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!

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

Week 8

This week was a busy week for our Naples.  There is a lot to talk about so this post will be LONG…..

After our pre-drywall meeting our PM told us the following time line for this week:  Insulation would go in on Saturday and siding and drywall would go in on Monday.  He also said the concrete in our garage would go in at some point this week. 

Since a lot of things will be happening to the inside of our house I told our PM that I wanted to start meeting weekly to see the progress.  Our PM told us at our pre-construction meeting that we were never to enter the house without him.  We honestly have followed his instructions and stayed out of the house.   Since my husband and I both work, I told our PM that we would not be able to meet until 4:00pm or later for our meetings.  Our PM wasn’t too excited about this and FINALLY gave us permission to go into the house after hours and on the weekends.  Note that I have taken full advantage of his offer!

So on Monday, I went to the house to see what was going on!  Insulation had been installed.  There was one minor problem….that leak that I talked about last week was still there.  I brought it up to our PM and he basically said that everything will be perfect before we move in.  No drywall.

 

Tuesday, I drove by the house and they had started working on the siding!  They had completed the back and sides of the house.  They work really fast! Still no drywall. 

 

Here are some cell phone pictures....

 

 

We had a snow day on Wednesday so I didn’t stop by the house.

Thursday they had started putting the siding on the front of the house.  The concrete for the garage had also been poured.  It all looks really nice.  Since no one was working, I decided to take a little tour of the house.  Our drywall had been delivered and was sitting on the floor in all of the rooms.  Now, back to that leak….you know the one in the kitchen???  Well someone thought it would be a good idea to put our drywall on that leak and now water was leaking on the drywall.  I also noted another spot in the kitchen where water was leaking from an above pipe.  As I was leaving, I noticed something going on with some of the wood in the roof of our porch.  I took pictures of the leaks and the porch and sent them to our PM…I’m documenting everything.  There is no way you will say I didn’t tell you or that you didn’t know! 

 

 

Here is the first leak and drywall

 

2nd leak:

 

 

 

 

Here is the porch thing I was talking about....what's the deal with that separated wood by the recessed light? 

 

 

Well here we are today….Friday!!  I have played phone tag all day with my PM and have sent him another email, to which I expect no response and I’m sure I won’t get a phone call until Monday at this point (did he forget about that little survey at the end of this experience?).  Our siding is done and it looks really nice.  I am pleased with mostly everything.  I just really wish Ryan Homes would do something better than the tiny samples they give you to pick out colors for an entire house!  Now that we can see the colors on a much larger scale, we actually like the white trim that is currently on the house.  We originally picked beige trim.  We think it will be too much beige in the end if they paint everything beige.  Since we were at the house we visited our SR at the model and he basically told us since our garage door is beige that the trim has to be beige.  He also said that after we close we can paint it any color since we don’t technically have an HOA (another post for another day).   So my question is this….if we can paint it after we close, why can’t you just keep it white like we want??!?!?!?  Well I emailed our PM again….and of course you know how that goes. 

Here is the siding with some white trim:

 So let’s rewind to earlier today….I was thinking about the house and wondering why drywall hadn’t gone up.  I remember my PM stating that there were some inspections that were supposed to happen this week and then a light bulb went off!  We must have failed an inspection L

After some research on my counties inspection website, I found out why we had a delay.  They failed the counties framing inspection.  This is disappointing for a couple of reasons.  1) Our PM never said anything about this failed inspection 2) Our personal inspection happened minutes before the counties inspection and the only thing our inspector noted was some water under the house.  Now I know our personal inspector might not check for the same things as the county inspector, but it is still disappointing.   They finally passed the framing inspection on Wednesday….the drywall was delivered on Thursday….and WE FINALLY HAVE DRYWALL TODAY!

 

Living room looking into dining room

Family Room

 

Kitchen

Morning Room

 

 

I’ve been reading RH blogs since before we signed our contract in September and there is one complaint that is pretty consistent amongst a lot of bloggers…..the quality of the drywall job is pretty bad.  I know nothing about drywall and the process, but I did note some things when I walked through our house this afternoon.  There are several places where the drywall just doesn’t look good.  I know we are in the beginning phases and there are several more steps, but I’m starting to wonder if we will be another blog that has drywall issues.  Should there be gaps in the drywall?  I know they use mud and tape to make it smooth and look seamless, but won’t gaps show as the house is settling?  This is another item added to the list of topics for our PM. 

Here are some pictures of what I'm talking about....

 

Remember that wood on the porch roof?  Well this was put up today, so I guess I’ll never know if it was actually fixed. 

 

Oh, in one of my many emails to our PM I asked if our closing date would be pushed back since drywall was delayed.  In a voicemail he said that we are still set for February 20^th.   Is that date even possible at this point?  He even told us that it was 5 weeks to closing AFTER drywall was complete.  We are exactly 5 weeks to closing today….and drywall started TODAY!

OOOOOH, and one more thing.  We did receive our official letter about our new home orientation and closing….our new home orientation is scheduled for February 19^th and closing for the 20^th.   Isn’t that too close?  What if we see things during our new home orientation?  They will have no time to fix things before we close.  I emailed our closing person and they said they would see if they can move the orientation back, but it’s pretty much set in stone. 

Wow, I told you this would be long!