My family and I were forced to leave our life-long home in Lousiana after losing our employment overnight as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Under extreme pressure to relocate we must have looked at 120 houses in the north Atlanta area. We finally found a house that we liked and decided to purchase it. It was a home built by Jerry McClure of McClure Home Builders L.L.C. We purchased our house in Dawsonville, GA from Mr. McClure on December 16th.
Upon moving into the house it was apparent that all was not well. Because of time constraints, we arrived for the closing on our home on a Saturday. We were supposed to do a final walk through on Friday. Being that we arrived in Dawsonville, GA with what was left of our possessions on Saturday we weren't afforded a final walk through. And how I regret it now.
When I walked into my home for the first time after closing I was greeted by trim moulding that was seperated from the walls. It appeared to me that the trim moulding was not nailed to wood but rather to sheetrock only. Another issue was that of the kitchen floor. It had sunk in the 6 weeks that we were gone. It was so bad that if you placed an ink pen on the island in the kitchen the ink pen would roll of of the island. There were nails popping through the sheetrock all over the house as well.
Upon entering the basement I was horrified that there were two large cracks across the floor. These cracks were approximately 3/16" each. Had these cracks been there upon my initial visit to the home I would have walked away.in fact, we walked away from several houses that exhibited foundation problems. The cracks are no 1/4" each.
Having no choice we began moving our furniture in. It was then that several other serious problems were detected. The floors in the house would bounce up and down as you walked through some of the rooms in the house. It was so bad in my bedroom that the pictures on my chest of drawers and my nightstands would fall over. And just as serious, it seemed that the majority of the doors in the home refused to shut or stay shut.
Our first night in the home was a cold one. I set the thermostat to 72 degrees but the HVAC system wouldn't come on. So, I set it to 80 degrees and heat started to come out of the vents. It was a shortlived joy. It appeared that the thermostat wasn't calibrated properly. There we were, My wife, my 5 year old son and my 3 month old daughter freezing in our new home.
And then there's the upstairs bedroom that was always 85 degrees regardless of what the thermostat was set to downstairs.
After going through a two week period of freezing before I could get Mr. McClure to come out and fix the thermostat I began finding other defects. There was an area in the living room that had begun to sink right next to the stone fireplace. And, it appears that the tile and wood flooring in the home wasn't installed properly because there was creaking and popping all over the home. We were and still are depressed.
Since then I had notified Mr. McClure of the issues. He sent a carpenter over and began attempting to fix the doors and trim moulding in the home. The method of repair was not to remove the door, shim it properly and rehang it. It was bend the hinges, jam a wood shim behind the hinges and beat on the door casings in the middle so that the door latches would catch. Now when I close my doors they creak because of the stress on the hinges. The ones that close anyway. The moulding was not nailed back into place but caulked where it was seperating. The calk is now seperating in several areas.
For the sinking floor in the livingroom, Mr. McClure came over and installed a metal brace under the fireplace in an attempt to lift the floor.in doing so, the sheetrock in the living room split and the doors that he had adjusted went out of adjustment again. Turns out that every door in the home except one was not shimmed. The only thing holding them up was the door casing. To this day, my doors don't shut properly.in fact, I can't even lock the garage access door.
For the kitchen, Mr. McClure installed a brace under the island. The island is now level but it sits at the bottom of the depression in the kitchen still.
As we continued to live in the home it was apparent that the HVAC system was incapable of heating the home to 72 degrees.in fact, it could barely muster 64 degrees and at one point it ran three days straight trying to do so. During my research I have found that Georgia building code dictates that a home must be capable of maintaining 68 degrees of heat. This is not the case over a year later. Sometimes when the heat runs cold air comes out of the system for durations of no less than 30 minutes.in summertime I sweat in my bed when the A/C is set to 72.
As far as the room above my garage, well, after 8 months of begging Mr. McClure and working out of my garage because it was cooler out there in summer that in my office above the garage, Mr. McClure installed a 1.5 ton heat pump on the room. Problem is, the thermostat was placed on a wall that backs up to the attic. Therefore, it isn't reading the proper ambient temperature in the room and as a result I'm unable to control the temperature in the room. This unit was intalled in August and to this day the problem isn't resolved.
Now, let's talk about the basement a little more. After showing Mr. McClure the cracks in the floor he repaired them by filling them with grey caulk. That's right, grey caulk. From time to time I would go down to the basement to check the walls. I was worried that the foundation was shifting because of the cracks in the floor. Well, 9 months after we moved in I had 14 cracks in my basement walls. 11 of them are from top to bottom and the other three are diagonal across the corners of the basement. Two of the cracks are now over 1/8" wide and at least 1.5" deep and they are widening by the month. They are also visible on the ouside of the home. Mr. McClure was notified of these cracks when there were only several of them. Mr. McClure suggested that he didn't think it was a problem and sent over the concrete and foundation companies that did the work. Of course they both denied anything being wrong. Mr. McClure filled the cracks with, you guessed it, grey caulk.in fact, Mr. McClure went so far as to remove a water stain from one of the cracks by sanding it away in an attempt to hide the seriousness of the problem because Georgia code stipulates that if water intrusion is evident then appropriate repairs must be made. To this date, proper repairs have not been made.
Other issues with the home are as follows;
Large cracks 1/8" or wider have developed in my driveway.
The support columns for the front porch of the home are mounted improperly and are a very significant structural problem according to an engineer that I had inspect the home.
All three toilets in the home leak from the tanks.
The kitchen floor slopes 1/4" in less than 1 foot in the kitchen.
There is a hole in the wood flooring at the island in the kitchen.
There is no pan or drain under the washing machine.
No sealent is present on the top edge of the master and bonus room showers.
The junction of two roof lines is not braced. This is a violation of code.
Daylight is observed coming from a ridge in the roof.
Crimped HVAC ducting in the attic.
The bottom plate below the garage is slanted. This is why my garage access door no longer shuts.
There are several areas on the outside of the home where plumbing exits the home. These are not sealed.
No drainage tubing from the gutter systems to carry water away from the foundation.
Cracks in the fireplace masonry and bricks.
Floors popping and creaking through entire house.
An electrical short in the hallway light switches.
Floors bouncing in Master Bedroom, living room, kitchen, dining room and master bath.in fact, when I walk through my kitchen the cabinets creak and the stove rattles. I have to tip-toe at night to keep from waking my family.
Mr. McClure has attempted to repair some of the minor issues but all repairs have failed in one way or another. After notifying Mr. McClure of the remaining issues continuosly it became evident to me that he wasn't going to fix anything else. I was forced to send a letter the last week of our warranty to get it in writing and to start the process. Since then Mr. McClure has stated that the defects in the home are "percieved" to be defects by me even though an engineer licensed by the state of Georgia has detected these issues as a significant problem. He has stated that he will fix some of the defects but not all. He has further stated that he is trying to resolve this dispute by fixing "some" of the defects. Yet he has given no indication as to what he will fix and what he won't.
My family and I have been through a tremendous amount of hardship this past year. Losing the ability to provide for your family over night has had devastating effects on my family and I. We didn't lose all of our possessions but we a struggling to keep what we have. And Mr. McClure seems bound and determined to add to our suffering through his inaction and deceptiveness regarding the defects in our home.
I will be providing Mr. McClure a copy of this file. I would also like to state that I was smart enough to record every conversation that I had with Mr. McClure throughout the course of our first year in the home. Georgia is a one party consent state which makes it legal. I sure hope he can remember everthing he's said.
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