The customer service guy calls back 10 minutes later….yeah I can’t find anything to dispute your argument…Really, so I would lie or make this all up?

Dear RYAN HOMES…I really hope you fix your practices and I really hope you fix your customers service. Most of all I really hope you fix our issues!  I really hope you start making your customers feel appreciated and thankful they chose you. Because right now I DON’T.  SAD, MAD, AND FED UP!

So we are in here!

I'm soooo tired!  We moved Friday after closing and have been rolling since.  We have almost finished unpacking so that's good.  We had tons of boxes and I'd say we are down to around 15 left.

A lot has happened this past week!  I don't even know where to begin. 

So Monday, we had a "kind of" walk thru with our PM.  We pointed out things that we wanted fixed and that was that.  We also got a lot of snow for our area....6 inches!  I know you people up north are used to it, but its a lot to us!  During this time, we noticed our rails inside the house were stained the wrong color.  We also pointed out a lot of issues with the exterior which can't be addressed until the weather is warmer.  I'm glad my PM offered to meet with us earlier this week because he knew I was apprehensive about having our orientation the day before closing.  I will say that if you can avoid this and get things rescheduled....do NOT have your orientation the day before closing.

Tuesday, we were supposed to have our personal inspection, but he couldn't make it out due to the weather.

Thursday, we had our new home orientation and our inspection.   A lot of the things that we discussed on Monday were taken care of, but our floors (vinyl) looked awful and the rail still was not correct.  We also noticed that we could see the pad under the carpet in our master bedroom because the carpet was cut too short.  Our PM said they could fix it by basically using a tool that would push it under the baseboard.  We got all of the things we wanted fixed in writing....things to be fixed before closing and things to be fixed when the weather permits.  Our PM told us to call so he could show us everything was corrected before closing

Friday,  I had to run errands with the kiddos.  After I was done, I called my PM and he couldn't meet......anyway, we closed!  It was fast.....just a ton of signatures and we were out of there. NVR has been a joy to work with.  Everyone was prompt with emails and any questions I may have had.  I would highly recommend using NVR to anyone purchasing a Ryan Home. 

After closing, I ran by Home Depot to pick up a few things and got on the interstate.....with a FLAT TIRE!  Let me tell you, sitting on the side of I-95 on one of the coldest days of the year with cars going at least 70mph is no fun.  Luckily a friend who was helping my husband load up the truck was able to help me out.... it was repaired quickly and I was able to finally see our house!  The floors look a million times better, but they still missed several spots.  The carpet in the bedroom was not fixed.  The rail was not correct. The kitchen was dirty....dust was everywhere....cabinets, appliances, pantry....everywhere.   Even though those things were not satisfactory, we were still excited to be moving into our house.  Blinds started going up, beds were set up, and I was able to start unpacking the kitchen.

Saturday, we had a friend put the rest of the blinds up (awesome friend) and did a ton of unpacking.

Today we had our cable, internet, and phone set up in addition to an electrician (another friend) putting in all of our lights and ceiling fans.  Lights make such a huge difference!  We didn't do anything fancy, just needed to get some lights in!

Overall, I am very happy with how things have turned out.  I will say to make sure you speak up if you see something that you don't like.  Don't assume obvious things will be fixed.  For us, we just need for things that were promised to be fixed, to be fixed correctly and not some quick temporary fix.

I will post pictures at some point this week!

Week 11

13 days to go!  This time in two weeks, we should be moving in to our new home!  I’m so excited!

 

A lot has been going on this week.   Our granite counter tops were put in the kitchen this week and they look great.  I love the way the kitchen is coming together!  We should be getting appliances this week.   Here are some pictures of the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

Our vinyl flooring also was put down this week.  I absolutely love the way it looks.  While most of it is covered, I did pull the covering back to get a few pictures.  It looks very nice and I feel is a nice alternative to hardwoods if they are outside of your budget.  One day we will get hardwoods, but this is great for now.

 

The master bathroom now has tile.  The ceramic tile came with our package and we just stuck with the standard.  I really like how it came out.   I’m also really excited about our shower with the seat.  Even though I'm not excited about keeping that glass clean!

 

 

Here are some more pictures of the inside.

