Building a quality home with no service issues is always S&A Homes goal . It was unfortunate for [redacted] to experience a water leak in their new home just after moving in. The problem was reported to S&A Homes by email on July 21st at 10:25 and the repair has been completed as...
of August 18th . The customer complaint is for compensation for prolonged unresponsive warranty service, and putting children in an endangered situation.
I would like to share a time line that may help explain the time necessary to make the repairs .
· 7/21/2014 Customer reported leak to S&A Homes.
· 7/21/2014 [redacted] repaired toilet leak.
· 7/24/2014 and 7/25/2014 S&A Homes removed damaged hardwood.
· 7/24/2014 S&A Homes ordered 120 square feet of new hardwood
· 7/24/2014 was told by [redacted] to run a fan and leave the subfloor exposed till the subfloor reads a moisture reading below 15%
· 7/28/2014 new hardwood was delivered.
· 8/1/2014 damaged drywall and trim was removed .
· 8/6/2014 new drywall was hung .
· 8/11/204 sub floor moisture reading was 14%
· 8/12/2104 drywall was finished.
· 8/13/2014 new trim and casing was installed.
· 8/14/2014 new hardwood was installed.
· 8/15/2014 base shoe was installed.
· 8/18/2014 finished painting and complete.
I believe the timeline reflects an effort from S&A to remove and replace the damage not only in a timely manner, but making a major effort to make sure the sub floor was restored to the proper moisture level before replacement.
As you can tell SA& Homes did not take any shortcuts but performed the repair in a professional and timely manner.
We will follow up with the Revdex.com after our meeting with [redacted] .
Sincerely,
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
[No contact has been made by the manager since his return from vacation and no additional issues have been resolved.]
Regards,
[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below. As stated in our previous rejection, we did not agree to the waiting for the exterior work (driveway repairs and topcoat and repair of roof ridge vent) or the interior work (replacement of insulation removed due to flooding) to be completed at our 5 month home inspection. These items were to be completed 30 days after closing on the home which was April 27, 2017. In addition, the 5 month home inspection was actually to be held at the 3 month point, but S&A did not make themselves or their contractors available to support that agreed to (via contract) date. All of the "punch list" items were to be completed 30 days after closing and the 3 month inspection items were to be completed at the 3 month timeline; not 5 months. We do agree with S&A bringing the contractors to the home for the date of the inspection to ensure all items on our warranty work order are completed that day rather than scheduling them, but the "punch list" items need to be completed immediately. There is absolutely no excuse for the lack of care or customer service provided by S&A Homes. The items need to be completed on our home immediately as it has been nearly 5 months since closing and we are still living with several unacceptable deficiencies.
Regards,
[redacted]
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 9:34 AM, [redacted]> wrote:Hi [redacted],I am in receipt of a letter dated March 6th 2017 from [redacted] at the Revdex.com regarding the above complaint and S & A Homes accreditation status. First of all, I would like to apologize for the delays in the follow up response from the customer. I know we responded to the original complaint but it sounds like we did not respond to the follow up complaint. Based on your letter, our Pittsburgh office did not respond a second time. In investigating how this has slipped through the cracks, I believe it happened during a transition of some of our employees in Pittsburgh as part of our sale to [redacted] of our Pittsburgh Region. I am not sure if you are aware of not, but fairly recently we announced that we have sold our Pittsburgh region to [redacted]. I only mention this to explain the reason for unresponsive follow up to your organizations communication. Just so everyone at the Revdex.com is aware, we have processes and procedures in place to service all of our customers in Pittsburgh during the transition of our lots in Pittsburgh to [redacted]. S & A Homes will still be operating in all our others geographic areas other than Pittsburgh and will have service people in Pittsburgh for 12 months after the last house closes. In terms of Mr. [redacted], I have reviewed his file again since our initial response and believe our initial response was accurate. With that being said, due to the delay in getting things to a resolution for our customer and for the inconvenience that the multiple trips for repairs to his house may have caused, I am willing to honor his first request of a refund of $2,080 for the charge to the concrete wall. While I believe we completed the work necessary and the house met all local inspections, to help resolve the situation I am happy to make this refund. If this is acceptable to the customer I will process the refund. Please advise. In terms of the hardwood floor, I stand by our initial response and do not feel any refund is due or warranted for all the reasons in our initial response. Again, I am sorry for the delay in response. S & A Homes has always had a top rating with your organization and has been accredited for a number of years. I hope this is able to continue for many year in the future. Thanks,Chris S[redacted]S & A Homes Inc.President of Housing Division
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
At this point, there is no reason to review the door. We do not want it "reviewed" we want it fixed. We have taken it upon ourselves to reach out to whomever we need to, whether it be subcontractors, etc because we feel the way S&A "fixes" things is not up to par with that of a "Brand New Home." We have been given the run-around for TWO YEARS and anything that has been fixed has been fixed cheaply. You can not just caulk, glue or nail everything and think that is ok, especially in a brand new home. The majority of our fixes have been done this way and that is not acceptable when we have paid for brand new. You can not expect a customer to be satisfied with "as is." We did not buy a used home. The door manufacturer was kind enough to come to our home not once but twice. The first visit they replaced all of the weather stripping, etc to possibly help with any issues in the meantime. They also looked at the door and noted that it was not caulked/ painted correctly, they said it actually should NOT had been installed because the frame was cracked (which we noted to Ken S&A and he said it was fine they would paint over it), they also said that it was an improper door and a composite door should have been installed with there being no front porch. That being the reason it was rotting and why we had water damage in the inside of our home. Please note, our floor has become worse by the front door and the flooring needs replaced AGAIN due to water damage. We are working with the door manufacturer and their customer service has been absolutely amazing. We are business owners ourselves and value