If you think that's bad, you should see sometimes when the architect shows up on the job site; then they want me to buy them doughnuts.

I don't think it's a gender issue. Those subs work for the builder not you. They wouldn't treat you the same way they treat the builder (their boss) since you aren't directly paying them and aren't their direct customer. As for towel racks and such, yes you could have marked them, but wouldn't you want to supervise? I would hate any more holes in my walls than necessary.

I was trying to be subtle too. So did you hold your ground when they, ahem, had a problem with being truthful?

Am I understanding correctly that it took you 3 hours to do a walk-through for a punch list?

How big is the house, and how many issues are you finding?

I don't find the statement that "I've been here 3 hours and have other things to do" is all that rude, honestly. 3 hours really does seem like a long time to make a punch list, and that was probably the best way the guy could think to say, "please stop wasting my time..." Please note I am not saying you WERE wasting their time, because I don't know enough about the situation to have an opinion yet. However again, 3 hours for a punch list seems like a long time to me unless we're talking about a massive house with some massive issues.

Where or how are they stretching the truth?

The builder has often asked me to be there on my own because they don’t want to be bothered to show up to guide their workers. I have a job and would much rather be at work too. I have zero building knowledge. That’s why I hired a builder.
The walk through took a long time because 1) the building manager was out sick and the guy they sent had no background and 2) Although my house isn’t big, the work is so shoddy, many things are wrong. They even installed my bathroom vanity on the wrong side which I jet go months ago because I didn’t want to damage the vanity
Is it my fault that it took forever to mark shoddy drywall and paint? 3 inch Holes in the garage wall. Lites hung in the wrong place and crooked. Fixtures such as toilet tissue holders that were marked but not hung even when I was there to show them because the worker didn’t know how to do it.
The builder should’ve looked at the house to see if it was ready for a walk through. We had an electric plan and we went through the house months ago with the electrician to place every fixture. I had exact instructions from my lighting designer how to hang three living room fixtures. The guy hung them wrong so the guy the day of the WT there wanted to mark the ceiling and had to leave to find a ladder. The patio not the shape in the blueprint.
They wasted my time. I shouldn’t have been asked to do a walkthrough if the house wasn’t ready.
My counter people didn’t need any supervision and everything installed was perfect. The WIC people completed the closet perfectly and it took a half hour to check it out and caulk a few corners.
This is T on me, it’s in them.

Your treatment is poor and inexcusable, but unfortunately common to customers of all ages and genders.

Do you currently own the project or in the process of buying? If you own, demand a key/combo, otherwise make more appointments. If they can't accommodate you in a timely manner, the project closing will be delayed and cost them more time and money to complete.

Use online floor plans to mark/scan & communicate notes to them.

@Terry, we were dealing with very similar issues with our builder. We had no problems with anybody who did our kitchen, countertops, sprinkler system, deck railing, shower glass. The materials which we were supposed to supply and passed to builder were not taken care of, put in mud, placed on dirty floors while trimming was done and saw dust was floating, things being damaged and dealing with a lot of excuses and not showing up on site as we were told.

I’m not sure about the ownership. I have a construction to permanent loan. Thank you for your kind comment. I’d do anything they need but they have to guide me. I don’t know how to build a house.
I HAD access. Then I guess they change the code at the end of the process. No one bothered to tell me.

J sk. !!!

For the record, I’m a business person. I know the builder has to make a profit. I never negotiated or asked for a better price. They agreed to build a house at that price and should deliver as agreed in the contract.

You own if you have a const to perm loan.

"you have blocked access to my home, I need a key asap"

One other thing they lied about. In my contract is an allowance for retractable screens. As we all know prices have increased and they were way underpriced. The BM said they wouldn’t do this because they no longer had the installer. This is crazy. They build houses all over central FL. They were the ones who put it in the contract. Then my other contact at the builder said there were supply chain issues. My realtor gave me a name for an installer and the guy came out and can install them in two weeks. The builder had underpriced then so lied to get out of it. I think this is unethical.

Thank you Mr. Gantz. I didn’t mention that I already own the land.

