Improper Drainage

The back yard of our home has been a bit of a sore subject. As I discussed previously, the method CW Custom Builders chose to employ to prevent erosion left something to be desired. We have since compensated for their incompetence by constructing a retaining wall and completely overhauling the grading and drainage. This included tieing the gutters into the rest of the drainage system so that the water dumps into underground pipes, rather than dumping onto the lawn. We now have a nearly water- and mosquito-free backyard to enjoy, thanks to the terrific work of the contractor we brought in to fix the issue.

CW Customer Builders, in their own words, had this to say about our new drainage system:

"CW did install many storm water prevention techniques to alleviate any standing water issues. CW did find an addition curtain drain which must have been installed during Mr. Pelli’s retaining wall. This curtain drain not only was draining into the property next to his, but was not installed properly. This drain is also tied into his gutter system, which when installed this way will not be an affective draining method."

The first sentence is, frankly, an admission of faulty work. The second sentence is first false (it was installed correctly by a professional) and then true (it extended about 3 feet beyond the property line due to my own error in calculation). I've talked to the neighbors (who are wonderful people by the way) and they are completely fine with it, especially since it reduces the amount of water that is up hill from their yard, giving them a benefit as well. Keep in mind that it was a completely buried pipe...it wasn't exactly spewing water onto their lawn.

The last sentence it the best though. If it is not an effective method of draining the water, then why is the drainage problem completely gone? Furthermore, why are they employing the exact same strategy on attempt number 3 to correct the drainage problem in my neighbor's yard?















Interesting isn't it? They constructed his backyard in the shape of bowl and have tried now 3 times to stop the water from pooling in massive amounts right in the middle. I've seen my neighbors out at all hours of the day and night having to pump water off the back yard because the area in front of the back steps is a low point that collects gallons and gallons of water every time it rains. In this, their third attempt at correction, they have ripped up the sod that was there and made yet another attempt that's already showing signs that it did not work. With just a sprinkling of rain last night, there's already some pooling. Someone should explain to them that water runs DOWN hill.

It's Not Just My House...

If you're thinking that CW Custom Builders only did a lousy job on my home, then you should see the workmanship done on the house next to mine.

They apparently forgot to measure twice and cut once on the beam that runs along the roof peak because it's clearly just a little bit too long. What's the CW Builders solution? Smash a hole in the OSB of course!

The first picture was taken more than a month prior to the second. I held out hope that they'd do something about it before the siding went on...

This is the high standard of quality that CW Custom Builders holds themselves to. In keeping with the theme, you can see that the high quality standards extend to the weather wrap. Just as they improperly installed the weather wrap on my house, they did almost as poor a job on my neighbor's home as well. Water running down the top layer will have every opportunity to run behind the second because they failed, again, to overlap the layers.

CW Refuses to be Reasonable

As I review CW Custom Builders' response website, I notce that they make every effort to paint me as completely unreasonable. Whether it's through total fabrications such as suggesting that I wanted a flat driveway or just misleading statements, they really want you to think that I am basically insane. I suppose this is not surprising because this is about all you are left with when the facts and evidence all show that they haven't got a leg to stand on.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to show you just how reasonable we've tried to be by sharing an email thread with you. As always, it's in reverse chronological order so you'll have to read it from the bottom to the top, but you'll notice a few things:

1. The long delays between some of the responses. Specifically from 5/10/07 - 5/30/07 and then 5/30/07 to 9/26/07
   
2. Notice that we tried to negotiate a reasonable resolution to the situation.
3. Note that at no point was CW Custom Builders willing to make things right despite overwhelming proof that the workmanship on the driveway and drainage (among many other things) was completely sub-standard.
4. By agreeing to pay for the drainage work we hired another contractor to perform, they are admitting (finally) that there is a problem.
   

Read the email thread here.

Unusable Driveway

Of all the problems we've had with CW Custom Builders, possibly the most ridiculous to me is the driveway. There is no doubt that the driveway is destined to be steep, but it still needs to function as a driveway, i.e. I need to be able to get vehicles in and out of it without a crane, ramp, or 6" lift kit.

CW Custom Builders installed our driveway just days before the closing date. As you would expect, by that time we were frequently visiting the house, and we saw that the driveway was installed the day after it was done. Noticing that it was quite steep, I decided to try it out with our 1995 Toyota Camry, which everyone can agree is as average of a vehicle as it gets. Much to our dismay we could not get in or out of the driveway without scraping the bottom of the nose and tail. In fact, the only way I could manage to successfully navigate the driveway was to approach at an angle nearly parallel to the road, let the dog and wife out at the bottom, and then inch my way up.

As you can expect, we immediately raised this concern to CW to which they responded saying the driveway was "satisfactory." I beg to differ, and here's why:

1. As these photos will show:
1. the Camry had just under 2" of clearance with no one in the car
2. The Tbird had less than 1" of clearance with no on in the car
3. The 24' moving truck couldn't navigate the driveway without putting deep gouges into it.
2. California and Iowa have posted publications concerning the acceptable slopes of driveways and the safety implications. CW Custom Builders installed our driveway WAY outside these or any other specs I was able to find. In fact, I've only ever seen numbers on up to 15 degrees of slope, but our driveway was 18 degrees as you can see with these measurements.