customer service. [redacted] Flooring will not replace anything at this point because nails were driven down into our flooring by [redacted]. [redacted] the flooring manufaturer ALSO noted that this voided our warranty as nails are NOT suppose to be placed down through on this kind of flooring, other than along the walls to keep the flooring in place when installing. [redacted] Flooring would had replaced the flooring had S&A requested [redacted] to replace it. S&A never made us aware of this, however the subfloor is not level and that falls back on S&A anyways. The framer and Project Manager should had made sure of this before moving on to the next phase. Yes, [redacted] recommended to us in not replacing the tile because if they did, it could/ would also cause other tile to break in the process. We agreed that removing tiles and replacing was not the answer. We wanted our whole floor replaced as it was not installed properly and have been asking for this for two years and have had many emails ignored when requesting. Being ignored for two years is not professional at all in an error you have made and have done everything since day one in NOT correcting. You surely can't expect customers that are building a brand new home to except flooring "AS IS." Who in the world thinks that is even normal or acceptable in a BRAND NEW HOME? S&A is apparently the only one. Note we have cracked tiles, no grout and a cracked transition strip that was custom made to fix the mistake that S&A made in ripping out the hallway STRUCTURAL ISSUE going into our bathroom. NOTE floor was not level in upstairs either. We have talked to multiple people in the flooring industry and other homeowners/ individuals looking to build and EVERYONE agreed that none of this is an acceptable fix. Our flooring is not level. [redacted]'s remedy was to shoot nails through it. That has obviously not worked. Clearly the only other way to fix is to rip it out. We are done with S&A looking at things. Clearly S&A has known this has been an issue and has not done anything to fix it properly, they have had more than ample amount of time to do so and have chose not to. We spent hundreds of dollars on an inspector to come in after email after email being ignored. You have had two years to fix and just like the door, have chose not to handle any of it properly. Windows have again not been addressed. We have had multiple water marks from recent rains showing the caulking/adjustments have not worked. This has been an ongoing issue for two years and clearly the amount of times the caulking/ adjustments have not worked. They have never been ripped out to see where the isue is and every professional we have spoke to said that needs to be the next step. The amount of times S&A has been in our home has been countless not to mention ridiculous for it being a brand new home. How does S&A think this is even normal let alone fair to their customers who have to work. How much time/ vacation do they think people have and don't they think their customers would rather spend their time elsewhere. We really just want to be done with this all and have these things fixed by true professional trades that specialize in the specific areas of concern, not "handymen." Clearly you can see by us talking to the actual companies and their take on it, something needs to be done other than reviewing and adjusting countless times. Items need replaced, not substandard. We honestly want to be done with this all and be able to tell others especially those that are building and asking our opionion, that S&A did resolve things, not the opposite.
[redacted] & [redacted]
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
[redacted]
Our contract states that we will perform a 3 month and 12 month review. Certain of these items included in the customer's complaint were not included on the 3 month list. We have two review periods for the customer to identify issues. It would be impossible to manage if customers were provided no specified time to review issues. With that being said, our customer care department is looking into resolving the issues the customer has indicated in this message.
S&A completed and settled on [redacted] &[redacted]’s home on May 29, 2015. S&A Homes has made numerous visits to the [redacted]’s home to respond to any workmanship issues reported. I would like to respond to several issues brought up on this complaint. The front door was reported...
as an issue during construction. The door was adjusted to satisfactory at closing (signed off as satisfactory by the buyer). Then in July 18, 2016 S&A Homes flooring contractor removed several loose engineered hardwood boards at the doorway. Any current signs of moisture were not evident at the time the boards were removed. The homeowner’s complaint regarding the front door is not a result of construction issues. The homeowners have reported window leaks. Our service department responded to a window leak at the transom and eyebrow window and made a repair. After that visit, Rory M[redacted] (our service technician) called the manufacturer’s Atrium Window Technician to inspect the work he did and review all of the windows .The report attached dated April 28, 2016 shows no further action was needed. After that date no further window requests have been reported. With respect to the hardwood buckling - [redacted] of Inspection Service concluded that there may be an issue in the subfloor’s levity. The customer has refused to allow S&A Homes to bring an engineer into their home to review the sub floor for being level. Regarding the floor S&A has offered a professional repair in the areas of where the glue is no longer holding. After my visit to their home I responded to their concerns with an email of our plan of action. This offer is still available to the homeowners should they accept. I would also like to share a brief part of an email from [redacted] on November 29, 2016. “On top of all other issues we have had with it, we can't even clean the floor without seeing damage, everywhere. To show you (and I have very much documented our experience with pictures, emails to S&A employees, documentation, etc.) I have attached pictures of what happens when you lay water on it for just 20 minutes. This board should be treated to prevent his. This is what is happening all over simply from just cleaning our floors?! How is that possible.” I have attached the hardwood disclosure form the homeowner signed before starting their home which gives instruction and warranty exclusions for wet mopping your floor. I have also included the closing orientation checklist done with the [redacted]’s at closing as well as the 30 day home review. I have also attached my email of December 27, 2016 after my visit to their home. S&A Homes has been more than forthright in our willingness to work with the homeowners on repairs. Sincerely
