One headache after another
July marks the 1 year of living in this newish house (its only 8 years old) well 9 months of it’s been living though renos. You think a newish house wouldn’t have any real problems but boy was I surprised that I picked a house that was in a lovely neighbourhood, the floor plan was somewhat what we wanted and it was done by a well known contractor company. Moving in I knew we had to gut the coffin bathroom BUT, I wasn’t expecting crappy workmanship the walls aren’t straight, they used the cheapest cabinets around, sub trades did not clean up after themselves (all their crap got covered by the lawn). Not sure why they didn’t include the height of the basement in the design when they added the bulkhead, so now it just looks an afterthought. Nor used the hot/cold vents all thought out the house instead of adding baseboard heating on the top floor. Sure its cost more for a bigger furnace but it saves the future of gutting walls (which I’d love to do one day).
The day we moved in was the day we started noticing these problems.
- Unpacking the kitchen and noticed this huge open kitchen barely had enough storage space (should have been for a 1 person apartment) not sure how 6 people lived in that kitchen for all these years.
- Planting some of our plants from the old house (it was being torn down) and noticed their crap under the grass. I wasn’t happy that I had to clean it up or the landscapers that we hired. (They were pissed off)
- When the wet west coast rains hit in the fall, we found out we had overflowing gutters (there aren’t any trees around to fill them.. so I don’t know) and the 5 year old drainage pipe that was put in wasn’t doing its job. The old owners never cleaned the gutters they just put 14 layers of deck sealer on the deck to protect it from one of the many waterfalls.
- The coffin bathroom, I used it once and almost twisted by ankle coming out of it. It was raised a foot off the floor. Plumbing for 2 of the bathrooms have their pipes on the outside walls. Isn’t that something you learn in plumbing school not to do? It took 9 weeks to do that reno but had to wait for missing and or broken parts to come in but now when I use the shower wand or the rain head the other one drips water .. UGH!!
- Last month, one of the landscapers could smell a gas leak; our local gas company marked 10 leaks on the furnace and some outside on their meter. The home warranty act gas, plumbing etc has only have a 2 year warranty. WTF? Personally I think it should be 10-15 years as that’s more when things start to happen.
If you say you’re the best of the best out there then your work should show that you care.
I like this house, don’t get me wrong but it’s the little things that are annoying me. That this well known contractor company and others can get away with this bullshit.
When the contractor left, I changed their/guest alarm code on them as they forgot to turn in the spare key. Even though I gave them a “do not copy” key I still went out and replaced the lock after a week of not hearing from them. For those who are gonna have trades come into your place make sure you get a key that says “do not copy” on it just to be on the safe side.
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Hi, the name is Kimm, I'm a 30 year old Canadian who has been online since 1999. For the last 16 years my main passion has been dragon boating where I've eaten, slept and breathed it and raced all over North America. 
My apartment is all crooked. If you measure from the ceiling, things will be skewed.
My aunt found old cars in their garden from the previous owners. They dug them down rather than taking them to the dump.
There seems to be alot of problems with your house. I really hope you can work them out and not serious accident happens because of the problems.
I don’t know any house that doesn’t have its issues. That’s the big downside of owning a home, there’s always something that needs fixing.
So much problems… But I think that happens with all houses. Sooner (or later), there’s something leaking or broken or needs to be replaced, tightened, completely overhauled…
Michelle´s last blog post..Can’t stop what you can’t control
I agree with Michelle there, but your house seems too young to be having to be put through renovations. 8 years is not that long in one house’s lifetime. Sure, a few problems here and there may occur even in new buildings, but crooked walls and a yard full of crap that even landscaping professionals have something to say about is a tad ridiculous.
Jonna´s last blog post..Do want.
Wow, that does sound like a lot of problems for a new house! I’d be annoyed too!
My hubby and I recently bought a brand new house in New West. It too, has its little quirks! :-) For some reason, our builder / architect loves 3/4 of an inch. Almost all the measurements end in 3/4″. Funny stuff!
Oh yeah…here from Tanya’s (Netchick) blog. :-)
dearheart´s last blog post..Protected: Falling