The Masters House

We came home from running around on Sunday afternoon to find the house kind of warm even though we had left the air conditioner on. We usually have the thermostat set at 78 degrees during the day and the A/C usually has no problem keeping the temperature there.

On Sunday though it would not get below 82 degrees. I had just put in a new filter the week before so I knew that wasn’t the issue. I called the company that put out unit in so they could have a look. I set an appointment for Tuesday for them to come and take a look.

On Monday I called my wife mid-day to see how the A/C was doing. She informed me that it was working the way it had always work and was a comfortable 78 degrees in the house. I contemplated canceling the appointment for Tuesday but decided to keep it even though it would be a $60 service charge. 

Tuesday rolled around and the A/C repair guys showed up and took a look at the unit that is outside. They checked the freon and found that it was a little over-charged. From what the guy told me being over-charged is pretty much the same as being under charged and the unit will not work as efficient.

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I stayed home yesterday in anticipation of the roofer. I am glad that I did as the guy for the door and the paint guy showed up before the roofer did.

The Door Guy

The door guy fixed the door in 5 minutes as it was obviously a simple fix. The door now has no gaps and both the dead bolt and the door knob both close and lock. My wife mentioned that the door looked a little crooked in the frame. I told her it didn’t matter as long as it closed, locked, and didn’t leak. A new door is on the project list in the coming years anyway.

The Painter

The painter showed up and painted the spot on the roof in the family room. Then he went around the house and paint a whole bunch of other spots while making his way to the master bathroom. I was not expecting that and thought that it was cool. We corralled the kids outside while the paint dried.

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While I was in the shower this morning I got a message from the roofing company. I called back and they wanted to schedule to come out today. I asked if tomorrow would work since I wanted to be home when they were there.

Appointment made for tomorrow.

While they are there tomorrow I am going to make sure that they go through everything with a fine tooth comb. Specifically I am going to show them the area that was repaired – twice – to make sure that it does not need to be repaired again.

This time around I plan on taking so before and after pictures just to be sure that things get done right.

Technorati tags: DR Horton, New Home Builders, Home Repairs, Texas Homes, Round Rock Texas

Well I was awakened this morning with a call from Robert who is the warranty guy for my neighborhood. He read me a list of things that appear to be unfinished – the door, the nail pops, and the vent on the roof that needs to be painted. From the last item DR Horton obliviously had some sort of paperwork as I never mentioned the paint for the vent.

Anyway, Robert is scheduling to have people out here tomorrow to take care of the items.

On a side note – I am a little bummed that Mike did not call. I think it would have been better customer service for him to contact me instead of throwing me out to the guy that I was having issues with in the first place. Oh well, things are getting taken care of and that is the most important thing.

Being utterly amazed that I just got hung up on by Joe I dialed my newly acquired number for Mike – voice mail. No doubtingly Joe is on the line with him telling his side.

So I dial Kelly.

Kelly answers and I ask her if she knows who Mike is – Mike is Joe’s boss. Is he there? He is on the phone she says. I tell her that he is probably on the phone with Joe – who just hung up on me. She is quiet for a moment and then apologizes. She asks if I would like to hold for Mike. I say sure.

After a couple of minutes Kelly comes back and asks if I mind holding for a little while longer. I say sure, Kelly is nice, not at all like Joe (Good job Kelly!). After another minute or so Mike is on the line.

Mike asks how he can help me. I ask him if he has been talking with Joe? He says yes. I tell him that all I am trying to do is get a couple small things fixed on my house and that I am absolutely astonished that I had to get to his level to do it. Mike apologizes. Good one Mike – customer service 101 – apologize to the customer, it makes them feel better and defuses the situation to make it manageable. Joe obviously has not been to customer service 101 – Mike, you should send him.

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Just as I was finishing up the last post I got a call – from Joe. Joe is the regional manager for warranty repair for DR Horton in my area. Joe is Robert’s boss. Joe does not have an customer service skills.

Joe asked me what was going on. I explained to Joe about the paint, the vent, and the door. Joe started arguing with me telling me that it is an owners responsibility to paint their own patchwork. I told Joe to show me where that is written and where I agreed to it.

Joe got pissed.

From this point Joe would not let me get a word in edge wise. I tried calling him on it and he got more pissed. Finally he said that Mike would need to deal with it. I asked Joe to repeat the number 4 times because he was so pissed he couldn’t talk straight.

Joe hung up on me.

Joe has issues and should not be allowed to answer the phone.

Wow, for some reason that just does not give me the warm and fuzzies and DR Horton.

Time to call Mike…

OK, that last post got me fired up over all the issues that I have been having with the house so I decided to put some action to my words. I called the sales office for Our neighborhood and talked with Daisy about  my issues.

Daisy gave me the phone numbers for Kelly in the warranty department and for Robert who is a regional warranty manager. I called and left a message for Robert and then called Kelly.

It so happens that Kelly is the same person over at the warranty office that I have been dealing with all this time. I kept it civil (as I really want results and want them to work with me) even though Kelly is the one that I had to call multiple times on a couple of occasions to get results. To be fair to her I know she deals with a whole bunch on people everyday and my repeated calls were really the result of the warranty person responsible for my neighborhood – Robert.

Anyway, I proceeded to give Kelly the low-down – on everything – she asked whether I wanted her to contact Robert to try and get these things addressed. I informed her that I prefer for her to not do that as I felt that Robert tries to do the bare minimum on each item. She apologized and said that she would have Joe call me.

Waiting on the call… 1, 2, 3…

I have held on writing this post for a while as to try and give DR Horton the benefit of the doubt in regards to our warranty claims on our house.

That benefit has timed out.

Before I start I want to say that the overall construction of our DR Horton home is exceptional. In fact it was seeing a house similar to our in the framed stage that really sold me on the builder. The issues that we have had have not been with the overall construction of the house but with a few fit and finish items. Unfortunately while DR Horton builds a great home their service after the sale leaves something to be desired.

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There have been some updates since my previous post – A Few Problems Pop Up.

The plumber ended up coming out twice but there still appeared to be water at the bottom of the cabinet. So I called the super again. He called me back this morning and asked if it was OK if he came and took a look at it so he would know what to tell the plumber. I said sure.

He showed up within 5 minutes so both of us set out to figure out what was going on with the leak. As we looked under the sink there was currently no visible leakage so I showed him the picture of the leak that I had on my other post (see blogs do come in handy, when was the last time you took a picture of a leak just to have a picture of it?). He mentioned that the first plumber had found that one of the valves had needed to be tightened and thus explaining the location of the leak in the picture.

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Well after a week and a half I guess the honeymoon is over. We are having a couple of issues with the construction of the house. Now don’t get me wrong, these are not major issues, but issues none the less.

The first issue is that we have some sort of leak under one of the bathroom sinks. It is not pouring but we do have a bowl under it to catch what does fall. I called the superintendent yesterday who got a plumber out here this morning to fix it.

The plumber showed up, did something, and then left. Unfortunately the leak is still there.

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