It was nice to finally catch each other on the phone. I have not had a chance to talk to [redacted] as he is working in regards to who he exactly spoke to at [redacted]. This individual told him they would have ripped out our flooring and replaced had they known it was pulling up in MULTIPLE AREAS. We do know that they switched to a different flooring company (CB Flooring) during this time, but that should not affect us. If they were no longer working with [redacted], then CB Flooring should had done it. Which Rick with CB Flooring did say in his visit one of the only ways to fix it would be to rip it up. But they chose to put nails through it.Question #1 to Tim M[redacted]: Why were we not made aware of this being an option? Question#2: What exactly will their Engineer measure for?Question #3: If he finds that the flooring is not level, what do they plan on doing? Question #4: Why is our front door rotting? Question #5: Why are our windows leaking?Question #6: Why do we have cracked tile and a lot of grout missing from our seams?Question #7: Why is our shower caulking still falling out and mold is continuing to grow? This has been an ongoing issue since we moved in that Rory has tried to fix a number of times.Please answer ALL questions. Thank you,[redacted]
We have discussed many of these issues in our earlier response. S&A Homes provide a one year material and workmanship warranty, product warranties, and a 10 year American E warranty . S&A Homes will make a final offer to repair loose areas with your engineered hardwood floor. I have attached the product we would use to make that correction . I would appreciate your response . Thanks Tim M[redacted]
I only can find my 'sample' copy of the warranty. It says nothing about restricting repairs to two times during the first year (3 month, and 12 month) as referenced. Can you please contact S&A for an electronic copy of this warranty? it is very long and would take me a long time to scan and email such a large document. Bottom line is that they had been responding to my requests for repairs until about 6/30. Then Tom M[redacted] stopped responding. His boss George K[redacted] said he would follow through, and didn't. The warranty states that they will respond in a "reasonable" timeframe, which entitles me to arbitration if they don't do it within 30 days. I just can't believe they put customers through this. I was told my Tom that my screen door was on order. Then they stopped responding. They fixed my exterior stone work, doing damage to my interior wall. Why would I need to wait until the 12 month point for them to repair damage that was a direct result of their "repair"?? Again, please get the official warranty document from them. If I absolutely have to, I will scan the 'sample' warranty book pages that are relevant. I have text message threads with this team that span the past several months, then they stopped responding. My 3 month warranty repairs were submitted in March, but honestly, it took them until a few weeks ago to complete those. It's just awful trying to have simple repairs processed. Please hold them to their responsibilities!!!
Revdex.com ID [redacted] [redacted] /Operations Team: This is in response to the 7 questions presented by [redacted]. I have never received any calls or correspondence from [redacted] regarding replacement of the flooring installed in the [redacted] home. I have asked in earlier responses for the information from [redacted] on who he talked to.Jim C[redacted]man the inspector for the [redacted]’s stated that there may be an issue with the subfloor. I was offering to have an engineer perform sub flooring reading and make correction if it didn’t meet industry standards.If sub floor required corrections we would do them for the areas reported .The front door is a fiberglass door and will not rot. The trim is wood and will require maintenance especially if exposed to the weather.The Atrium technician was at the [redacted] home and we had no report of leaking after that time. This is a homeowner maintenance item that may require an expandable colored tile caulking.This is a homeowner maintenance item that may require an expandable colored tile caulking. We are more than willing to answer any concerns on the [redacted] home. The letter from your office on July 5,2017 stated that the complaint has been closed . Sincerely Chris D[redacted] S&A Homes
On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 5:50 PM, Chris [redacted]> wrote:Hi [redacted],On June 25th at 7:30 AM Randy [redacted] our Regional Construction Manager and I met with the customers at their house to review their concerns. The meeting with very productive and we...
reviewed their concerns and what they would like to see happen. Since that meeting Randy has been in contact with the customers to review that we were going to correct what we discussed at the meeting. At this point, I believe everything is in motion that was requested and agreed to at the meeting. Please let me know if you need anything else. Best, [redacted]S & A Homes Inc.President Housing Division
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. S&A Homes made the necessary repairs and the home was sold.
Regards,
[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
[redacted]
Building with S & A Homes has been the single worst experience of my life. Unfortunately I have to give them a 1 rating because it won't allow 0. Let me begin by saying that I don't expect any house to be perfect after initial construction. I've built before, and I know how this works. But it's what the company does from then on that defines them. They don't return calls or emails, and certainly don't care about their customers who pay them insane amounts of money for their homes. If you're reading this...DO NOT BUY FROM S&A!
From the start the signs were there that I shouldn't proceed, but I did anyway. We went through 3 salespeople to start our process with 2 of them never returning correspondence. We were sold on the idea that the materials used are a higher quality than Ryan Homes (who was also building in the plan and we've built with before) and that build times were longer (8-9 months) because they were stick built and took more time and care building their homes (laughable). Turns out it's because they drag their feet and don't get started for almost 4 months.
During our interior selections process the salesperson was asked to get us a price on rod iron spindles for our stairs, (because for some reason she didn't have the pricing available) to which she gave us a price the next day on "newell posts with carriage spindles." Not knowing that "carriage spindles" weren't what the rod iron spindles were called, we signed off on them thinking we were getting what we asked for. When we first saw the railings and spindles during construction we called and asked why we didn't get the rod iron ones, and (surprise) the salesperson was rude, deflected blame to us, and said we were stuck with them because we signed off on it. Later in the construction process, the construction manager called me and asked if I meant to have oil brushed bronze sink and shower fixtures, but nickel plated door handles. I asked him why he was asking, and he said that usually people match them up. I'm no interior designer, but I talked to a former S&A selection specialist and she told me it's their job to recommend that we match up the fixtures and handles, and also recommend other stylistic ideas for the home. None of which happened in our case. We pointed to stuff, she gave us pricing and we moved on (a real professional).