And VERBO, I was wrong to call the gender card. I just don’t understand why they were bullying me to not have to fix things that are clearly in my contract and clearly specified on the blueprint and electrical plans and were wrong.

Owning the land IS owning everything built on the land. They are stretched thin, impacted by supply chain & COVID, but they still need to get your home completed properly without (them) whining.

Regarding allowances.... often they lag price increases. You would pay the difference anyway - higher allowance = higher overall price, so this is not a hill to die on. (a couple of clients reduced allowances by $50K+ to make the loan work, then were upset when they exceed them). They need to credit the allowance given.

The plumber was too lazy to read and may be someone's former plumber soon.

Regarding "builder integrity"

Organizations sometimes (often) don't operate the way the boss envisions. Software, websites, superintendents, etc. Assume the boss would want this done correctly & with courtesy.

Escalate until satisfied.

It was rude.

You are also the customer. You are also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the largest investment of your life.

You don't have to make peace with his behavior.

You had 3 choices, give up and leave like he wanted, ask him to stay longer to support his customer, or let him go and tell him you'll follow up with your list via email.

Don't get distracted by the rudeness. You have a job to do and an investment to protect. Do what you need to, to get what you paid for. He's taking advantage of the fact that he thinks you'll fold and let him off the hook.

I would gladly have paid the overage because I thought the builder would have better resources. I guess it’s a good thing because now I can hire someone else who will do this right.

Building a new home is one of the most stressful things I've ever done. It's so hard to know you're paying a whole lot of your own hard-earned money for something, and then to know that the house you aren't getting isn't perfect in return.

Building a house involves thousands of hours of work and multiple people and trades, and sometimes things will go wrong, or take longer than anyone had hoped. Mistakes will happen. The biggest challenge for me was letting go of the idea of perfection, and then trying to evaluate the cost/benefit of what to focus on vs. accepting and moving on.

Throw in Covid and staffing and supply chain challenges, and building in this current environment has to be so much worse that what I went through several years ago now.

I tell you all of this just so you know it's fairly common to feel so stressed out at this stage. You're getting close to the finish line so you just want. it. done. It's easy to focus on the exact particular thing that your particular builder is doing wrong - but if it helps at all, if you read other posts here basically almost every home owner is hanging by a thread at the end.

You’re right JJ.

You’re kind to take the time to answer Patricia. There is no such thing as perfection but I think the builder should correct things to the best of his ability. Thanks for the pep talk. It’s nice to know others face the same challenges.

An observation.

From what you've said the builder does seem less than ideal, both in the quality of their work and lacking good character and integrity. If so then they certainly need to be held accountable. The building industry has way too many such people.

HOWEVER, from your other thread about tearing out a wall for shower/tub fixtures... You do not communicate clearly. I can easily see your builder, subs and suppliers becoming extremely frustrated both with lack of understanding what you're trying to communicate and with thinking they'd understood what you said and only later hearing something totallly different from you. Becasuse both of those happened in that thread.

In hindsight you should have had an architect oversee the project for you. They could have done a good job of translating your desires and expectations in to what the builder understands. It's too late for that.

At this point I would hire someone to work with you who can help you to understand things, communicate clearly and unemotionally with the builder and find workable and agreeable solutions to the problems.

^^ I think this response is fairly offensive. there's nothing in either thread that points to the OP being emotional - but she did say she was a woman...

"^^ I think this response is fairly offensive. there's nothing in either thread that points to the OP being emotional - but she did say she was a woman..."

Emotional in this case has nothing to do with her being a woman but with her being the homeowner. When it's my home we're talking about I (a man last I looked) can be much more emotional than if it's someone else's home.

He actually didn't say the OP was emotional, he said she didn't communicate clearly.

OTOH, as someone who has written considerably about men's and women's endocrine systems, in particular the roles of Oxytocin and other neuropeptides, as well as reading various studies on these every week... Women have very different emotions than men and react differently. AND this is not at all something that women should be ashamed of nor offended by. It's physiology and part of what makes women who they are. It's not worse than men's emotions nor better - it's different. It's part of the package and a quite wonderful package at that.

