We purchased our D.R. Horton house in September 2008. We have had numerous problems and little to no success getting them fixed. They will send contractors that will fix some of your problems but the result of the repair is unprofessional work that I could've done myself. Certainly not work that is to my satisfaction. That is if they correct a problem. The majority of my problems have some kind of explanation like shifting and or settling, just part of owning a home, etc. nevermind the fact that this is my 4th home, three of which I was the first owner and contracted the builder to build to my specifications. These problems however, are not just some small cracks in the drywall. We are talking you can see into the cracks at least a quarter thick in several areas throughout the upper level of the home and the ceiling in our childrens room can be moved by pushing on it. We had a crew of three drywallers spend two hours at our house and will be returning to complete the job.
Our plumbing is horrible. I will spare you the specifics on our toilets but in addition to awful toilets, we have no water pressure, if someone brushes their teeth or flushes a toilet you have bad pressure, and possilby a 3rd degree burn or frost bite depending on the day. The temperature is never consistent nor is the pressure. Our pipes are hitting the wall and the floor in the master bedroom. We have already had a leaky sink which resulted in the cabinet below being warped. I told them I was very angry I now had to disclose the leak when I go to sell the home and the representative replied in a frustrated tone of voice he wanted my realtor's number to verify my information. Very unprofessional. I felt like he was calling me a liar and calling my realtor who gave me the information a liar. Of course the fix it guy would know more about realestate than my realtor who has owned his own brokerage for several years. Why should my realtor have to back me up anyway? And even more important, why would I have such low ethics that I would be willing to hide something on a disclosure statement? I mentioned to the representative that I would NEVER be so unethical to lie on a disclosure statement as he was implying I should do. I told him just because they did that to us does not mean it is something I would ever consider doing to someone else. How disgusting.
My kitchen sink has leaked but the plumber that came could not see where it was leaking from.
My screen door on the sliding door has fallen off. My front door is warped from water damage and squeaking. The excuse for that is it is Alder wood and it is high maintenance. I can see daylight out of it when it is closed so when they came the first time to fix that they cut a piece of foam and nailed it in the wood. Great, that looks fantastic! I could just pick up some foam and do that myself.
Then there is the door situation inside. A couple of the doors were rubbing along the carpet. I had then come out and the solution is to cut the door at the bottom. They call it plane. That solved the carpet rubbing but now you can see a large gap at the bottom of the door. If you were laying on the floor you could watch the person in the bathroom. Wonderful. When I saw how bad it looked I told him to stop working on the other doors that it looked horrible and I would just not open the doors anymore. Ok, I am kidding. I told them to stop and I would just watch the carpet to make sure it is not fraying or anything. Our garage door is rubbing and scuffed and makes a horrible sound when it gets to the top. It must not have been installed right to begin with. I say this because our neighbor came and warned us that we will have to put some weather stripping on the sides to keep the snow out of our garage. All of our neighbors had that happen last winter because there is a gap between the garage and the house. The neighbors complained to D.R. Horton who replied they would not fix it. No surprise.
In addition to bad doors, lets talk about the soffets. We have a lovely family of birds nesting somewhere in our roof. They found a hole in the soffet and we now house a family of birds. Loveley if we were living in a tree house. Since we aren't, I am a bit angry. I told the D.R. Horton representative who replied there are several homes that they have had to deal with birds, please make a service request. This I might add is the ONLY response I get from the representative.
I actually made him come to my house to see my problems and see why I am so angry. NOT ONE APOLOGY was given, just the response "go online and make a service request." I did go online and made a request...It simply said I am requesting an immediate call in regard to my numerous complaints. Yes, I got the call, no, they did not fix most of my issues. The leak and the ceiling falling in was luckily a priority so those were, and are being fixed. Lets hope the ceiling does not look like I fixed it with a container of putty from Walmart. It is drying and they will be back on Monday. Then the painters will be here. I am not optamistic.
Their level of service is that of a teenager making $5.50 per hour. Yes, this list is long and no, I am not done yet!
