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.
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.
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.
