Contractors Involved In This Section:

Andros Refrigeration

Santa Fe Drywall - Abraham Burnette, owner.

McCreary Homes - LJ & Denise McCreary, owners.

Terra Cotta Building and Development Inc – Mike Clark owner. (Also owner of Terra Cotta LLC)

Simmons Home Design - Greg Simmons, owner.

This is the balcony under construction. You can see that the columns and rails are being added with no water barrier underneath the columns. Whenever it rained the water ran down the columns and into the walls underneath. (See garage photos for the proof)

Area of the balcony post and railing that construction experts opened up to determine why water was streaming through the walls.

A close up of the damage to the post and underneath when construction experts opened up the post to prove that there was no water barrier underneath.

Notice that the stucco is cracking around the railings.

This is a photo of the railing after a repair by McCreary. Note that the stucco has again cracked - even after McCreary "fixed" it.

This is one of the railings on the Master Suite porch. We noticed that the railing was not level and indeed when we measured it (see next two photos) there was a two inch difference in the level of the railing on east and west sides of the railing as measured on the floor. When this was pointed out to McCreary he said that the railing must have been stepped on by the painters and this caused it to tilt. We found many beer cans after the house was completed. (thrown down the hill) We strongly feel that this again points to inadequate supervision and lack of attention to detail. Surely McCreary's supervisor should have noticed. We heard from the gentleman who picked up the roll-off trash container that the framers offered him a marijuana cigarette while he was at the house. Where was the supervision? No wonder railings are crooked!

Note that the yardstick indicates one inch of space from the floor to the bottom of the railing.

Note that the yardstick indicated three inches of space from the floor to the bottom of the railing.

This picture shows the space at the top of the railing. If you look again at the picture with the level in it you can see that the top of the railing is also sloped.

Posts on Master Porch wrapped in plastic to try and keep water out

A closer view of the plastic that we wrapped around the posts in an effort to keep the water out when it rained.

This is a repair that McCreary was ordered to do on the master balcony by the registrar of contractors. McCreary's excuse to Inspector Jim Morris that the ceiling of the balcony was popping at all the drywall nails was because birds must have been pecking at it! Mr. Morris recognized the problem for what it was - a failure of the drywall because of poor installation. Morris scoffed and determined that it had nothing to do with birds. McCreary's position was ludicrous. Morris ordered McCreary to screw (not nail) in the drywall, replaster the cracks and repaint. You can see that he screwed and dry walled it - but as of the day the house was foreclosed (two years later) it still looked like this.

Close up of the Balcony ceiling where the drywall was separating from the walls.

The wall that the vanity mirror was on is so warped that you could put your finger behind it.

A closer view. When the mirror company tried to put the mirror closer to the wall - the first mirror shattered. We were told by the mirror company that we would just have to live with the gap.

Notice how close together (2 feet) the air intake and exhaust vent are. This allowed heated or cooled air coming out of the register to be immediately sucked back in the intake. What were they thinking?

For 41 days the intake and air return were within a foot of each other causing heated or cooled air to be sucked directly from the outtake into the intake. Not a very efficient system!

You can see in this picture how close together the intake and exhaust vents are. A terrible waste of energy. Also the heat pump was installed on the roof directly over the bed! The noise was very loud for sleeping.

Ceiling being replaced after ducting removed in master suite.

This picture shows how they solved the intake/register problem by moving the ducting to accommodate a better circulation pattern. Of course this meant less efficiency and a cooling or heating of the air depending on the season.

Although it's hard to see in this photo the subfloor in the master suite was installed with ¾" plywood rather than the 1 & 1/8" plywood called for in our contract. This caused the carpet in the bedroom to be lower than it should have been and therefore it didn't meet the tile. This extra plywood was also to act as a noise barrier and insulator between the garage below and our bedroom.

All the moisture in the walls and all the gaps led to an invasion of flying ants. This is the aftermath.

If you enlarge this picture it is very easy to see where the water has been running down the window frame. The frame is starting to buckle. Water dripped whenever it rained. Despite trying several times to stop the leak - every time it rained water ran down the frame and settled at that corner.

This is a gap between the wall and the carpet

This is the way the drywall was left around a window installation.

This is Arizona Designs' idea of a cabinet for a built in refrigerator under the morning bar in the master suite. This was eventually redone but only after filing a registrar of contractors complaint against Arizona Designs.