If you do your research of custom builders in the Nashville area, you know that there are tons of builders out there wanting to gain your business. We chose America's Home Place in Mount Juliet for a couple of reasons.
You can find builders from all price points and with all sorts of different incentives. We love that the Mt. Juliet America's Home Place offered granite as a standard with all their builds in addition to having a great showroom.
We built our first home with Ryan Homes and were mostly satisfied with what we got. We got a lot of sq. footage in a home that was built to standard. We didn't do anything too pricey or flashy because we liked growing into a home. We lived there and began to renovate to nice new floors as we slowly discovered what we wanted and it was perfect.
We decided we wanted a similar situation with our Franklin Custom Home Builder because we still are interested in growing with and into our home. Our expectations aren't too extraordinarily high. We want a well built home with a lot of sq. footage that we can easily add to or renovate as we grow. We also liked not having to decide from the millions of different home plans but being able to customize in most ways. America's Home Place seemed to have fit that bill.
America's Home Place in Mt. Juliet (the Nashville office), was what we found to draw us in. They have incredible salesmanship from the moment you walk in to the signing the contract. I personally loved the deal making with our sales guy and I admired his skill. I know his job is to get as much money as he can while also trying to get me to a high point of satisfaction with what I was purchasing. The sales process here is some of the best I've ever seen. It's admirable.
Another thing that drew us in was the core values that America's Home Place was telling us. "A good christian company". And on top of that we discovered that Barry Conner, CEO and founder, built the business on what we admired. According to our research, Mr. Conner followed the "Principles over Profit" philosophy where you provide customers with quality, better pricing and always treat customers with respect and honesty.
It sounds like a company I can absolutely stand behind and thus we suspected we would have a great time building a home in Franklin with them.
As of writing this post today, I sadly have to report that the build has been more stressful than we anticipated.
Currently we are being asked to release our second draw on the house while the following major issues are active and affecting our investment:
1. Inadequate crawl space/footing drainage. Water dams, builds up and back flows into the crawl space during any type of rain. This new foundation has been sitting in a mud puddle of water for well over a month with an empty promise of being fixed. One drain is just going into a hole that fills with water and back-flows. I brought up the drainage problem to the general manager over a month ago and before framing started and it has not been addressed. The house continues to sit on a soaked foundation. READ up on water and how it affects foundations if you don't think this is serious.
2. The house wrap installation lacked sealing tape and has multiple tears throughout in addition to missing in areas on the home. In addition it is wrinkled and pushed up into windows or not wrapped in doors at all. The wrap installation is nowhere near what is recommended as a standard in the business. The house wrap also did not overlap the top sill and was sloppily taped only after I asked about tape on the vertical seams.
3. The window sill flashing is abhorrent. Not only is the bottom sill shoved into the and under the windows, it is wrinkled and clearly a place to catch water seepage. In addition, the outer sill flashing is put on completely upside-down. Rather than following the shingle method where a top layer would flow water to an under layer, the side flashing of over half of our windows was place OVER the top sill flashing and as a result has started peeling off the house rendering it useless in keeping water out.
4. The sub-floor installation lacks proper spacing between planks and has lifted and swollen on the edges. This is a rudimentary mistake in the construction biz and will need to be sanded down if we ever want to put down tile or some other type of flooring other than carpet. They used Advantech which is supposed to prevent these issues....BUT...only when properly installed.
5. The "new" garden tub has a significant crack in it and will need repaired. I don't know about you, but when you buy new, most people expect new....not broken and then repaired.
6. Several nail fins on the windows were cracked and broken by over aggressive nailing.
7. Sloppy caulking and installation of a patio door and front door. Both were placed on a scrape piece of OSB. Ugh.
8. Wall studs on the second floor are floating by nails on the top plate and hovering over the the bottom plate. It will only be a matter of time when these settle and cause cracks in the finish job.
9. MOLD is growing on the floor joists of this NEW house. Yes, mold.
10. Debris, extra cinder blocks and other unmentionables were thrown in as fill or the front stoop. Hopefully it doesn't settle and crack the top cover when done.
11. During the process, the workers missed a door, cut holes in the gable plywood, built the fireplace incorrectly, left a leaking and full tub overnight (which I bailed the water out of to prevent seepage onto the floor), left the front entry door open and swinging in the wind which has popped off trim, cut holes in the wrong place and then fixed, incorrectly sealed plumbing through the floor leaving a gap (fire block issue), and more.
12. Placed the hose bibs in the wrong position on the house.
13. Left garbage all over the lot for weeks before ordering a dumpster. ..only after being told that it was an issue.
14. Nails, bottles, worker trash, gloves, staples, shingles and more are littered over the lot even with a dumpster. There is no way we can go into our yard before going through it with a metal detector at this point.
