More Bressi Ranch

[balasr]

http://haloscan.com/tb/mishedlo/114974292399083448

A blog entry accusing Lennar of “shoddy workmanship”. Bressi Ranch is built by Lennar.

[powayseller]

I read the blog entry earlier today. Mish was hinting about the lawyer involved, and the insurance departments. Do you think we’ll see a class action lawsuit?

I had one problem with my house. The roofing crew was non-English speaking, and they didn’t put in the 18.5 sq feet of vents in my attic. When the inspector for my buyers looked at the roof, he saw I had only 3.5sq ft of vents. The blueprints showed 18.5 sq ft. The County Building Inspector defended himself in a letter I sent. The roofer fixed the problem. But this is the real issue: as construction boomed, contractors could not find qualified workers, and did quick and dirty training.

[CardiffBaseball]

I can’t get the link to work, is there a generic link for that blogger? I am getting some trackback error.

[john67elco]

Per FHA and roofing manufactures recommendations, you need 1/300 rule for your ventilation. 1 sqft ventilation per 300 sqft of attic space

[anxvariety]

I rented in a KB home and it was a peice of crap.. there was no insulation in the walls and everything felt cheap.

[powayseller]

john, the vent requirements are double in the unincorporated area of the county, because you cannot have the air flow through the open eaves. With everything enclosed, you need 1/150.

[john67elco]

I’m a roof inspector and manufactures and FHA recommendations in CA u need 1/300. Maybe a city or district has their own code that is more/less but MOST areas in CA is 1/300. It’s called the FHA 1/300 rule. Ever not know it all? I didn’t say anything about unincorporated areas. http://www.roofhelp.com/ventilation_main.htm

“A common rule of thumb is the 1/300 rule, which means 1 square foot of net free vent area per 300 square feet of attic floor space”.

[powayseller]

My contractor/architect had put 1/300 on the blueprints, then crossed it out and put 1/150, presumably when he submitted the plans. That’s why I was so mad at him when he didn’t tell the roofer how much to put on, and the roofer only put in 7 O’Hagen vents. Byron Holmes, the contractor (DO NOT USE HIM) refused to apologize, accept responsibility.

After I got the inspector’s report, I called Byron 5 times in 1 week, asking him about this, and assuming the inspector made a mistake. No calls back. I contacted the roofer, Rancho Roofing, who quickly wanted to correct the mistake.

I wrote a letter of complaint to the CSLB, and they investigated and found Byron innocent, since he had not charged me for the missing vents. So a builder can skip parts of the building process and that is legal and okay, as long as he didn’t charge you for that. With that logic, I should be grateful if he would have eliminated the drywall, paint, and insulation, because I could have saved a ton without all those things. Ridiculous logic!

Mike Kenny of Kenny Heating and A/C told me the roofer is responsible. I was mad at Byron, because he was mainly an armchair contractor, and if he would have come out to the job site once in a while, he would have noticed the missing vents. I also thought he should have said, “Oh my gosh, what a horrible mistake. Let’s fix it, how do you feel about us splitting the costs?”

I was willing to pay for the vents to be put in, but felt deceived by Byron. He was content to let me live my entire life in a house that had extra insulation, upgraded A/C, and where we’d retrofitted with $3K of reflective attic insulation, and it was all undone by not having the vents.

Learn from my mistake: when building a house, hire an independent inspector at all stages. Do NOT count on the County inspector. I was warned about this on a building forum, but defended my contractor who was a friend and had built the homes of several of my friends. I was sure he wouldn’t do anything wrong. I defended the Lakeside Planning Department and inspectors, who are actually too lazy to ever go up on the roof, and so overworked that they skip lots of steps. I went down to the inspection office and have never seen a group of people with so little fire in their guts. Complacent, slow-moving, not caring….

That was the only mistake we found on the house. Oh, the tile setter didn’t use the sheet you’re supposed to put down on concrete to avoid the tile cracking when concrete settles. I didn’t even know to ask for that. And he didn’t put caulking between the tile floor and baseboard.

[PD]

john67elco, were you smirking when you changed your tag line? Just a guess…

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