Fourth Time's The Charm ... Not!

Or I Lost $240 For This???

Setting the Scene

When my wife and I bought the house we were told that we would have three meetings with a Calbridge site supervisor so that we could point out the things that we found to be not done properly. One would be just before we took possession of the house. One, if I remember correctly, after we had taken possession for about ninety days then one more at about the one year anniversary. We had agreed to this so we can't complain about having to take time off from work to have these meetings.

I attended all those meetings and pointed out the things that needed to be done better. During this time we dealt with two different site supervisors and both were quite professional in manner. They agreed to repair most of the things I pointed out. In time some things were repaired while some were addressed but not done well. Other things were not done at all.

On the page Hello? Hello? I went into more detail about the frustrations my wife and I went through to get Calbridge to even reply to my wife's e-mails trying to find out when things would be completed. I also talked about how Calbridge's Construction and Customer Care Manager (CW) absolutely refused to give me two hours of his time on a weekend despite my wife and I giving Calbridge literally days of our time at a loss of several hundred dollars to accommodate Calbridge contractors during the covid crisis.

On this page I want to tell you about the meeting and all the "misinformation" CW gave me. Whether it was because of a lack of knowledge, out and out lying or CW trying to show me he's an expert about things he apparently has little knowledge, I really cannot remember a time when I had so "misinformation" given to me.

I want to make it very clear that I did not record this meeting. I have no documentation to "prove" what was told to me. But I swear what I am about to say is absolutely true. I would not be at all offended it you offer any skepticism regarding this meeting.

The Meeting

CW came over with what I am guessing is the latest site supervisor for our area. That was unexpected but, since I had my neighbour over to act as a witness, I didn't complain. Kinda sad that I wanted a witness because of all the lies I've been told by Calbridge isn't it?

I thought it would be a good idea if CW could see what I have already done for Calbridge but he wasn't interested. I had to insist on telling him so that he could know where I was coming from. I talked about the $500 Not to Drill a Hole episode and the Never Talk to Us Again! fiasco. I showed him the pictures of how Calbridge just used my yard without my permission after my wife and I had taken possession.

He was not interested.

I took him to the garage and showed him how they had wired the outlets contrary to the plans. I had not complained about this before since, quite frankly, I didn't know. I was not asking him to set it right either because I had not caught the mistake within one year of occupancy. I showed him all the places where the drywall screws were already coming through the drywall and showed him how the sheets were put on with only speed in mind. Before I bought the house I had been told that the garage would be drywalled ... I didn't know it would not be done in so unprofessional a manner. But I was not asking any of this to be repaired. I was only pointing out the lack of care and professionalism.

I told him how somebody had smeared glue in a long swath on my garage door. I had been told before that Calbridge does not "finish" the garage but I was not made aware that this gave their contractors license to not clean up after their little mishaps. As my wife had said many times, it looked as though Calbridge had put on a second hand door.

These things I showed him so he could see the frustration I had with the lack of care and professionalism I had experienced so far from Calbridge. Little did I know then that CW was going to take that lack of professionalism to new heights in just a few minutes.

My Heated Closet

I took CW down to the basement that Calbridge had developed and asked him why I paid to have a heat register put into my (small) bedroom closet.

He was a little surprised and told me that the reason probably was because Calbridge, following my instructions, had not put any doors in the bedroom. (See No Base No Case Please.) He thought that it could be that the building code requires this but he would check with the HVAC company that did the work in the house. Later, in an e-mail he wrote, "HVAC company advised they opted to add this due to the fact of its location in the basement and the size of closet."

I asked for the name of the HVAC company and CW gave me the name that I will not repeat here.

Fact Check

I contacted an HVAC company that did not work on our house. I just picked this company because of their 5 star google reviews. I talked to the owner of the company who, as it turned out, happened to be a former SAIT HVAC instructor. He told me that there was absolutely no reason to put a heat register in a bedroom closet unless it was requested by the customer. Whether there is a closet door or not makes absolutely no difference. It is not required by code. He was very emphatic about this.

I telephoned the HVAC company that did the install on our house and read verbatim to their representative what CW had written in his e-mail to me. His response was, "Whoever told you that is handing you a line of absolute bullsh**."