We signed the plans for the house in early February of 2016. We had already sold our old house so we needed to get an apartment. We had a choice of 5, 9, or 12 month options and chose the 9 month based on the build time we had been quoted since the beginning. We were given a completion date of 12/1. Construction didn't begin until the final week of May. Almost 4 months later. I visited the house frequently, and one thing was for sure, it was going up FAST. It reminded me of our house we built with Ryan Homes before (exactly the opposite of what we were told). During a meeting with the construction manager he told us that our date of completion had been moved up to October 1. For the math majors out their, that's 4 months build time. Remember, we signed a 9 month lease, so if they would have started right away, we could've signed a 5 month lease and moved in during the summer. I then informed the construction manager either the property would have to sit for 2 months while we satisfied our lease obligation, or the company would have to pay my last 2 months rent to get us out early and close on the property. The company chose to let the property sit. And sit it did. Once I had told them that I couldn't move in right away, the stopped construction on the house. We ended up closing on November 19th and they were scrambling to finish the house before the closing date, even though it was supposed to be done on 10/1. When we did our final walk-through there were things not done that could've been handled in 20 minutes. They went on our punch list. We've been in our house for 6 months and our final walk-through punch list still has items not completed.
After move in the evidence was everywhere that the house was of subpar quality:
-75% of the trim work around windows, doors, and baseboards in our house was damaged or cracked.
-We have a cracked window frame in our living room that is still not fixed.
-We have walls that are not straight or plumb. And I haven't even pursued any of that with them because I know it's just going to be a waste of time and energy.
-Along with the trim being damaged, the sealant or caulking that they used started to disintegrate and pull away from the wall within the first week of living there. I've seen that happen with crown moldind, but not with trim and baseboards. Another sign that the walls are not straight.
-The construction crew mudded in the access point to our attic above the garage and left a work light on that required that a new access point be cut in our garage so that the light could be turned off. It took weeks for someone to finally get it taken care of and the access point is too high and too small to be useable, so the attic above our garage is useless. Who knows how much we paid in additional electricity, not to mention the fire hazard it created.
-Our laminate hardwood flooring creaks and moves. The flooring installer, manufacturer, nor S&A Homes will take responsibility for it.
-They spread the seed and hay for our lawn in the middle of November. At our closing I insisted that I would not sign on the house until we agreed that someone would revisit our lawn in the spring because I knew that we wouldn't have any substantial grass growth due to the 3 substantial frosts before closing. I was right. When reminded of the agreement, no one can seem to remember that happening (of course). It was witnessed by my real estate agent though. I was asked if I had watered the yard after we had moved in...The 2 days after we closed on the house was the weekend of November 20-21. It brought snow, high winds, and a temperature not breaking 30 degrees. The yard was doomed from the start. And of course, no responsibility is being taken.
-The most alarming problem with our home has been two-fold. In the front of our home there is air coming in almost at will. When we first moved in the front of our house was abnormally cold. Our nursery was at the front of our house and it was so cold our new born couldn't sleep in it. There was air coming in under the baseboards and through the windows. During windy days whistling can be heard coming through the windows. A contractor came and removed the baseboards and informed us that the front of the home was never sealed (so what else could be creeping behind the walls of this house?). He put down the orange foam sealant and reapplied the baseboards. The windows, however, have not been replaced or repaired at the 6 month mark. We've had a representative from Atrium Windows at the house who was unable to fix the problem and S&A's solution is to do another vacuum test (a test that can be manipulated). I'm sure that after it's done they'll tell me how it's within normal limits. We are at risk of water damage/mold due to the leaks, our heating and air conditioning expenses have been greatly affected, and our home has been improperly constructed.
One thing has been consistent throughout. S&A won't take responsibility for poor construction, they don't return correspondence in a timely fashion or at all, they fight you at every turn, and they won't admit any mistakes. The company is awful and their employees are trained to be lazy, complacent, and uncaring. I wish them nothing but the worst. And I know we aren't alone.
*I know I'm leaving things out as well. It's worse than it sounds.
I have lived in the Woodbridge Farm Community for 6 years now.
Our roads are still not paved. Our Township won't plow because of this.
I spoke to Chris , the President last year & he told me he would get an estimate to have it done in the Spring. It's still not done. You pay 300K for a house & the Roads are falling apart. Our Community is planning to take action.
Review: I am at [redacted]. When I purchased a new home and moved in in May, there are lots of items unfinished, including front porch area and window. At that time, SA Homes Chad promised to complete the unfinished works soon. Now 3 months has been passed. I want to know what is the credit of SA Homes ? SA homes is not trustable at all.
There are lots of hidden nails in the carpet, which hurt our feet, it is a safety hazard!.
Also, When I signed the contract in April, 2016, SA Home salesperosn Katelyn told and showed us the oak hardwood floorings and high quality carpet in the showrrom, but SA Home changed to laminated hard wood and lowest quality carpet. SA Homes has been cheating customers. I have to broadcast my case to let other potential customers know, Do not be cheated by SA Homes, they can not keep the words, They have no credit at all, SA Homes only knows how to suction customer's money.Desired Settlement: S A Homes must complete the unfinished items as soon as possible. change / replace the laminated flooring and heap carpet
Business
Response:
S & A Homes has met with the customer and reviewed all the outstanding items and spent multiple days completing the items the customer wanted repaired. At this point, we believe all those items are now done. In terms of flooring, the customer picked an engineered hardwood which was installed. It is not a laminate. This is the product that was paid for and selected. We believe the customer was confused on the differences between the product. In summary, at this point, we believe we are complete at the house. Thanks
Building a quality home with no service issues is always S&A Homes goal . It was unfortunate for [redacted] to experience a water leak in their new home just after moving in. The problem was reported to S&A Homes by email on July 21st at 10:25 and the repair has been completed as...
of August 18th . The customer complaint is for compensation for prolonged unresponsive warranty service, and putting children in an endangered situation.
