Sunday, September 23, 2012

Broken home

There were some bad storms that moved through the area on Friday night.  We were unpleasently welcomed to our home to see this.



This actually looks a lot better than it did when we arrived, because some came out and put the boards in to take some load off of the house.  We are not feeling good about this, because I know they will jack the porch roof up, finally put the columns in and consider it fixed.  I dont think something like this can happen and not seriously damage the structure of the home.

Now I know that storms happen, but it is human error that caused this.  There is more than one error at work here, the first and most obvious error is bad planning.   The porch has been there for more than a month with no columns.  The timing of getting the proper materials to complete the columns was just bad.  The 2nd error IMO was the fact that the entire porch was held up by a 2x6 board wedged into the mud hole that is the front yard.

We also were very worried to see parts of the ceiling on our 2nd floor falling off.  the drywall is wet, and I can only imagine what it looks like in the attic.  This is what happens when they tear a roof off and cover it with a tarp for a week.  It leaks, GO FIGURE.

I wish everyone involved cared 1/2 as much as our SR.  Ryan homes owes her an apology and a raise for putting her in situations were she if forced to be my PM.  She would never say this because she is a professional, but I will say it for her.  I know I can be hard to work with, and I try to not be too demanding of her.

I have been avoiding saying what I am about to say since the beginning, because I thought it was fair to judge Ryan and our PM on how they fixed the issues.  Frankly I am tired of holding it back.  Our PM is a super nice guy, but that is the only compliment I have for the guy.  In his defense he has had some serious personal life issues during our build, but this is not my problem.  This is his and Ryan's problem.  Ryan finally did the right thing and gave us an upgraded roof and a great interim PM for last week.  He was so great in fact that we don't want him to go.  He has another neighborhood that is and hour away from ours, but somehow it seems like he has spent more time in our home this week than our PM had since the beginning.  I called the interim PM on saturday to tell him that porch is falling off the building, and what do you know HE ANSWERED his phone.  What a shock, considering our PM is 8-5 Monday through Friday only.  It does not matter that work is being done on saturdays or the weekends or when the home owners come to check things out.  This is super annoying to me.  I do not have this luxury with my job, and I am sure most of you don't either.  Sure, I put some stuff off until Monday if it is not pressing, but if there is an issue, I must act.  Am I too demanding to ask that the PM inspects all of the work in every home everyday?  Is to too much to ask for them to make sure no one unplugged the sump pump before the basement floods?  Is it too much to ask to expect your PM to hold the trades accountable for the work they perform, or actually fix items that the home owner notices in a timely manner?  After having a far better PM for a week I am even more confident that this is not too much to ask, because he was doing all of this without me even asking.

Are we happy with most aspects of our new home? Yes.
Are we %100 happy with our SR?  Yes.
Would I do this all over again and build? Not in a million years.

I will ask myself these questions again in 2 weeks when we have our house and I really hope I answer yes to all 3.

Now for something positive to make my post fair and balanced.  Our new roof is done and looks great.

3 comments:

  1. Wow! I can't believe all the things you are going through. I hope your PM steps up and takes care of everything to your satisfaction. It's too bad that your fill-in PM couldn't be your permanent PM. I'm just sorry that you are dealing with that. I would be crushed to drive up to the house and see that :(

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  2. Don't blame Ryan, blame the Wicked Witch of the West, or East. I can't remember which one is still alive.

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  3. OMG! I can't imagine what you must have felt seeing this! Thank God it was still under construction and make the adequate repairs and check it once and check it twice or hire an inspector to make sure they don't patch it together!! BTW--I STILL love your exterior colors!!

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