Master Closet

Loft

Bedroom

Laundry

Living room

Dining room

Family room

Powder room

 

 

Here are some exterior pictures.   I’m so excited about the porch and I really love the recessed lights.  Oh, our irrigation system was also put in this week!  While we were visiting the house, they were working on grading the yard.

We have a driveway!

Exterior lights

 

Porch with recessed lights

 

We walked through the house with our PM’s assistant and we did notice that our extra dedicated outlet in the garage is in the wrong location.  It should be beside our steps, but instead it’s behind the water heater.  He said it will be fixed, so that makes us happy.  Not sure why it was put there when it’s clearly marked on our paperwork to be beside the steps.   There are also a couple of spots in the subfloor that we are concerned about….the best way to describe it is that they give when you step on them.   Our PM’s assistant said that when carpet goes in the flooring people will make sure it’s nailed down correctly. 

There are a lot of little details that we are watching closely and a lot of work that still has to be done.  More drywall, more paint, more trim……I'm sure they will do everything to make sure we love the final product.  This is a huge investment and we want it to be as close to perfect as possible.  We ask a lot of questions and I will say that our PM’s and SR do an awesome job of answering everything and trying to put our minds at ease.   

So what’s next?  Appliances, carpet, sod, and detail work.   I can't believe it's almost finished!

 

Early Week 9.....They are watching us!

Ryan Homes that is!  Yup, they read our blogs.   Am I the only one who didn’t realize this?!! LOL! Guess that was really naïve of me.

How did I find this out?  My PM….in a meeting we had today.  I greatly appreciate my PM calling me to have a meeting after my request and after he read my blog.  While my Week 8 post wasn’t the happiest post, it was honest and how I felt.  After our meeting today, I do feel better.  He explained the water on the floor….a long explanation but a plumber came out to make sure there were no leaks.  He explained that wood that looked all crazy on the porch….they use that wood for nailing the vinyl stuff.   He explained all the workings of drywall and let us walk in the house to take a look.  We also discussed the trim above and around the windows….hopefully they can remain white.  It just looks SOOOOO much better.   

I’m not happy that I’ve been banned from the house without our PM.  I hate that policy.  I really do think that at this point in construction we should be able to visit our sites as long as no one is working.  While I do understand it’s a liability issue, it does put a damper on the excitement of building a new home.   It’s my house that we are building, but it’s not MY house.

So what’s coming up?  Garage, columns, drive way, and paint.

We are still set for a closing date of February 20^th!  Exactly 30 days away!  Wow time has flown by.  It seems like yesterday that I was driving by our empty lot wondering when they were going to finally start!

Here are some pictures of our walk thru today. 

Dining room and living room

 

Family Room

 

 

Kitchen

 

 

Morning room

 

Bedroom

 

Master

 

Bedroom

Fun with Flooring!

We finally had our flooring appointment.  This was something that I was really excited about.   I had been talking to the flooring representative in advance so I could get an idea of the cost.  I didn't want to get there and blow our budget.

 A lot of people put hardwood in their houses because it is durable and it looks beautiful.  I love the look of hardwood floors but definitely do not love the price tag that comes along with them.  Also, after our experience with the hardwood in our current house, we knew we didn't want them in our new house.  So this left us with some limited options…..Vinyl, carpet, and tile. 

I know a lot of people turn their nose up to vinyl....I know this because I was one of those people, but vinyl has come a very long way and there are a lot of nice options out there.  So we upgraded our vinyl flooring to one that looks like hardwood.  With two young children and a dog we needed something with easy cleanup!  We also had to get permission for a non-standard….putting the wood like vinyl in our living room and dining room.  Who thought that putting carpet in a dining room was a good idea?!?!?  Food and carpet do not mix!    We did upgrade the carpet and pad in the family room which will be a high traffic area.  We decided to stick with the standard carpet and pad for upstairs. One day we will change it, but it will do for now.   We put ivory ceramic tile in our master bath….nothing fancy. 

Here are some pictures of our selections. 

The vinyl flooring with our St. Celia granite and Maple Cognac Cabinet

Bathroom vinyl and cabinets.  The master and guest bathroom will have the same stuff. 

Everything all together

Handrail will match the vinyl.