I would like to share a time line that may help explain the time necessary to make the repairs .
· 7/21/2014 Customer reported leak to S&A Homes.
· 7/21/2014 [redacted] repaired toilet leak.
· 7/24/2014 and 7/25/2014 S&A Homes removed damaged hardwood.
· 7/24/2014 S&A Homes ordered 120 square feet of new hardwood
· 7/24/2014 was told by [redacted] to run a fan and leave the subfloor exposed till the subfloor reads a moisture reading below 15%
· 7/28/2014 new hardwood was delivered.
· 8/1/2014 damaged drywall and trim was removed .
· 8/6/2014 new drywall was hung .
· 8/11/204 sub floor moisture reading was 14%
· 8/12/2104 drywall was finished.
· 8/13/2014 new trim and casing was installed.
· 8/14/2014 new hardwood was installed.
· 8/15/2014 base shoe was installed.
· 8/18/2014 finished painting and complete.
I believe the timeline reflects an effort from S&A to remove and replace the damage not only in a timely manner, but making a major effort to make sure the sub floor was restored to the proper moisture level before replacement.
As you can tell SA& Homes did not take any shortcuts but performed the repair in a professional and timely manner.
We will follow up with the Revdex.com after our meeting with [redacted] .
Sincerely,
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
[No contact has been made by the manager since his return from vacation and no additional issues have been resolved.]
Regards,
[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below. As stated in our previous rejection, we did not agree to the waiting for the exterior work (driveway repairs and topcoat and repair of roof ridge vent) or the interior work (replacement of insulation removed due to flooding) to be completed at our 5 month home inspection. These items were to be completed 30 days after closing on the home which was April 27, 2017. In addition, the 5 month home inspection was actually to be held at the 3 month point, but S&A did not make themselves or their contractors available to support that agreed to (via contract) date. All of the "punch list" items were to be completed 30 days after closing and the 3 month inspection items were to be completed at the 3 month timeline; not 5 months. We do agree with S&A bringing the contractors to the home for the date of the inspection to ensure all items on our warranty work order are completed that day rather than scheduling them, but the "punch list" items need to be completed immediately. There is absolutely no excuse for the lack of care or customer service provided by S&A Homes. The items need to be completed on our home immediately as it has been nearly 5 months since closing and we are still living with several unacceptable deficiencies.
Regards,
[redacted]
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 9:34 AM, [redacted]> wrote:Hi [redacted],I am in receipt of a letter dated March 6th 2017 from [redacted] at the Revdex.com regarding the above complaint and S & A Homes accreditation status. First of all, I would like to apologize for the delays in the follow up response from the customer. I know we responded to the original complaint but it sounds like we did not respond to the follow up complaint. Based on your letter, our Pittsburgh office did not respond a second time. In investigating how this has slipped through the cracks, I believe it happened during a transition of some of our employees in Pittsburgh as part of our sale to [redacted] of our Pittsburgh Region. I am not sure if you are aware of not, but fairly recently we announced that we have sold our Pittsburgh region to [redacted]. I only mention this to explain the reason for unresponsive follow up to your organizations communication. Just so everyone at the Revdex.com is aware, we have processes and procedures in place to service all of our customers in Pittsburgh during the transition of our lots in Pittsburgh to [redacted]. S & A Homes will still be operating in all our others geographic areas other than Pittsburgh and will have service people in Pittsburgh for 12 months after the last house closes. In terms of Mr. [redacted], I have reviewed his file again since our initial response and believe our initial response was accurate. With that being said, due to the delay in getting things to a resolution for our customer and for the inconvenience that the multiple trips for repairs to his house may have caused, I am willing to honor his first request of a refund of $2,080 for the charge to the concrete wall. While I believe we completed the work necessary and the house met all local inspections, to help resolve the situation I am happy to make this refund. If this is acceptable to the customer I will process the refund. Please advise. In terms of the hardwood floor, I stand by our initial response and do not feel any refund is due or warranted for all the reasons in our initial response. Again, I am sorry for the delay in response. S & A Homes has always had a top rating with your organization and has been accredited for a number of years. I hope this is able to continue for many year in the future. Thanks,Chris S[redacted]S & A Homes Inc.President of Housing Division
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
At this point, there is no reason to review the door. We do not want it "reviewed" we want it fixed. We have taken it upon ourselves to reach out to whomever we need to, whether it be subcontractors, etc because we feel the way S&A "fixes" things is not up to par with that of a "Brand New Home." We have been given the run-around for TWO YEARS and anything that has been fixed has been fixed cheaply. You can not just caulk, glue or nail everything and think that is ok, especially in a brand new home. The majority of our fixes have been done this way and that is not acceptable when we have paid for brand new. You can not expect a customer to be satisfied with "as is." We did not buy a used home. The door manufacturer was kind enough to come to our home not once but twice. The first visit they replaced all of the weather stripping, etc to possibly help with any issues in the meantime. They also looked at the door and noted that it was not caulked/ painted correctly, they said it actually should NOT had been installed because the frame was cracked (which we noted to Ken S&A and he said it was fine they would paint over it), they also said that it was an improper door and a composite door should have been installed with there being no front porch. That being the reason it was rotting and why we had water damage in the inside of our home. Please note, our floor has become worse by the front door and the flooring needs replaced AGAIN due to water damage. We are working with the door manufacturer and their customer service has been absolutely amazing. We are business owners ourselves and value customer service. [redacted] Flooring will not replace anything at this point because nails were driven down into our flooring by [redacted]. [redacted] the flooring manufaturer ALSO noted that this voided our warranty as nails are NOT suppose to be placed down through on this kind of flooring, other than along the walls to keep the flooring