I also talked to a mechanical engineer who has spent years designing HVAC systems. He also stated that there is no building code requiring a heat register in a closet - door or no door. As for CW's written statement , "HVAC company advised they opted to add this due to the fact of its location in the basement and the size of closet," the engineer, like the HVAC installer, stated that I was being fed a line of, "absolute bullsh**."

I believe like CW lied to me.

Paint Slopped on Stained Woodwork

I showed CW the many, many places where the painters had masked off our dark woodwork to paint our walls and allowed the paint to bleed through the masking. Every place the railing met the wall there was bleed through. I really wish I had kept the pictures! He allowed that some of the bleed through was excessive but he also stated that I was being too fussy. He told me that it met "standards." I asked if he was saying then that the job was "good enough." He told me that I could say it anyway I wanted, the painting met "standards." I told him that this is the kind of work that, had I done it myself, I would have been kicking myself for not hiring professionals. But I did hire professionals and still I did not get professional work. I can do better work myself. Me. A baby boomer truck driver can do better work than the Calbridge professional. CW admitted that I probably could do better ... because I had time. He explained to me that Calbridge doesn't have time to do better work. In fact, he said, on "production homes" like mine, customers are complaining that Calbridge takes too much time as it is.

If you go to CalbridgeHomes.com and scroll down to just past their home designs you will see their mission statements, mottoes ... basically statements on why they think you should choose them. If you click on the plus sign under "Superior Craftsmanship" you will read:

"We are committed to building all our homes with superior craftsmanship and the highest level of construction quality. Employing only the highest regarded partners and sourcing top-tier products, we ensure every single home has a robust and sustainable structure that will last for generations to come."

I don't see anywhere in that statement that this "superior craftsmanship" happens only when there is time.

But, as I said, he admitted that some of the bleed through was excessive and allowed the painter to come in to repair the sloppy work.

CW went on to say that there will always be bleed through no matter what kind of tape is used and that there was bleed through because wood has grain. I pointed out that the wood in question here is maple, one of the tightest grained woods in common use. He admitted that but insisted that grain still played a factor. Then I reminded him that the wood was also coated with some kind of polyurethane and doesn't that virtually eliminate any roughness due to grain on so dense a wood as maple?

We moved on to another topic then.

Fact Check

This is what the bannisters look like now, after they have been "repaired." Hard to believe but they actually look much better than before. The painter did his best and cleaned up the bad paint bleed through but the damage was too much for him to fix properly in only the couple of hours allowed him by Calbridge. This, according to CW, "meets standards." This is "superior craftsmanship."

And this is the work done by some baby boomer truck driver on his garage cabinets. An amateur woodworker and NOT a painter. This is crown moulding made of red oak, a very open grained wood finished with Watco oil and only a couple of coats of polyurethane. Squint all you want, there is not a single speck of paint on the oak. Not. One.

So how can a mere truck driver achieve results on a new install that the professionals at Calbridge could not? Very simple. I painted the ceiling and the walls first. I sanded then stained the oak and coated the pieces with polyurethane on a couple of sawhorses. Finally I applied glue then used a pin nailer to hold the pieces in place until the glue set.

Wanna bet it took me less time than it took the Calbridge people?

As for CW's statement that all masking tape allows bleed through please look at any one of these YouTube videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__lmMVYS6A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i6nCEn1hH8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPpPf0n2R6g

The bleed through on our woodwork was equivalent to the worst case shown on the first video.

Why is Our Siding Falling Off?

There is a lot to this story and I will go into more detail on a separate page. But since the whole siding debacle with CW started during the meeting we had I want to mention it here. Please go to the Siding Debacle page for more information.

On our block several Calbridge built homes have had siding come off. Homes constructed by other builders have been unscathed. We have not had any severe windstorms. During our meeting I asked CW about this situation saying that my neighbours and I are very concerned that the siding had not been applied properly. I did not record the conversation but it went something like this:

CW: You have to understand that the back of your house is facing west, where most of the wind comes from. You have a large green space behind the house so you're getting the full effect of the wind. Vinyl siding is not attached firmly to the house to allow for temperature expansion and contraction. I believe what's happened is that the wind has been strong enough to get behind the siding and rattle enough to work the nails holding it out of the wood.