15. Being told that we had to pick different cabinets AFTER we already upgraded and signed the contract on dream cupboards because AHP decided to change vendors. I spent several hours choosing new ones and insisted I get a similar style which was no longer offered (square raised panel). The ones offered me had noticeably less craftsmanship. I was upset and they let me go to the new vendor to select a comparable to what I had originally ordered. This was done, only to find out later that we DID still get what we wanted and I had wasted over a half day looking at less than acceptable replacements.
16. Being told we would get a concrete driveway but after signing told that it would depend on how much money was left. I still don't know if I'll get a concrete driveway and gave up on trying to get a straight answer about it. All I have is the paperwork that somewhat implies it.
17. Being told that we will be charged over $7000 in fines from the AHP if we hold the draw until these issues are fixed. Our draw papers specifically say that we are "satisfied" with the framing in order to release the drafted funds. We lie if we sign it, but if we don't, we get charged over 7k and have to trust that they will fix these issues that they've been promising to fix for weeks.
This is just the beginning of the build.
I still have hope but I'm not happy at the moment. Lack of communication and more importantly the fact that FOLLOW THROUGH with action is missing is disheartening.
In future posts, I will begin to share the many photos of the home build.
I don't believe it is unreasonable at this point and time in the game to expect AHP to fix the drainage and window issues BEFORE demanding any money. They absolutely have built this wrong and if we continue to sign, it seems as if they will continue to say a lot of things without doing anything like they did with the drain.
I don't want them putting siding on a house that is in this type of shape. The BASE of the foundation matters.
You can find builders from all price points and with all sorts of different incentives. We love that the Mt. Juliet America's Home Place offered granite as a standard with all their builds in addition to having a great showroom.
We built our first home with Ryan Homes and were mostly satisfied with what we got. We got a lot of sq. footage in a home that was built to standard. We didn't do anything too pricey or flashy because we liked growing into a home. We lived there and began to renovate to nice new floors as we slowly discovered what we wanted and it was perfect.
We decided we wanted a similar situation with our Franklin Custom Home Builder because we still are interested in growing with and into our home. Our expectations aren't too extraordinarily high. We want a well built home with a lot of sq. footage that we can easily add to or renovate as we grow. We also liked not having to decide from the millions of different home plans but being able to customize in most ways. America's Home Place seemed to have fit that bill.
America's Home Place in Mt. Juliet (the Nashville office), was what we found to draw us in. They have incredible salesmanship from the moment you walk in to the signing the contract. I personally loved the deal making with our sales guy and I admired his skill. I know his job is to get as much money as he can while also trying to get me to a high point of satisfaction with what I was purchasing. The sales process here is some of the best I've ever seen. It's admirable.
Another thing that drew us in was the core values that America's Home Place was telling us. "A good christian company". And on top of that we discovered that Barry Conner, CEO and founder, built the business on what we admired. According to our research, Mr. Conner followed the "Principles over Profit" philosophy where you provide customers with quality, better pricing and always treat customers with respect and honesty.
It sounds like a company I can absolutely stand behind and thus we suspected we would have a great time building a home in Franklin with them.
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| The Hill 1 by America's Home Place Mt. Juliet - Nashville Custom Home Builder |
Another reason we choose America's Home Place in Mount Juliet (the Nashville office), was because we liked how they offered to customize ANY of the home plans they offered. Moving walls, sinks, stairs...EVERYTHING was movable and allowed me to get the type of open concept home I wanted with the price I desired. In addition, I was able to get a fair price instead of the jacked up prices just because we had a lot in Franklin TN that we could build on. Most builders I found would automatically put a premium on building for us because of where we had a lot. I hated that. I would get a huge range of pricing for some of the normal things depending on who I would talk to. America's Home Place is one of the few builders who kept their pricing for the home the same no matter where you built in their territory. If you needed excavation, it costs the same in Franklin as it does in Hermitage. If you wanted to add square footage to the home, the price didn't change if you lived in a more "well to do" town.
So, America's Home Place was VERY attractive to us for a variety of reasons. However, I didn't start this blog to share my joy about the process. Unfortunately, what drove me to start the blog was the absence of communication and action taking several months into our contract with America's Home Place. Please know, we've built before and we have friends in the industry. We are not nit picking here and we've been incredibly patient. But now we need to start sharing our story to help you better prepare if you sign with them or to see if perhaps there is another builder better suited for you somewhere else. (NOTE: If things get better, rest assured I will write about it. In the end, I will leave a review appropriate to the quality of home we feel we received. My goal is to give a 5 star review...so I haven't completely given up yet...)
My first word of advice for America's Home Place is to heed the reviews you find. On Google there are several 5 star reviews from google accounts who have only ever left one review in their lifetime. That's a red flag. Of the many 3,2 and 1 star reviews that I have read about America's Home Place, I find it interesting that most of the stuff I've read is true for us too. For example, you go through many project managers and they hire out to untrained builder teams. It seems crazy, but with our current situation, we have discovered that it absolutely happens.