in place when installing. [redacted] Flooring would had replaced the flooring had S&A requested [redacted] to replace it. S&A never made us aware of this, however the subfloor is not level and that falls back on S&A anyways. The framer and Project Manager should had made sure of this before moving on to the next phase. Yes, [redacted] recommended to us in not replacing the tile because if they did, it could/ would also cause other tile to break in the process. We agreed that removing tiles and replacing was not the answer. We wanted our whole floor replaced as it was not installed properly and have been asking for this for two years and have had many emails ignored when requesting. Being ignored for two years is not professional at all in an error you have made and have done everything since day one in NOT correcting. You surely can't expect customers that are building a brand new home to except flooring "AS IS." Who in the world thinks that is even normal or acceptable in a BRAND NEW HOME? S&A is apparently the only one. Note we have cracked tiles, no grout and a cracked transition strip that was custom made to fix the mistake that S&A made in ripping out the hallway STRUCTURAL ISSUE going into our bathroom. NOTE floor was not level in upstairs either. We have talked to multiple people in the flooring industry and other homeowners/ individuals looking to build and EVERYONE agreed that none of this is an acceptable fix. Our flooring is not level. [redacted]'s remedy was to shoot nails through it. That has obviously not worked. Clearly the only other way to fix is to rip it out. We are done with S&A looking at things. Clearly S&A has known this has been an issue and has not done anything to fix it properly, they have had more than ample amount of time to do so and have chose not to. We spent hundreds of dollars on an inspector to come in after email after email being ignored. You have had two years to fix and just like the door, have chose not to handle any of it properly. Windows have again not been addressed. We have had multiple water marks from recent rains showing the caulking/adjustments have not worked. This has been an ongoing issue for two years and clearly the amount of times the caulking/ adjustments have not worked. They have never been ripped out to see where the isue is and every professional we have spoke to said that needs to be the next step. The amount of times S&A has been in our home has been countless not to mention ridiculous for it being a brand new home. How does S&A think this is even normal let alone fair to their customers who have to work. How much time/ vacation do they think people have and don't they think their customers would rather spend their time elsewhere. We really just want to be done with this all and have these things fixed by true professional trades that specialize in the specific areas of concern, not "handymen." Clearly you can see by us talking to the actual companies and their take on it, something needs to be done other than reviewing and adjusting countless times. Items need replaced, not substandard. We honestly want to be done with this all and be able to tell others especially those that are building and asking our opionion, that S&A did resolve things, not the opposite.
[redacted] & [redacted]
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
[redacted]
Our contract states that we will perform a 3 month and 12 month review. Certain of these items included in the customer's complaint were not included on the 3 month list. We have two review periods for the customer to identify issues. It would be impossible to manage if customers were provided no specified time to review issues. With that being said, our customer care department is looking into resolving the issues the customer has indicated in this message.
S&A completed and settled on [redacted] &[redacted]’s home on May 29, 2015. S&A Homes has made numerous visits to the [redacted]’s home to respond to any workmanship issues reported. I would like to respond to several issues brought up on this complaint. The front door was reported...
as an issue during construction. The door was adjusted to satisfactory at closing (signed off as satisfactory by the buyer). Then in July 18, 2016 S&A Homes flooring contractor removed several loose engineered hardwood boards at the doorway. Any current signs of moisture were not evident at the time the boards were removed. The homeowner’s complaint regarding the front door is not a result of construction issues. The homeowners have reported window leaks. Our service department responded to a window leak at the transom and eyebrow window and made a repair. After that visit, Rory M[redacted] (our service technician) called the manufacturer’s Atrium Window Technician to inspect the work he did and review all of the windows .The report attached dated April 28, 2016 shows no further action was needed. After that date no further window requests have been reported. With respect to the hardwood buckling - [redacted] of Inspection Service concluded that there may be an issue in the subfloor’s levity. The customer has refused to allow S&A Homes to bring an engineer into their home to review the sub floor for being level. Regarding the floor S&A has offered a professional repair in the areas of where the glue is no longer holding. After my visit to their home I responded to their concerns with an email of our plan of action. This offer is still available to the homeowners should they accept. I would also like to share a brief part of an email from [redacted] on November 29, 2016. “On top of all other issues we have had with it, we can't even clean the floor without seeing damage, everywhere. To show you (and I have very much documented our experience with pictures, emails to S&A employees, documentation, etc.) I have attached pictures of what happens when you lay water on it for just 20 minutes. This board should be treated to prevent his. This is what is happening all over simply from just cleaning our floors?! How is that possible.” I have attached the hardwood disclosure form the homeowner signed before starting their home which gives instruction and warranty exclusions for wet mopping your floor. I have also included the closing orientation checklist done with the [redacted]’s at closing as well as the 30 day home review. I have also attached my email of December 27, 2016 after my visit to their home. S&A Homes has been more than forthright in our willingness to work with the homeowners on repairs. Sincerely