My floors are squeaking and the representative could not hear it. (This is the 2nd time he has come to fix the squeak) It has been "repaired" once before however, the repair made it worse. The other squeak is beneath tile so I will bet money they will not fix that. Since he could not duplicate the noise, he ignored it. I am hoping when I submit my next set of complaints online they will address the floors. I'm sure by the time all is done I will have a dozen more nails in my floor, still a squeak and that will be the end of it. We will see. Oh how I wish I was done.
There is still more. I have tiles rising in my childrens bathroom to which they replied it was not shifting so it was ok. Sure, ok, if you aren't the one living here. I find it unacceptable. If I had contracted the tile guy I would not have paid for that. They obviously noticed it before we purchased the home because several of the tiles are filed down on the edges. That is professional tile work somewhere I am sure. While we are discussing the bathroom, I should mention I can move the bathtub faucet enough I can see behind it. I am hoping no water gets behind there. If so, they will just caulk it and pretend it never happened, meanwhile black mold will be happily spreading through the warm, dark insides of our home. Just what a homeowner always wanted.
And yet still more, My kitchen cabinets and pantry door squeak, my garage entry door squeaks, and of course we already went over the front door squeaking. I need all of my windows re-caulked, my grout is coming away from my tile in two of my bathrooms, the grout around my master bath tub and in the shower has separated from the wall and glass, the grout around my granite counter tops needs to be redone, the grout under the counter around the sink is missing in some areas and some water has leaked below. We also had to have the faucet reinstalled because it was falling into the sink and the sprayer just recently had to be tightened because it moved so much you could see below. I had my own plumber come install a water softener and he said the plumbing has a few things that are actually illegal. He asked if we had a private inspector inspect the house before we purchased the home. I should have listened to my realtor when he said we needed one. We had been fortunate in our other homes and not had any problems so we thought the same would be true for this home. We were wrong!
Our carpet has debris left under that they just carpeted over. The carpet is lumpy and makes noise when you walk over the debris. Also, the seams in the carpet are visible and the carpet is already matted down.
One of the subcontactors working in our neighborhood told me there have been MANY angry D.R. Horton customers and several people are complaining. I saw on this website there are several complaints for D.R. Horton but not in my specific neighborhood. I am not sure if my neighbors even know where to begin. I do know they complain. You should hear the complaints I hear at basketball games, school programs and any other neighborhood function. I know several of our neighbors have spoken to the model home in our subdivision but they just get referred to the website. If you have ever tried to call D.R. Horton it is the same story, full out a request online and or call your local model. Also D.R. Horton has just built a spec home in our culdesac that has white windows, soffets and faccia, front door and garage door. It is THE ONLY ONE in the D.R. Horton subdivision and looks cheap. It stands out and is embarrassing. Our neighbor started an email campaign to get them to change it as it is a spec home and is not a customer's color choice. The response from the corporate office was call the sales woman in the model. I called the Utah representative who said they would not change it due to cost. We have since filed a complaint with our home owners association.
Also, when we had our walk through we were missing some trim in the kitchen. The woman we had the walk through with said it was being ordered by one of the local cabinet makers. It was ordered on appx. September 5th 2008. We still do not have the trim and since then the lady who ordered it does not work for D.R. Horton anymore. We will probably not see our trim.
Our dishwasher is AWFUL, we have to run dishes two and three times sometimes to get them clean and we always rinse first. The oven smells of gas so bad that when you first turn it on you have to turn the fan on or you singe your nose hairs! The front panel of the microwave is loose.
I was asked via email how my experience was as of the 30 day mark. I told them how awful things were and got NO REPLY whatsoever. One would think if they valued my opinion they would at least have the courtesy and professionalism to contact me and try to resolve the situation and possibly throw in an apology along the way but that is what you or I would do, not the most horrible builder I have dealt with in the last 15 years would do. No, they still have not responded.
Needless to say, if you are buying or considering building a D.R. Horton home you can plainly see it is something you should think twice about and research thouroughly.
I read reviews about hotels, toys, cruise ships and other things I am spending money on and usually think the people are nit picky and maybe a little crazy but I can assure you I am not. Maybe "picky" could be used but I think you would agree if you purchase a "nice" home you do not want these things happening and do not want half- as* repair work. If that is nit picky then so be it. Take my advice before you are sitting at your lap top spending an evening venting about your house that you are stuck with.
Sadly, this will not be the end of my D.R. Horton nightmare.