As you can see from the graphic below, taken from the Iowa publication citing research from the Oregon State University, the driveway should decrease in slope as it approaches the road so that cars can get in and out.









These tables show you the real-world implications of steep driveways. Notice that the 18.33 degrees of slope that my original driveway had is completely off the charts. This was also taken from the same Iowa publication (pg 6).




















To address CW Custom Builders' response to this issue:

"Lake Meadows is a development that consists of houses being built at different elevations due to the hilly terrain. This is the cause for all of the driveways in the development to be at a greater elevation than a flat building lot. "

The development is hilly, I get it. My driveway is still steep, which is fine because it's now usable. The contractor that installed it removed and entire dump truck full of dirt from the middle of the driveway in order to make the slope more consistent, and therefore usable...which was all I was asking for.

"The driveway was installed in the same manner as every other driveway in that development."

If they mean without the proper layers of crusher rock and only with finish-grade asphalt and nothing underneath, then yes, it was just as improperly installed as all the others.

"For Mr. Pelli to think that he would have a flat driveway is unreasonable and physically impossible."

Coming back to reality... I never asked for a flat driveway. I just wanted to be able to get my cars in and out of it like any other driveway.

"It is also physically impossible to change the slope of his driveway by repaving, unless you lengthen the distance from the road to the garage."

Judging from this idiotic statement, it seems clear that the useless driveway was not the result of malicious intent, but plain old incompetence. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you make the slope of the driveway increase as it approaches the road (the way the original one did) you can fix it by removing the "hump" in the middle of it and make it closer to an even slope from the garage to the street. If you still don't believe me, just drive on by any time and take a look...

"Mr. Pelli’s driveway not only passed all building codes,..."

I looked into the codes. In North Greenbush there is only a minimum slope requirement because they are concerned with water run-off. Technically a 90 degree brick wall would pass code, but it still does not mean it's usable. A reasonable person would not think that a contract has to specify that cars can be moved in and out of a driveway as that is the sole purpose of installing one.

"...but in fact was never perceived to be an issue to the Pelli’s at any point until after the closing. CW’s attorney never received any letters from Mr. Pelli’s attorney in regards to his driveway. It was not clear there was an issue until Mr. Pelli posted his issues on the website."

We didn't raise the issue? Really? This email thread shows that we contacted them 10/15/06 @ 4:03PM which was 6 days prior to closing. The driveway was only put in 24 hours prior. We even tried to just have them widen the bottom so that we could approach from a more shallow angle, but that was, of course, rejected. Read the thread and decide for yourself if CW Custom Builders lies to cover up problems.

The PROOF doesn't lie. I have photos, full email threads and measurements. What does CW Custom Builders have? Just LIES!

CW Builders' Laziness

One of the single most appalling actions CW Custom Builders took during the building of the house was in the dumping of copious quantities of hideous and dangerous rocks in our back yard.


















As you might guess, this was not something we asked them to do. It actually caused a few problems.

1. Visually, this is an eye-sore
2. The loose rock is a hazard for any children that might try to play on/near it, leaving me with a major liability risk.
3. They do nothing to combat the major drainage problems we've experienced in the back yard. The water just runs down the hill and through the rocks, ultimately collecting the improperly graded back yard leaving significant standing water that's breeding excessive quantities of insects.
   
4. They are sliding down the hill (see photo below) so clearly they are not properly stopping erosion if they are eroding themselves!
5. Fixing the problem is going to be 100 times more difficult now that I have to remove several metric tons of rock, and build the retaining wall around it.

All they had to do here was to email or call us to give us an option or two. Simply ask if we want to have rocks from the side of a local highway for free, or pay for a retaining wall. We even asked Linda the day that we saw it what our options where and she gave us none...just some idiotic rambling about DEC requiring that "something" be done to prevent erosion and that this is what the builder decided to do.

This is CW Custom Builders' response to this situation:

"When building in Lake Meadows we must first submit a plan to the DEC for storm water prevention and grading. This plan is then revised and approved by the DEC, which then ultimately gives CW the approval to excavate. The rocks in question were placed during the stabilization of the soil around the home, which is completed in the first few stages of construction. Mrs. Pelli did request a quote for a retaining wall to pass DEC regulations, however was turned down by CW. We turned down her request due to the proximity to the closing date. As I stated before, it takes weeks to receive DEC approval on plan revisions and she requested this quote 3 weeks prior to closing. Obviously, this would have held up the closing even longer due to this approval and installation process. A wall was installed by the Pelli’s following the closing."
Here's the key points to this ridiculous response:

1. Even if the request was made too close to the closing date (which it was NOT), some options could still have been given. For example tell us we have to pay an extra $3,000 to delay closing. The builder only pays tax on the property, not the house so his holding costs are not exactly astronomical, and a wall can be put in in 2 days. I know this is true because that's how long the contractor took to do the wall after the fact.
2. Once again, the delay is not the issue. Go ahead and submit whatever needed to DEC. If it doesn't come back until after the closing, so what...then you do it once we're moved in. We never said it had to be completed before the closing date.
3. The real issue is the lack of customer service. If they cannot be bothered to present one or two options to the homeowner, just imagine how the rest of the process must have gone.
   