It was nice to finally catch each other on the phone. I have not had a chance to talk to [redacted] as he is working in regards to who he exactly spoke to at [redacted]. This individual told him they would have ripped out our flooring and replaced had they known it was pulling up in MULTIPLE AREAS. We do know that they switched to a different flooring company (CB Flooring) during this time, but that should not affect us. If they were no longer working with [redacted], then CB Flooring should had done it. Which Rick with CB Flooring did say in his visit one of the only ways to fix it would be to rip it up. But they chose to put nails through it.Question #1 to Tim M[redacted]: Why were we not made aware of this being an option? Question#2: What exactly will their Engineer measure for?Question #3: If he finds that the flooring is not level, what do they plan on doing? Question #4: Why is our front door rotting? Question #5: Why are our windows leaking?Question #6: Why do we have cracked tile and a lot of grout missing from our seams?Question #7: Why is our shower caulking still falling out and mold is continuing to grow? This has been an ongoing issue since we moved in that Rory has tried to fix a number of times.Please answer ALL questions. Thank you,[redacted]
We have discussed many of these issues in our earlier response. S&A Homes provide a one year material and workmanship warranty, product warranties, and a 10 year American E warranty . S&A Homes will make a final offer to repair loose areas with your engineered hardwood floor. I have attached the product we would use to make that correction . I would appreciate your response . Thanks Tim M[redacted]
I only can find my 'sample' copy of the warranty. It says nothing about restricting repairs to two times during the first year (3 month, and 12 month) as referenced. Can you please contact S&A for an electronic copy of this warranty? it is very long and would take me a long time to scan and email such a large document. Bottom line is that they had been responding to my requests for repairs until about 6/30. Then Tom M[redacted] stopped responding. His boss George K[redacted] said he would follow through, and didn't. The warranty states that they will respond in a "reasonable" timeframe, which entitles me to arbitration if they don't do it within 30 days. I just can't believe they put customers through this. I was told my Tom that my screen door was on order. Then they stopped responding. They fixed my exterior stone work, doing damage to my interior wall. Why would I need to wait until the 12 month point for them to repair damage that was a direct result of their "repair"?? Again, please get the official warranty document from them. If I absolutely have to, I will scan the 'sample' warranty book pages that are relevant. I have text message threads with this team that span the past several months, then they stopped responding. My 3 month warranty repairs were submitted in March, but honestly, it took them until a few weeks ago to complete those. It's just awful trying to have simple repairs processed. Please hold them to their responsibilities!!!
Revdex.com ID [redacted] [redacted] /Operations Team: This is in response to the 7 questions presented by [redacted]. I have never received any calls or correspondence from [redacted] regarding replacement of the flooring installed in the [redacted] home. I have asked in earlier responses for the information from [redacted] on who he talked to.Jim C[redacted]man the inspector for the [redacted]’s stated that there may be an issue with the subfloor. I was offering to have an engineer perform sub flooring reading and make correction if it didn’t meet industry standards.If sub floor required corrections we would do them for the areas reported .The front door is a fiberglass door and will not rot. The trim is wood and will require maintenance especially if exposed to the weather.The Atrium technician was at the [redacted] home and we had no report of leaking after that time. This is a homeowner maintenance item that may require an expandable colored tile caulking.This is a homeowner maintenance item that may require an expandable colored tile caulking. We are more than willing to answer any concerns on the [redacted] home. The letter from your office on July 5,2017 stated that the complaint has been closed . Sincerely Chris D[redacted] S&A Homes
On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 5:50 PM, Chris [redacted]> wrote:Hi [redacted],On June 25th at 7:30 AM Randy [redacted] our Regional Construction Manager and I met with the customers at their house to review their concerns. The meeting with very productive and we...
reviewed their concerns and what they would like to see happen. Since that meeting Randy has been in contact with the customers to review that we were going to correct what we discussed at the meeting. At this point, I believe everything is in motion that was requested and agreed to at the meeting. Please let me know if you need anything else. Best, [redacted]S & A Homes Inc.President Housing Division
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. S&A Homes made the necessary repairs and the home was sold.
Regards,
[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
[redacted]
We have met with the customer and are addressing the repair request.
The driveway has now been installed and the landscaping was completed on 7/3.
Building with S & A Homes has been the single worst experience of my life. Unfortunately I have to give them a 1 rating because it won't allow 0. Let me begin by saying that I don't expect any house to be perfect after initial construction. I've built before, and I know how this works. But it's what the company does from then on that defines them. They don't return calls or emails, and certainly don't care about their customers who pay them insane amounts of money for their homes. If you're reading this...DO NOT BUY FROM S&A!
From the start the signs were there that I shouldn't proceed, but I did anyway. We went through 3 salespeople to start our process with 2 of them never returning correspondence. We were sold on the idea that the materials used are a higher quality than Ryan Homes (who was also building in the plan and we've built with before) and that build times were longer (8-9 months) because they were stick built and took more time and care building their homes (laughable). Turns out it's because they drag their feet and don't get started for almost 4 months.
During our interior selections process the salesperson was asked to get us a price on rod iron spindles for our stairs, (because for some reason she didn't have the pricing available) to which she gave us a price the next day on "newell posts with carriage spindles." Not knowing that "carriage spindles" weren't what the rod iron spindles were called, we signed off on them thinking we were getting what we asked for. When we first saw the railings and spindles during construction we called and asked why we didn't get the rod iron ones, and (surprise) the salesperson was rude, deflected blame to us, and said we were stuck with them because we signed off on it. Later in the construction process, the construction manager called me and asked if I meant to have oil brushed bronze sink and shower fixtures, but nickel plated door handles. I asked him why he was asking, and he said that usually people match them up. I'm no interior designer, but I talked to a former S&A selection specialist and she told me it's their job to recommend that we match up the fixtures and handles, and also recommend other stylistic ideas for the home. None of which happened in our case. We pointed to stuff, she gave us pricing and we moved on (a real professional).