Eddie: But we haven't had any strong winds here. Nothing strong enough to even knock branches off the trees behind us.

CW: Those trees are protected from the wind by the hill behind it and by the other trees. That's why there has been no branches coming off. The onus was on you, as a potential home buyer, to do some research on the area you plan to move into. Had you done that research you would have found that Cochrane is a very windy area.

Eddie: If vinyl siding comes off because a house is next to a green space, then it sounds like the wrong material was used. Why did Calbridge use vinyl siding if it's just going to come off the house?

CW: Calbridge does not have a choice in what to put on the exterior of houses. That decision is made by the land developer as part of their architectural controls.

Eddie: But ... Calbridge owns the land developer here - LaVita Land. Don't they?

CW: Yes, but we act independently.

Eddie: (Words escape me on the ridiculousness of that last statement.)

As I said, I did not record the conversation so these are not exact quotes. But I will swear in court that this is the gist of the conversation. I'm not making any of this up. CW was actually trying to put the blame on me for the siding coming off because I had not researched the wind in the area.

Silly me! I thought that a home builder having been in business in the Calgary area since 1978 would know how to build a house to be able to withstand the known environment! Guess I was wrong, eh? I really did not think that I would have to research wind conditions in the area I plan to build so I can tell the builder how to build the house. Isn't that their area of expertise? What's next? Do we, as home buyers, have to read through the Alberta Building Code's 1300 pages to ensure they're building to code? (Turns out I did ... read The Screw Pile Screw Up.)

As I said earlier, there is much more to this siding story. CW's heels were strongly dug into the ground and he flatly refused to even look at the siding. I will be telling more about the siding issues on its own page. It gets more ludicrous than I have told so far. Check back later!

Don't Complain To Me!

Twice during our meeting CW threatened to end the meeting if I kept complaining about the way I had been treated by Calbridge before. Not because I was using foul language (I wasn't), not because I was abusive (I wasn't) and not because I was threatening violence (I wasn't). I didn't even raise my voice.

He threatened to end the meeting because I was complaining. To the Construction and Customer Care Manager.

Summary

To be fair to CW, he agreed that some of the work done was below par and agreed to fix these items. He agreed to replace the untreated finger jointed pine trim outside around our garage doors (this is a cheap indoor wood that all the suppliers I checked on the internet said should not be used outdoors ... but Calbridge does!) He had the railing people come to see what happened to our steel spindles and agreed to have them replaced because, before we had taken possession of the house, somebody had used some kind of chemical cleaner on them and taken off the powder coating. He agreed that the painter should have fixed the tear out on the bottom of every main floor door jamb instead of just painting over it. He even offered to change a toilet tank lid that I had shown him and told him how a lot of chips had just fallen off one night well after we had been in the house for one year. I told him that I wasn't looking for Calbridge to replace it since the event occurred well after the one year mark, but just wanted to show it to him out of interest's sake because I'd never seen or heard of such a thing happening.

So there were some good things ...

This is an example of "tear out" in wood. It is caused by the saw's blade exiting unsupported wood. This occurs very easily on thinly veneered plywood (such as shown here.) My doorjambs are made of solid maple so to have done the tear out that we had would have required one or a combination of using a dull saw blade, cutting too fast or simply not knowing how to do a finish cut on wood.

But ...

When somebody, especially a Construction and Customer Care Manager, starts telling me things that are completely untrue, even being called "bullsh**" by his own contractor, this is, to me, not doing the "right thing." If you don't know something, say you don't know that something and follow up with truthful statements after doing some checking or research. As for telling me that there is always bleed through when taping off wood so I shouldn't be so fussy, well, I know from my own personal experience that this is not true. The You Tube videos show it. My own, amateur work shows it.

And it is never, NEVER the "right thing" for the Construction and Customer Care Manager to threaten to walk out because the customer is complaining. If the customer is using foul language, sure. If the customer is threatening, absolutely. If the customer is racist, sexist or any number of other "ists" then leave. But complaining? No.

What do you think? Did Calbridge live up to its promise to "always do the right thing?" Go to Reader's Comments and let us know!