Creaky Floors...update

Creaky Floors 

Oh the creaky floor issue! My wife called...yet again... about the creaky floors we have in nearly every room of the house. Since we closed (6 months ago) my house has sounded like a 100 year old house. Whenever someone was upstairs it sounded like they would end up on the first floor any minute. 

The repairman came and knew exactly what the issue was. He actually cut into our bulkhead in our family room and added some bracing to the joists. This fixed the issue. For all of you who own/building/thinking about building a Milan, the floor joists are not braced enough. Make mention to your SR/PM/Service Dept. that you want your floor joists braced. This seems to be a epidemic with this particular model of home. 

Lessons Learned:

• The people that are sent from the service department seem to know all of the fixes already because they have fixed the same issues over and over. You would think that Ryan would take a preventative action and fix these in the blueprints. 
• Contrary to other states/areas, the service department is VERY helpful (so far) and fast to fix our problems.    

Ugh... more water

More water issues! 

Well here we are again. I gave my son a bath last night and I have water pouring...yes pouring out of my ceiling speaker in the kitchen.  After I removed the speaker and surround it is apparent that the water is coming from right above it, the jetted tub. Now, I have been giving my son a bath in this tub for months now with no other issues (other than the first water issue). The difference tonight is that he turned the jets on while I was getting him ready for the bath and some water splashed out. After a couple hours of troubleshooting with Kathleen, it seems that there is little to no seal (grout or caulking) between the tub and the tile work in the back left corner. We tested with a half cup of water and all of it came right down into the kitchen. Needless to say there will be some more calls made and hopefully this will be the last time for this issue. 

On a side note we noticed that our tub is terribly chipped in a couple corners with caulking placed over them in hopes that we didn't see it. Well it took about 6 months and we found them. I am not sure what the fix is going to be though. 

Lessons Learned:

• Inspect all grout lines before you close 
• Troubleshooting yourself with save many holes in your ceiling. I learned my lesson after the 7 hour plumber call a few months ago. That included 5+ holes in my ceiling.

Reflections

Building with Ryan Homes 

We have been in our home for about 3 months now. I have been thinking about the process and all of the ups and downs. All in all even with the frustrations, disappointments & issues we faced I would do it again. If we had an issue, it was fixed. It might have taken a few calls but it was always resolved. 

We have had a couple severe issues since closing (one with flooring and one with water leaking). I am sure we will have several other issues while the house is settling. During our water issue, the plumber had a perfect saying for new home building: "Most people building a house for the first time think that it is like buying a new car, but it is the furthest thing from it". After thinking about that for a while, it was the BEST way to put it. Going into this process, both my wife and I, had this mentality. Unfortunately, I think this has spoiled my experience a bit. 

To give you new builders some advise: 

• Don't sweat the small stuff! If something is wrong, they will fix, replace or upgrade it! There will be things that go wrong, it is human nature.  
• Take pictures! Especially before the drywall goes up. You will never have to guess "what's behind this wall" again!
• Bring tools! I wish I didn't have to write this one. After the sub-floor goes down and before your flooring is installed, bring a hammer and nails. We had to have our floor replaced (high end laminate) and after seeing only a couple nails in each sheet of plywood, I would suggest you nail it down better yourself. I wish I would have had this advise as my house sounds like its 100 years old. The creaking floors are, at times, unbearable.

I know... it's been a while.

Ryan Homes Building Tips

We have closed and have been moved in for about 2 months now. I figured I should do a "tips" list. Here they are in no particular order. 

• They have a tendency not to screw in the sub-floor. If you don't want your brand new house to sound like it is 100 years old, be there when flooring is installed and make sure they put a fair amount of screws in the sub-floor. 
• During final walk-through have the PM show you the HVAC dampers. These will come in handy during AC weather and will save you from running around the house opening/closing vents.
• If you are going to mount a TV to a wall have them add extra 2x4's there. It makes life a helluva a lot easier.
• If you can afford the few hundred dollars, get a wider driveway.
• If you have a finished basement be cautious of where they put your Guardian box and where the cable/telephone comes into the house. Mine was placed on the opposite side of the house which caused a war between DirecTV and Verizon. It also created headaches for us as well. 
• When they bring in top soil right before seeding they DO NOT remove large rocks. This will hinder you later on if you want to build a deck or patio. Tell the PM you want them removed. 

If i think of anymore I will create a second tips post.

Days till closing: 17

Days till closing: 17 

We have only 17 days till closing. There are only a few things left that need done:

• Railings need stained
• appliances need installed
• touch up paint here and there
• cleaning
• driveway
• light post in the front yard
• garage door opener
• fix broken windows etc...

