The challenge of being a home builder today?

[Jack in omaha]

The challenge of being a home builder today? Is it possible to be a fine homebuilder today? My daughter is building and it seems thed mistakes of the sub are present on every job? I am astounded by the mistakes. Every one item is wrong and most are non English speakers. But the problems are equally distributed! The tile guy was English speaking but he never looked at the blueprints for heated bathroom floor. We caught his error but he removed the tile then laid the heating product on top of the sub floor . The heating and ac guys also English speakers were testing why the zoning system did not work found the baffle was installed backwards.The carpet was being laid Saturday we stopped them it was the wrong carpet! The window in stairway were in wrong place and had to be removed and moved. The downstairs bathroom was finished when the electrician discovered there was no vent exhaust duct. The master bath lights were wrong and had to reordered the backslash tile in kitchen was wrong. This is a very good builder he has 100 homes going up in 3 price ranges. The super on her house quit to go to work for a window company. The new foreman has 32 homes under his responsibility.

And her garage floor has a large gap under one door where you can see daylight lets mice bugs ect in. How do the fix that?

[Bob10]

The builder is far from good and with 100 homes going up there is no way he ever planned on proper oversight. The best plan of action on her part is start looking for an attorney now or getting out of the contract altogether

[Jack in omaha]

So is it possible to find one they all use the same pool of subs

Here is a look at finished product.
It sells for about $495,000 with a fully finished basement. He is making things right but I am shocked at the errors. And it extends to the suppliers mistakes as well.

finished project

[Bob10]

an attorney at the ready is always a good idea when you find yourself in this type situation along with an independent inspector on your dime. I doubt building inspection is in your daughter's wheel house so bringing in a pro on her side is worth doing. I know it is an added expense but money spent before getting the keys will be less than finding all the problems after moving in and the builder is no where to be found.

I have purchased many places build by kaufman and broad not great builders by any means but in the first place I had a water leak. I called them to report a failed plumbing in a slab foundation. They sent someone right out to document how wrong I was. The contractor called me within minutes of discovering the leak was inside a wall and caused by a nail holding up the siding that eventually wore through the pipe it narrowly missed during construction. He was quite happy to tell me I was wrong about the foundation and he was loading up and leaving. I was quick to point out the siding was put up by them and that he needed to repair the pipe, wall and replace the carpet before packing up altogether. The tone of his voice changed and the work got done.

[crokett™]

Bob10 said:

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The builder is far from good and with 100 homes going up there is no way he ever planned on proper oversight. The best plan of action on her part is start looking for an attorney now or getting out of the contract altogether

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This sounds exactly like my building experience last year, and we did end up bringing an attorney in. The builder decided it was suddenly more urgent to finish the house after that. My house was delivered from the factory and set on 24 July. The field guy for the company quit on 23 July. The builder at that time had 27 homes on the ground, including mine, and we had issues similar to the OP, though not as severe. It took my builder 4 months to drill a well, install a septic field, build a garage and finish about 700 sqft upstairs. There was really only one delay that could be blamed on the factory. The rest of it was just too many houses on the ground. The irony is t he day after we got the keys, the builder hired 2 more people.

[Robert Adams]

Unfortunately it's a sign of the times. It's not just construction it's the modern lack of work ethic.

Also residential construction is worse than commercial because the profit margins are smaller for the subs. Back when I did commercial refrigeration we would bid on a few houses here and there and we rarely got any to do. The low bids would often be $200 more than our cost of materials. I don't know how these subs could do it that cheap unless they were using stolen equipment...

I have a friend that was having bids for a custom house... All the builders said it would take a year to a year in a half from start to finish. I couldn't believe it would take them that long. It takes 6 to 8 weeks to build a fast food restaurant and there is a whole lot more to that then a simple house...

The key to building anything quickly and quality is for the builder to have as many of their own crews as possible and sub out as little as you have to and only to trusted subs, not to whoever low bids the job. Relying on subs for everything is a recipe for disaster.

[Jack in omaha]

yes but I was under the impression that this builder had loyal long time subs recently I was startled to see English speaking workers on the site. They were ac heat contractor, electricians and tile installer and carpet layers.... My area has huge new home construction activity lots of 399k to 900k homes and with 3 5/8 interest mortgage money you get a lot of house for a monthly payment on p+i

And at that rate build out of a very deluxe basement finish on walk out lot just made it like a Sunday with a big cherry on top

these jobs pay very well so I wonder what happens if they deport the non speakers here illegally?

[mad_planter]

Judging from the quality of the workmanship in the average hotel I'm not sure I agree that commercial quality is better.

[meackerman]

My FIL was a long time custom home general contractor (50+ years), and he was using the same subs for years and years, as his subs retired or died, he found it very hard to find new subs that would meet his standards.

He retired last year and doesn't have to worry about it anymore. The only thing he works on now is my place and I'm his only sub. So if the work isn't up to my standards, its my fault.

[Curlycherry]

Unfortunately you are seeing the situation as it has become. And that is why I did my own remodelling all the way from design to doing 75% of the work myself. And that is why I helped my friend build his house and shop all the way from clearing the land, to design to finish, again doing 75% of the work. Even when we had to turn stuff over to subs, like the plumbing in my friend's house, they flat out ignored the prints and did whatever they wanted. Example: they were to home run pex and tie it to hot and cold manifolds. They didn't and ran it traditional. So they had to tear almost all of it out and start over. Even the owner of the company was trying to say it was no big deal and the homeowner would be happier with the way his crew ran it. Only when a lawyer got involved did the plumbing contractor agree to tear it all out and start over. Oh, and his crew plumbed the waste system in one branch to the second floor without taking a temp cap out of the line. They found that out when the waste lines backed up to the second floor. What a mess that was.