Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/11/home-builder-taylor-morrison-wants-home-inspector-banned-from-posting-about-its-shoddy-work.html
…
10 Likes
Just south of where I live, Milton Keynes (UK, as though there could be another town with a name that diriculous anywhere else on the planet) has been throwing up newbuilds at a terrific rate.
Unfortunately, ten years later a large percentage have been condemned for mould problems, amongst others.
A friend of mine in the trade (not involved with these modern builds) advises us to never buy a house less than fifty years old. That’s pretty tricky when the country is in such need of housing.
His bright side? The walls are so thin you could punch your way out in case of a fire!
19 Likes
Oregon has a Milton Freewater! I love that name, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s part of the Walla Walla Valley AVA wine country. They make some excellent reds!
Back on topic, IIRC there was a similar situation with DR Horton and a home inspector on YouTube.
10 Likes
Sounds like a retirement community for neoliberal economists.
25 Likes
12 Likes
The only Milton worth its salt:
A bit off-topic, but hey.
11 Likes
Taylor Morrison?
In UK we have Taylor Wimpey (house building) whose reputation on new builds is not stellar, and Taylor Woodrow (civil engineering projects) whose logo is not dissimilar to Taylor Morrison’s.
I think the moral of this story is that wherever you are in the world, don’t necessarily trust any corporate builder with ‘Taylor’ in the name.
11 Likes
All these national builders (including mine) hire the lowest bid subcontractors and give them little supervision. We had pages of defects (I have some experience in this area) and getting them fixed was beyond a pain. Back in those days, work from home wasn’t a thing and staying home “just to let someone in” would somehow kill the day. “I don’t have the right tool/part with me,” or “I have another job I have to get to.” Ugh! THEN, they would fix one thing and break another in the process.
Their goal isn’t to make it right, the goal is to get past the warranty period so the homeowner has no recourse and most homeowners will just assume it’s fine. It “passed inspection” means it’s all good. Ha! I could go on… for pages. 
21 Likes
If they aren’t following up on the quality of their subs, then they’re a low quality builder. I mean the whole point of being responsible for a job is to get it finished, and not simply to do work until it’s sold.
It doesn’t matter if they hire “the cheapest”, as long as the work is done properly and with materials of sufficient quality. That’s ideal, really, as you probably don’t want to pay more. And as the inspector said on that news clip, a home is too big to get it 100% perfect. So competent follow up absolutely is part of every building job.
11 Likes
Having just done a huge remodel/reconstruction job, can testify. Our guys did a really good job of coming back and correcting stuff, and it was multiple trips for multiple things, but they did it, politely and even eagerly. I cannot imagine what it’s like to sink that kind of money and find out you got taken. More power to this guy!
12 Likes
One of the videos shows him pouring soapy water on a gas meter; bubbles promptly expose a leak caused by defective work.
That should be an issue with the gas utility, unless the leaking was on the downstream part of the meter. I didn’t see a link to the particular one with the gas leak.
On other points for shoddy construction work, unfortunately that’s way more common among most builders. Here in Austin TX even high end homes are made terribly, main way to avoid it would be (if financially possible) to hire a smaller local home builder. You might still have issues but they have more skin in the game and will really go to bat for you if you’re working with someone that really cares.
Also there is an unbelievable amount of fraud in the construction/contractor business. I worry about hiring someone that is going to do shitty work, close the company and open a new one under a new name. I spent extra to get my roof redone last year because i wanted to make sure the company would stand by their work.
4 Likes
We built our house 30 years ago. That’s exactly what we did, hired a 2 man operation, the only work they subbed out was plumbing and electrical and they were small local companies with the work done by the owner of the company.
The other thing we had going for us was they had to come to me for the draws, not the bank.
We also had in the contract that our house was the only job they would work on until we got the final inspection.
I still have the stack of change orders from both of us, any deviation from the original blue print was recorded, even an outlet being moved one stud over.
It was an awesome experience.
That builder is now a home inspector for a nearby town, he stopped by a few years ago to see how the house was doing.
Not a single complaint.
We were very fortunate to be able to do it that way.
I used to watch Holmes on Homes where he fixed major screw ups by builders, I can’t believe what goes on in builder land.
In over 3 decades as a contractor, it’s very rare but if I ever got a call from an unhappy customer I’d drop what I was doing and go fix the problem.
Of course I ain’t no billionaire company and can’t afford even one unhappy customer.
15 Likes
6 Likes
Taylor Morrison was originally a joint venture between Taylor Woodrow and an American company. formed when Taylor Woodrow merged with George Wimpey, the owner of Morrson Homes.
5 Likes
I just happened to have a relationship with a home inspector in the ‘90’s - I was a vet tech and cared for his cat - and his advise was simply “don’t buy anything built after we landed on the moon. It’s that bad.”
I followed his advice and finally found a nice brick ranch style mid-mod that could be a real showcase if I had any money to furnish it properly. Had to replace all the plumbing, though.
12 Likes
If they aren’t following up on the quality of their subs, then they’re a low quality builder.
Yep. And that’s all of them. Ones that I know that are that way include Pulte, Richmond, KB, Lennar and, most definitely, Toll Brothers. They are all deadline driven, not quality.
5 Likes
Somebody once told me that the rated lifetime of the structural timber frames used in new mass-built modern homes in the UK is twenty-five years. The typical mortgage is thirty years. So before you’ve even finished paying for it, it’s started to fall apart.
Possibly for this reason, among others, they tend to be very hard to resell. Hence the joke:
Q: What’s the difference between herpes and a [well-known construction company] house?
A: It’s easier to get rid of herpes.
6 Likes
Plumbing is one of those items with a limited lifespan. Pre-1990s copper water pipe is apparently better than a lot of subsequent piping. Of the last 6 condos I’ve owned, 4 have been completely replumbed, all with plastic pipe. I’m so used to plastic pipe that any valve or line that gets replaced in our place is automatically considered to have non-potable water until it’s been used for other purposes for a month. I can smell and taste the plastic from even a very short replacement.
7 Likes
“Taylor Morrison would like Cyril Porter, on behalf of himself and his companies, to stop posting any videos to social media about Taylor Morrison,”
No shit, I bet you would. I’ve seen some the videos he’s done, and while I don’t know shit about fuck as far as building codes and new home construction, even an idiot like me can see some HORRIBLY shoddy work.
6 Likes