Hopefully they stay on schedule! As of right now it sounds like they will. We are very excited to see how everything turns out. It is very hard to pick everything from a small square!

Days till closing: 24 "Getting my Irish up!"

Days till closing: 24

I changed up the format a bit. Now I will be listing the numbers of days till we close and get the keys (April 19th). Also, the photos might be little to null for a while as I don't want to give away the look of the place till it is completely finished.

We now have floors (all but carpet), painted walls, ceramic tile for shower&tub area, kitchen cabinets and counters. So things are really starting to come along. The trim is all done and they have just painted our interior doors. Some quick tips if you are building. Check all of the details, make sure everything is correct. We already have an incorrect cabinet in the kitchen, two bathrooms with the wrong counter tops (brown granite instead of black/white) and the wrong decorative tile in our owners bathroom. 

A little rant about the last item above. I didn't want to blog this but now I must. We picked all of our flooring and ceramic tile in December at our Rusmur Flooring meeting. Originally I blogged that it was the best experience yet previous post. Just recently we received a call from Rusmur, it went something like this, "Justin, this is Diane from Rusmur, I am now ordering all of your materials and the decorative tile you picked is out of stock. It will not be available until July. You need to come in immediately to pick something else". At first glance this seems like no big deal, until I realized that everything we picked revolved around that tile (other accent pieces, granite counter top, flooring tile). Kathleen was a little more upset than I was since this was her "baby". We got to Rusmur and of course they have nothing else that was even close to what we picked so we had to settle for a tile that had less features (crackled glass). Fast forward to this Sunday, we go to check the progress of the house and low and behold they ordered and installed the incorrect decorative tile. There were two color choices we could pick from and they installed the wrong one. Kathleen actually didn't notice it but I did. At this point I am fuming, they now have to rip all of this out and re-install the correct tile. To be fair I took a picture of the tile on the wall and the box that had the color and product number on it. We got back home and compared a picture of the correct tile to the one that was installed... yep wrong. I now checked the paperwork thinking maybe the wrong number was written down, nope, the correct one is listed. Our PM insured us that they will fix it with no problem. I just hope this does not change our closing date, we have everything set to deliver on the 20th.  

I just have a sinking suspicion that the second tile we picked was also back ordered and the Rusmur rep just ordered the other one. Oh, and to top it off, she told Ryan that she knew about the original tile being back ordered for a while and we were not returning her voice mails  We have never received a call and/or voice mail from her. *SIGH* typical BS!

Lessons learned:

• Rusmur is getting my "Irish Up" 
• Keep an eye on EVERYTHING 
• Be there 24x7 
• Ryan's version of "white paint" is my version of tacky ass yellow

Day # Whatever... I lost track... don't judge me!

Day # Whatever... I lost track... don't judge me!

Well they got a lot more done on the house. It looks like they got all the siding up and the shakers. Now we just need some trim work and some gutters. They also got just about all the drywall up and they were muddin'/tapin' up the seams. The holes are in the right spot for the speakers and all my wires are run to the media cabinet. Here are some pictures for the stalkers:

Day #99

Day #99 - Brick,  furnace and tubs

Well we have brick, a furnace and it looks like our tubs are in as well. See pics below

 You cant see it here very well but they have the tar paper on the roof

 

 Duct work 

 Flooded storage area of the basement (hope they fix this!)

 Energy efficient furnace 

Future finished basement, again, flooded

 Other side of the furnace

 Other storage area and yet again, more water

 This thing

 Look at the stars or raindrops? BTW Kathleen would not let me climb the ladder. I will have to go to the house without her to get some great aerial shots 

 This is our brick 

  Garage floor waiting to be poured

Here is Kathleen's piece de resistance... the jetted tub. 

Day #92

Day #92 - The roof, the roof is on... the house! 

Kathleen and I took a ride out to the home on a tip from Arleen our SR. This is what we found. 

Our brick was also delivered!

Day #91

Day #91 - Second floor is up! 

The second floor has gone up. Next is the roof!

Day #89

Day #89 - BOOM! We got a first floor!

Yep, we now have a first floor, check it...

 Piles of wood and the first floor done

Some windows and study doors

Roof truces

Garage framed in 

Another shot of the front

More "stuff"

Framing braced up

Front hall way as seen from front door

Dining room window

Study or in our case Carter's play room

Kitchen and dinette area

That is me in the new kitchen

Family room... surround sound coming soon!

Family room again, showing the view and the spot for the fireplace

Family room and view

A shot from the dining room

A spot for steps

Garage floor