I am just grateful that I don't have any children because there is no way I could have let them play in that backyard. In fact, my newest neighbor specifically told CW Custom Builders that dumping rocks in his backyard was NOT an option because of his 3 yr old son...so it looks like I am not alone in my concern.

There's no "Custom" in CW Custom Builders

At my last house, I maintained a lush, green carpet of a lawn. I wanted to have the same thing at this house, but CW Custom Builders took the opportunity to show me what false advertising their name really is.

We asked in the beginning to have our own seed used on the lawn. This was rejected. We offered to do it ourselves...also rejected. Then we offered to hire another contractor to do it at our expense. Still rejected. We tried every option we could think of to get the Kentucky Bluegrass that I wanted but they would not do any of it. All of it was flatly rejected without any explanation. No matter what, they would only use their seed, and would only allow their subcontractor to do it.

At no point did they give us any indication that they were in any way willing to help us find a way to get the Kentucky Bluegrass lawn I was looking for despite making it clear that I would happily incur all the expense.

This is now CW Custom Builders' stance on this:

"It was explained to Mr. Pelli that the type of seed used in seeding and stabilizing his future lawn was submitted and approved by the DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION. To use Mr. Pelli’s type of seed and contractor CW would have needed to re-submit to the DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION for revised approval. Significant time would have been lost due to this re-submission, which was also explained to Mr. Pelli at the time he requested his own seed be used."

As you can guess from my statements above, the "explanation" they are referring to is a total fabrication. In fact, until I read about it on their website, I had no idea why it was turned down.

The most obvious way to figure out the truth here is to ask yourself, "Why would the homeowner have banged his head into the wall for so long if they had explained what was going on?" Furthermore, why wouldn't I have simply approved the resubmittion to DEC, especially when we've already determined that I was in no particular hurry? This story just doesn't even make sense.

Linda, CW Custom Builder's Incompetent Realtor

I'll start by saying that while my wife and I found Linda to be far more of a problem than a help every single step of the way, we are by no means the only ones. Literally EVERY neighbor I have talked to has said the same thing. Most people found that simply circumventing her was the best policy, and I again challenge CW to find neighbors that feel otherwise.

I cited a particular situation where Linda gave us the option to place the ledger board either on one side of the back door or the other. As this was still at the very beginning of the process we still thought she knew what she was doing and therefore assumed that when she presented two options, those were truly the options. When we did the final walk-through, the person conducting the walk-through asked us why we put the entire 12' board where we did, and said that the workers were confused as to why we had done this since there was no way to connect the deck to the back door. He told us that we could have split that 12' length into smaller segments to more appropriately join the deck to the house.

There is so much fiction worked into CW Custom Builders' response to this matter that I'll have to pick it apart line by line...

"Linda Tidd-Dickstein has been the primary listing agent for most of Lake Meadows subdivision for a reason...she is a great real estate agent. "

We all know that there are many reasons why someone might have gotten an opportunity like this that has nothing to do with job skill or work-related merits. Given my opening statements, I see no evidence that she is even an average Realtor...a sentiment shared by (and I cannot stress this enough) literally every single person I've talked to in this development.

"She not only listed Lake Meadows for CW, but many other builders contracted to build in the development."

This is true.

"She not only cares about her customers, but also repeatedly sells their homes."

This is total fiction. If you've read any of this blog you know that she's only interested in money. Once she got our contract signed, she was nearly impossible to work with. And to say that she "repeatedly sells their homes" is total fiction. To the best of my knowledge, there is not one SINGLE person int he development that has used her to sell their home. I've seen many homes for sale in the development over the last couple years and NO ONE used her...which should be a strong indication.

"She has customers that have bought and sold houses through her many times over her real estate career."

I really cannot attest to the truth of this. I have only had the misfortune of knowing her for a short time and have no idea what her career has been like, but I can make some guesses based on her "popularity" in the development.

"Mr. Pelli did not bring this "issue" up to anyone prior to closing or even after closing. It was not until CW viewed it on cwstinks.com did they know his feelings on the matter."

Since I was not made aware that she sold me down the river until hours before closing, I am not sure how (other than time travel) I could have done much to affect any change in the situation. I guess that makes the statement true, though also absurd.

"Another instance where Mr. Pelli did not follow the proper punch list claim policy."

Again, still not sure how I could have done much here, nor am I sure how this becomes a punch list issue. Once the board is on the wall and the siding is on...you're quite committed.