These are brand new homes, with brand new problems. The key is who you have inspecting your new home, before you sign on the dotted line. With the help of a professional engineer ABC 11 uncovers problems at triangle homes that homeowners want fixed before the problems get worse.
Typically any new home comes with a one year warranty. Homeowners who are still in that one year warranty period see problems with their homes. They say they've complained to their builders, but say they're still concerned because they don't think the problems are getting fixed the right way. These frustrated homeowners want answers.
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John McClancy is a professional engineer who is licensed in the state of North Carolina for 17 years, a former state building code inspector, and a former licensed home inspector. He has agreed to look at these homes.
The first home John McClancy looked at was the Wake Forest home of Ana Ruiz. She says she has aired her concerns to her builder several times and just wanted to know for sure what's going on with her home. John looked at her home and says he found several poor workmanship issues, but what alarmed John even more was what he says is a code violation.
He found the problem outside one of Ana's bay windows where the flashing ends behind the siding and he says any water that gets in there is going to rot out the wall behind the siding over time. He says it could be a potentially costly problem if it's not fixed. This is a problem Ana was not aware of and says she will tell her builder about.
John McClancy also looked at Peggy Bowser's 7 month old Durham home. He looked at an issue she's had with her ceiling months after moving in. The ceiling looked like it started to sag and she says when she talked to her builder about it, she says they told her it was just normal settling. She says they have tried to fix it cosmetically, but it continues to be a problem. John says it's not cosmetic, it's structural.
He says this ceiling sags because of lack of support. It took a quick trip to the attic and a few pictures for John to diagnose the problem. He says, "The support isn't here it's over here so this tends to be more flexible and that will allow this to sag and get movement you're seeing." John says the lack of support is not only causing problems in the ceiling, but causing movement of the walls.
Peggy's fireplace is also pulling away from the wall. John tells Troubleshooter Diane Wilson, "It's not going to stop, it's going to keep moving until it's fixed" John found another problem in the attic off a bedroom. He found the problem with a support. He says, "You can't cut it diagonally, and bear it out at the top, it needs to have a bearing point back where cut begins or it will tend to split along it's access."
John says this code violation makes this portion of the roof more flexible. Peggy also complained about sagging and shifting of her hardwood floors. John went to Peggy's crawl space to find the issue. He found the problem in one of the joists. John says, "What you're seeing here is known within the building or carpenter's trade as allowing your joists to run wild, project past the end of you bearing surface.
It's a bad practice they should be cut off flush with the face. It will cost your floors to buckle and that's exactly what's happening." John says all these problems can be fixed, it's just motivating the contractor to do it.
And Peggy says she wants the problems fixed. She tells Troubleshooter Diane Wilson, "Just fix my house that's all I need, if they just fix it, I'll go away and leave them alone if they just fix my house."
The good news, these homeowners will be getting their problems fixed. I've talked to builder reps on both homes, and they say the issues will be corrected, and that they take homeowners' concerns very seriously. The builders of Ana's home also said that they were not previously aware of these issues . We did not name the builders of these two homes because John McClancy says the problems aren't isolated to just one builder, they can happen in any home.
It's important to note that neither of these homeowners hired an independent home inspector or engineer when they built their homes, and now they both say they wish they would have. The best advice is to hire one. And have him/her inspect before the drywall goes up, so you can fix any structural problems before they get covered up.
Coming up on Monday Troubleshooter Diane Wilson will have the story of one woman who has so many problems in her brand new home she can't even live in her dream home. And also find out how she took matters into her own hands to get justice. Troubleshooter Diane Wilson will share her story Monday at 6 p.m.
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