I really wish I hadn’t said the woman part. Maybe the guy was just a jerk. But it is a macho industry.

Opaone. I’m not a plumber. I may not be able to explain the plumbing issue but they understood the problem and basically said tough. Today, someone higher up in the company called and offered a solution. That’s all I wanted. And if there was no solution I would’ve lived with it because I felt heard as a customer.

There was nothing in the shower thread that was especially difficult to understand for anyone with any experience in plumbing. I left the plumbing business 26 years ago and still knew exactly what was going on two seconds in.

The supply house sent the wrong valve, the plumber didn't bother to look at the fixtures he was supposed to install and just installed the valve he had on hand. No one noticed the tub spout sitting there until they finished and realized they had a tub with no spout.

They are now making up stuff like "your shower only allows two fixtures," and "it's perfectly normal to have a tub with no tub spout."

---

I doubt very seriously the contractor who is hoping the OP isn't going to to catch him in his lie is that concerned about the confusion that he is creating. So maybe we shouldn't point that finger at the OP.

I've learned a lot about plumbing today. What I ordered for my guest bath needed a three way diverter. What I think is that when they built the house, they put in a two way diverter and when they went to install the fixtures they found the mistake. The problem I really have isn't the mistake. It's that they arbitraily put in fixtues that weren't at the house and weren't picked out by me. With everything going on in the house I didn't even notice until recently and maybe they thought it would slip by. If they told me about the problem I would've found another system I liked that would work with two valves. I'm not even sure the plumber told the builder. Who orders the diverter? Business people deserve to get paid for what they do but they should also fess up when they make a mistake.

Thnanks again bry911. If you understood I did fine. (: I hadn't seen your comment before I added another below. I probably should've mention that my realtor advised me through the process and agrees with bry911. No, he's not an architect but he agrees with my and bry911 assessment of wnat happened.

Terry this won't be much help but perhaps there is a slight bit of comfort in shared suffrance. We are here in Central-SW Florida area trying to finish a home too. It sounds like you and I have hit a perfect storm, unfortunately.

In our case the construction loan and permitting took several months for us and I'm pretty sure that was all due to COVID or COVID excuses from the bank, county, etc.

Our house will probably worth about 50% more than we paid by the time we get CO. However rising costs of building materials I'm sure ate heavily into the builder's profits. If the builder is the type to keep score they see that as us winning, them losing. I see it as life, a hand nobody present at the table dealt.

Also, a lot of people are trying to build homes now- the builders are busy and at least in our case I'm not sure they are able to scale their operation properly.

We broke ground about a year ago. Lots of sloppy mistakes by subs... lots of delays in the project, and of course they attribute 110% of everything to COVID. COVID this, COVID that, every bad business practice is now just COVID. Yes, COVID has affected everyone and everything. At the same time, esp. here in FL, we had a good several month run over the summer were COVID was effectively a non-issue. They are sitting around waiting for the pandemic to be over- not accepting it may never be over and they need to adapt their business practices the way many of us in other fields have had to do.

Anyway I wish you the best of luck- stick to your guns on the major items that affect the value or quality of your home for everything else figure out what is important to you and what can slide if it absolutely has to.

Could be much worse. Just suck it up and deal with it.

(and continue to vent here, we're here for you)

@irun5k, I totally agree. As much some things might be delayed to Covid related issues, at the same time it became an easy way to blame every delay on it. My decking material was delivered and was waiting to be installed for a few months. A 2 day job, 4 months for them to start installing and they finished after 7 months. Yes, some people have no shame.

I run 5k thank you for understanding. I was extremely fortunate I started in Feb. There have been delays on materials which we all shrugged off. Lying and trying to gaslight me when they knew something was wrong is not something I’m going to suck up. Thanks to people on this site I pushed for a solution that won’t cost the builder anything. I wish you luck with your project.

I'm a business professional also. I was the GC on my 3500-4000(depends upon whose measuring) sq foot modular. I knew NOTHING about building a house, but since it was my dream home, you'd better believe that I educated myself.

People will get away with what you allow. If you have to be there, then do it and be stern. Good Luck!