My report is about the front door rotting out but let me give you some other background.
I purchased this house in 2001 directly from Imperium Builders. Before I lived in the house a year the A/C evaporator coil began leaking, the chimney began leaking into the attic and the front door began to rot from water damage. I closed in part of the attached garage to make an office only to be told I would have to build another garage because the deed restrictions required garage space for two cars. I complied.
The A/C contractor, (not Imperium Builders), finally made good by replacing the A/C after about 2 years of service calls and leaking evaporator coils. I repaired the chimney myself. After spending the money to build a detached garage I noticed other homes had closed in their attached garages with nothing said about the deed restrictions.
The steel front door with wooden frame is a northern exposure and is covered by about a 2 overhang which is not enough to protect the door from a driving north rain. Storm doors are not allowed by deed restrictions and so the water hits directly on the main door which opens inward. The front door is seldom used as we pass through the portion of the attached garage for our main access. After about 10 months in the house we noticed the jambs on both side of the front door were rotten. After contacting Imperium and telling them the problem they agreed to put in a new door. I told them that we would have the same problem again because of the way the water hits and the insufficient cover. They said if I paid the difference they could put in a door with a treated frame. We went that route and by the time it took to order the door and them to make it around to installation it was now 2003.
After about 10 months with the new door we noticed the jambs on both sides were rotten again. You could stick a key into the wood all the way to the hilt. We contacted Imperium again. He reluctantly said that he would come and look at it and after about three months of calling he finally made it out to say that it looked like only the outermost part of the frame was made out of treated wood and that the frame was untreated and that is why it rotted. I told him that the problem again was that it is too exposed and that a storm door would alleviate the problem and I would be happy to buy the storm door. He refused to allow it but did promise to have his crew come out and build a treated frame and reinstall the door. It took him quite a while to finally make good on it but in the spring of 2005 his crew finally made it out and did the work.
Upon tearing out the old frame it was noticed that the surrounding sheathing had also begun to rot because of the water being allowed in from the bad jambs. He reluctantly agreed to replace the sheathing and the new treated frame was installed with the existing steel doors hung on the new frame.By the winter of 2005 or early 2006 my wife notice that there was rotten wood again on the frame however not in the door jamb it was on a piece of trim that was on the front face on either side of the door. We contacted Terry Bourgeois at Imperium again and after a heated discussion he asked me what the hell I wanted from him. I simply told him I wanted a door that doesnt leak and is not rotting out every year. He sent his man out after a couple of months and replaced the trim.
In April my wife noticed some water coming through the front door. Upon further examination we found that the whole threshold is rotten and collapsed. A north wind pushing a rain has a direct passage way into the living room. Again we contacted Terry Bourgeois at Imperium. He told us that at some point we have to start taking care of this problem ourselves. We told him that our solution would have been to put a storm door on it back in but that his company, (which controls the deed restrictions of the development), would not let us and that the problem has never been fixed properly therefore it is still Imperiums responsibility. He said that he would come out and look at it. We have not heard from him since.
It is my contention that Imperium Builders, while they have made efforts to address the problem, have been woefully inadequate in there solution. This has been an ongoing issue for six years and they have never gotten it right. Mr. Bourgeois told us that no one else in the subdivision has complained about their door and maybe they havent but I did go and look at two other houses they built with the same floor plan and front entrance arrangement as mine and guess what? They both have rotten wood in the door jambs. A simple storm door would protect the access door from the elements and solve the problem but Imperium Builders will not allow it. Yet they allow such other deed restriction infractions such as completely closed in garages with no space for automobiles, roof angles of less than six on twelve, and garages which are nothing more than car ports with a door on one side. It seems that they pick and choose what they want to enforce.
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