If you do build with America's Home Place, BE READY to stay diligent in your follow up and don't be a shy about approaching them. If something is wrong, start communicating and documenting it NOW. We feel as though had we not brought certain issues up, the house would have continued being built haphazardly. Currently, we feel that AHP is perhaps annoyed with us, but we've shown that we are not willing to lie down and take a crap build and we expect fair quality now...not in the future when our final payment is already disbursed.
As of writing this post today, I sadly have to report that the build has been more stressful than we anticipated.
Currently we are being asked to release our second draw on the house while the following major issues are active and affecting our investment:
1. Inadequate crawl space/footing drainage. Water dams, builds up and back flows into the crawl space during any type of rain. This new foundation has been sitting in a mud puddle of water for well over a month with an empty promise of being fixed. One drain is just going into a hole that fills with water and back-flows. I brought up the drainage problem to the general manager over a month ago and before framing started and it has not been addressed. The house continues to sit on a soaked foundation. READ up on water and how it affects foundations if you don't think this is serious.
2. The house wrap installation lacked sealing tape and has multiple tears throughout in addition to missing in areas on the home. In addition it is wrinkled and pushed up into windows or not wrapped in doors at all. The wrap installation is nowhere near what is recommended as a standard in the business. The house wrap also did not overlap the top sill and was sloppily taped only after I asked about tape on the vertical seams.
3. The window sill flashing is abhorrent. Not only is the bottom sill shoved into the and under the windows, it is wrinkled and clearly a place to catch water seepage. In addition, the outer sill flashing is put on completely upside-down. Rather than following the shingle method where a top layer would flow water to an under layer, the side flashing of over half of our windows was place OVER the top sill flashing and as a result has started peeling off the house rendering it useless in keeping water out.
4. The sub-floor installation lacks proper spacing between planks and has lifted and swollen on the edges. This is a rudimentary mistake in the construction biz and will need to be sanded down if we ever want to put down tile or some other type of flooring other than carpet. They used Advantech which is supposed to prevent these issues....BUT...only when properly installed.
5. The "new" garden tub has a significant crack in it and will need repaired. I don't know about you, but when you buy new, most people expect new....not broken and then repaired.
6. Several nail fins on the windows were cracked and broken by over aggressive nailing.
7. Sloppy caulking and installation of a patio door and front door. Both were placed on a scrape piece of OSB. Ugh.
8. Wall studs on the second floor are floating by nails on the top plate and hovering over the the bottom plate. It will only be a matter of time when these settle and cause cracks in the finish job.
9. MOLD is growing on the floor joists of this NEW house. Yes, mold.
10. Debris, extra cinder blocks and other unmentionables were thrown in as fill or the front stoop. Hopefully it doesn't settle and crack the top cover when done.
11. During the process, the workers missed a door, cut holes in the gable plywood, built the fireplace incorrectly, left a leaking and full tub overnight (which I bailed the water out of to prevent seepage onto the floor), left the front entry door open and swinging in the wind which has popped off trim, cut holes in the wrong place and then fixed, incorrectly sealed plumbing through the floor leaving a gap (fire block issue), and more.
12. Placed the hose bibs in the wrong position on the house.
13. Left garbage all over the lot for weeks before ordering a dumpster. ..only after being told that it was an issue.
14. Nails, bottles, worker trash, gloves, staples, shingles and more are littered over the lot even with a dumpster. There is no way we can go into our yard before going through it with a metal detector at this point.
15. Being told that we had to pick different cabinets AFTER we already upgraded and signed the contract on dream cupboards because AHP decided to change vendors. I spent several hours choosing new ones and insisted I get a similar style which was no longer offered (square raised panel). The ones offered me had noticeably less craftsmanship. I was upset and they let me go to the new vendor to select a comparable to what I had originally ordered. This was done, only to find out later that we DID still get what we wanted and I had wasted over a half day looking at less than acceptable replacements.
16. Being told we would get a concrete driveway but after signing told that it would depend on how much money was left. I still don't know if I'll get a concrete driveway and gave up on trying to get a straight answer about it. All I have is the paperwork that somewhat implies it.
17. Being told that we will be charged over $7000 in fines from the AHP if we hold the draw until these issues are fixed. Our draw papers specifically say that we are "satisfied" with the framing in order to release the drafted funds. We lie if we sign it, but if we don't, we get charged over 7k and have to trust that they will fix these issues that they've been promising to fix for weeks.
This is just the beginning of the build.
I still have hope but I'm not happy at the moment. Lack of communication and more importantly the fact that FOLLOW THROUGH with action is missing is disheartening.
In future posts, I will begin to share the many photos of the home build.
I don't believe it is unreasonable at this point and time in the game to expect AHP to fix the drainage and window issues BEFORE demanding any money. They absolutely have built this wrong and if we continue to sign, it seems as if they will continue to say a lot of things without doing anything like they did with the drain.
I don't want them putting siding on a house that is in this type of shape. The BASE of the foundation matters.
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