A while back, I posted a question on a house Tara and I were planning to build. I was asking if we should go with the red and black brick or the brownish brick. Well, we decided to go with the red and black brick and it looks awesome. We should be closing within the next two weeks, and from what I understand, this is the right time to meet closing and the interest rates are fixing to drop again. Things have not necessarily gone smoothly though. Inititally, our first choice for a builder did not get his line of credit freed up in time, so he got another builder who was not working at the time to lend him his line of credit. We saw no problem because our builder assured us that he would still be our builder and he was just using his friends credit line. Then, the 2nd builder and him got into an argument and the 2nd builder took over. The 2nd biolder really had no clue what we wanted and I had to keep calling the first guy to straighten things out. Finally, the second builder started to listen to me and things started going well. A couple of times, the builder has had to come back and change things like electrical outlets, he didn't put some columns that we were supposed to get and I had to figure out what to do with it (it worked out great)...Now, we are putting brass hinges and brass lighting fixtures, and he goes out and orders brushed nickel doorknobs and by the time I see this had installed 13 out of 21 of them. I was bothered by this because he didn't ask or use common sense, and he was bothered because I didn't tell him what color to put on...DUH!!! I asked him to take them back and get the brass and he said it was too late because the packages had already been ordered, and I would have to pay for the removal and reintallation blah blah blah blah...I told him to give me the receipt and the knobs he had not intalled and I would take care of it, so I call my first builder and sell him the doorknobs because he can use them, and I take that money and buy the knobs we want. Last night, I installed all 21 knobs in the house, and did a better job than the installers. Some of the doors would not close with their installation. All in all, the house is beautiful...I'll probably be moving in during my spring break next week!!! Pictures are coming soon!!!
Who is your builder FT??? Subdivision??? Our company is probably doing your slab reinforcement. Oh and congrats on the house
Your guys work in the Valley??? It's a new subdivision in Paseo de La Resaca called Arbor Park. There is a river walk surrounding the area. The developer bought up 1000 acres and it's in the middle of the new development area. My current builders name is Alex Werbiski...Our first builder is named Miguel Urie.
FT, I finished building my house in December. And, I have to say you got off easy if you described all the problems you had in that one paragraph.
It's the second house I built in less that five years. I really had some bad experience with my first house, and I like to think I've learned from my/their mistakes.
Of course you relalize you're in a zone R3 neighborhood. Which only allows for dogs, cats, and phone answering monkeys.
I got you all beat. Our house is in a coastal county, so it has to be certified for Windstorm. Our builder's engineer lost his accredidation during the building process, and the house was completed prior to certification. We didn't want to lose our lock on a good interest rate (of course, rates have dropped further since...hindsight is 20/20) last April, so we closed with a letter agreement from the builder that he would assume all responsibility to see that the Windstorm certificate was procured. Almost a year later, and we still don't have it. I don't have enough free time in 2003 to tell you ALL of the hell we've been through trying to get this resolved, but I'll tell you about one fun weekend day. The third engineer that the builder has hired decided that the state wasn't going to issue the certification without KNOWING that the hurricane clips were installed. So....on one dreary Saturday morning, our house was visited by people in four different vehicles. One of them was a strange looking truck and camper. Our lot is over half of an acre, and the people in this truck strung yellow "crime scene tape" around the whole perimeter....from the mailbox, up the driveway and around the Portecache, to the back of the garage and around the fence, all the way to the streetlight, back down the side of the property to the stop sign, and back across the front of the lot to the mailbox. The big problem with this: it was right during a heightened terror alert, and the yellow tape didn't say "crime scene;" it said: CAUTION: RADIATION AREA. They had to take X-Rays behind the walls, and we had to stand outside while they did it. We met more curious neighbors that day. Fortunately, it only took about three or four hours. That was just one of many of the lovely experiences we've endured trying to get this resolved. Oh well, it finally looks like we're reaching a resolution, and our house should get it's certification. Unfortunately, the hurricane clips....though they were present.....have the wrong nails in them. And some of our interior walls don't have proper shear wall design. What does this mean? It means they're gonna have to tear down some interior walls and rebuild them--two of them in the master bedroom. As for the hurrican clips? All of the brick (our house is completely brick) will have to come off, and all brick and hardy plank on the garage will come off. They'll redo the clips, then redo the brick and the siding. Shouldn't take more than three or four months. then, after about a year and a half from the original date of purchase, we should have a house that we can call "home." How's that for FUN?
We sell rebar and post-tension for slab on ground houses. Its more than likely that your home has post-tension, and I would be willing to bet it came from us. Probably out of our San Antonio office. Unless of course it was a custom home. In that case, your builder probably insisted on rebar only slab and just put a **** load of bar in your foundation.
Miguel Urie built our house in Brownsville in 2003. The company was International Construction Company. The foundation has cracked. As I understand, Texas requires that the builder provide a warranty on the foundation for 10 years. Do you have a contact number and/or address for Miguel Urie? I haven't been able to find any information about him or the company with a Google Search other than your entry.