We signed the plans for the house in early February of 2016. We had already sold our old house so we needed to get an apartment. We had a choice of 5, 9, or 12 month options and chose the 9 month based on the build time we had been quoted since the beginning. We were given a completion date of 12/1. Construction didn't begin until the final week of May. Almost 4 months later. I visited the house frequently, and one thing was for sure, it was going up FAST. It reminded me of our house we built with Ryan Homes before (exactly the opposite of what we were told). During a meeting with the construction manager he told us that our date of completion had been moved up to October 1. For the math majors out their, that's 4 months build time. Remember, we signed a 9 month lease, so if they would have started right away, we could've signed a 5 month lease and moved in during the summer. I then informed the construction manager either the property would have to sit for 2 months while we satisfied our lease obligation, or the company would have to pay my last 2 months rent to get us out early and close on the property. The company chose to let the property sit. And sit it did. Once I had told them that I couldn't move in right away, the stopped construction on the house. We ended up closing on November 19th and they were scrambling to finish the house before the closing date, even though it was supposed to be done on 10/1. When we did our final walk-through there were things not done that could've been handled in 20 minutes. They went on our punch list. We've been in our house for 6 months and our final walk-through punch list still has items not completed.
After move in the evidence was everywhere that the house was of subpar quality:
-75% of the trim work around windows, doors, and baseboards in our house was damaged or cracked.
-We have a cracked window frame in our living room that is still not fixed.
-We have walls that are not straight or plumb. And I haven't even pursued any of that with them because I know it's just going to be a waste of time and energy.
-Along with the trim being damaged, the sealant or caulking that they used started to disintegrate and pull away from the wall within the first week of living there. I've seen that happen with crown moldind, but not with trim and baseboards. Another sign that the walls are not straight.
-The construction crew mudded in the access point to our attic above the garage and left a work light on that required that a new access point be cut in our garage so that the light could be turned off. It took weeks for someone to finally get it taken care of and the access point is too high and too small to be useable, so the attic above our garage is useless. Who knows how much we paid in additional electricity, not to mention the fire hazard it created.
-Our laminate hardwood flooring creaks and moves. The flooring installer, manufacturer, nor S&A Homes will take responsibility for it.
-They spread the seed and hay for our lawn in the middle of November. At our closing I insisted that I would not sign on the house until we agreed that someone would revisit our lawn in the spring because I knew that we wouldn't have any substantial grass growth due to the 3 substantial frosts before closing. I was right. When reminded of the agreement, no one can seem to remember that happening (of course). It was witnessed by my real estate agent though. I was asked if I had watered the yard after we had moved in...The 2 days after we closed on the house was the weekend of November 20-21. It brought snow, high winds, and a temperature not breaking 30 degrees. The yard was doomed from the start. And of course, no responsibility is being taken.
-The most alarming problem with our home has been two-fold. In the front of our home there is air coming in almost at will. When we first moved in the front of our house was abnormally cold. Our nursery was at the front of our house and it was so cold our new born couldn't sleep in it. There was air coming in under the baseboards and through the windows. During windy days whistling can be heard coming through the windows. A contractor came and removed the baseboards and informed us that the front of the home was never sealed (so what else could be creeping behind the walls of this house?). He put down the orange foam sealant and reapplied the baseboards. The windows, however, have not been replaced or repaired at the 6 month mark. We've had a representative from Atrium Windows at the house who was unable to fix the problem and S&A's solution is to do another vacuum test (a test that can be manipulated). I'm sure that after it's done they'll tell me how it's within normal limits. We are at risk of water damage/mold due to the leaks, our heating and air conditioning expenses have been greatly affected, and our home has been improperly constructed.
One thing has been consistent throughout. S&A won't take responsibility for poor construction, they don't return correspondence in a timely fashion or at all, they fight you at every turn, and they won't admit any mistakes. The company is awful and their employees are trained to be lazy, complacent, and uncaring. I wish them nothing but the worst. And I know we aren't alone.
*I know I'm leaving things out as well. It's worse than it sounds.
I have lived in the Woodbridge Farm Community for 6 years now.
Our roads are still not paved. Our Township won't plow because of this.
I spoke to Chris , the President last year & he told me he would get an estimate to have it done in the Spring. It's still not done. You pay 300K for a house & the Roads are falling apart. Our Community is planning to take action.
Review: I am at [redacted]. When I purchased a new home and moved in in May, there are lots of items unfinished, including front porch area and window. At that time, SA Homes Chad promised to complete the unfinished works soon. Now 3 months has been passed. I want to know what is the credit of SA Homes ? SA homes is not trustable at all.
There are lots of hidden nails in the carpet, which hurt our feet, it is a safety hazard!.
Also, When I signed the contract in April, 2016, SA Home salesperosn Katelyn told and showed us the oak hardwood floorings and high quality carpet in the showrrom, but SA Home changed to laminated hard wood and lowest quality carpet. SA Homes has been cheating customers. I have to broadcast my case to let other potential customers know, Do not be cheated by SA Homes, they can not keep the words, They have no credit at all, SA Homes only knows how to suction customer's money.Desired Settlement: S A Homes must complete the unfinished items as soon as possible. change / replace the laminated flooring and heap carpet
Business
Response:
S & A Homes has met with the customer and reviewed all the outstanding items and spent multiple days completing the items the customer wanted repaired. At this point, we believe all those items are now done. In terms of flooring, the customer picked an engineered hardwood which was installed. It is not a laminate. This is the product that was paid for and selected. We believe the customer was confused on the differences between the product. In summary, at this point, we believe we are complete at the house. Thanks