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  1. #21
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    If you had record rainfall during construction, and cranked the heat up soon after, that's all common in the south during your first winter unfortunately. Not always on the same scale tho. The wood gets saturated during framing, then it gets sheeted on the exterior and insulated and drywall over that. Where is the moisture trapped? Yep, and it'll affect drywall before the actual wall sheeting which has another layer of exterior finish to hold it rigid. Doors not closing correctly? Again, not a biggie most likely. They just need a small adjustment. I don't know of any friends in new construction homes that HAVEN'T experienced this. DH says all these problems are probably just from wood drying out with no breathing space.
    Can you tell I've heard all this discussion a thousand times? Will be watching to see what your inspector comes up with...
    DS April 2010
    DS March 2016

  2. #22
    bubbaray's Avatar
    bubbaray is offline Blue Diamond level (20,000+ posts)
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    Houses are built here year round and we get as much or more rain as Seattle. It rains 365 days a year here. OK, not that much, but a LOT more than most other places. They don't call it Raincouver for nothing.

    Anyway, I've never heard of the OP's drywall issue happening here. Neither has DH. They frame the houses, put up the exterior walls and windows, with the weatherproofing membrane over the exterior walls and then let it dry inside. I believe that they sometimes use heaters and fans, but that might be only if they are building on a tight timeframe.

    OP, do you have a basement? If it is your actual foundation that is the problem, there would be cracks and visible damage. I doubt its the foundation, esp if it was inspected by the city/county.
    Melissa

    DD#1: April 2004
    DD#2: January 2007

    "My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world." Jack Layton 1950 - 2011

  3. #23
    JTsMom is offline Diamond level (5000+ posts)
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    Just got of the phone with our inspector, explained the situation, and his words were that several hundred pops are "grossly, grossly excessive". He said that he's never inspected a property with that many. I just counted (quickly) the pops in the kitchen/breakfast nook and family room. Total pops for those 2 rooms? 136, plus all of the seam issues. Two rooms. Granted, those are 2 of the worst, but still, I'm estimating 300-400 minimum. I'm going to count every one I can find today so I'll be prepared tomorrow.

    The inspector also rec'd calling the bldg dept after tomorrow's meeting, assuming it doesn't go well.

    He confirmed that it is not a code requirement to use screws here, just nails and glue, and that is what the vast majority will do here b/c it is significantly cheaper and faster. Some will do screws if you pay extra.

    He said it could be ok- just cheapy work, but he couldn't say that it was definitely not a foundation issue, so we'll just have to see. One of my big concerns about the foundation is that our lot was significantly built up, and I'm worried they didn't compact enough. He said that major structural issues are usually covered for 10 years in GA, so we'll see what happens there.

    And no basement, and no cracking showing in the cement patios or driveways, but it's only been 4 months, so it could still be hidden. The compaction, and the foundation were definitely both inspected, so I'm hoping we'll be ok. Cosmetic issues are one thing, structural is another.
    Lori
    Mom to Jason 05/05
    and Zachary 05/10

  4. #24
    bubbaray's Avatar
    bubbaray is offline Blue Diamond level (20,000+ posts)
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    Do you have a crawl space or are you on slab? The inspector should be able to give you a better idea if you have a crawl space. I would think if there is settling, you'd see it in the slab by now.

    Nail and glue. That sounds like a bad idea all around.

    GL tomorrow. Let us know how it goes.
    Melissa

    DD#1: April 2004
    DD#2: January 2007

    "My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world." Jack Layton 1950 - 2011

  5. #25
    JTsMom is offline Diamond level (5000+ posts)
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    It's a slab. We did have bare concrete for quite a while b/c we installed our own flooring downstairs, and I never saw any cracks at all, but the floors have been down for about 6 weeks now, so who knows.
    Lori
    Mom to Jason 05/05
    and Zachary 05/10

  6. #26
    khm is offline Ruby level (4000+ posts)
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    The doors that aren't closing properly, are they in the same area of the house / same floor?

    I'd definitely have the inspector check them out and see what he thinks. Have they gotten worse very recently? (ie, with the rain).

    The doors in addition to the drywall pops and the countertop movement, it all just seems to be too much.

  7. #27
    JTsMom is offline Diamond level (5000+ posts)
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    1 is the bathroom on the first floor, which is in the middle of the house. Another is the laundry room, which is in the middle of the second floor. Different walls, different floors, but close to the same area. The third is a bedroom on the outside edge of the second floor. None of them has shifted drastically, but I know that's one of the red flags you're supposed to watch for, so it could probably go either way. No one thing concerns me, it's the combination of the hundreds of pops, the corner bead separating, the caulk cracking, the counter backsplashes separating from the walls, the doors, etc.
    Lori
    Mom to Jason 05/05
    and Zachary 05/10

  8. #28
    lcarlson90 is offline Platinum level (1000+ posts)
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    JTsMom - Sorry you are going through this. It's discouraging when you buy a new home because you expect that since it's new there will not be problems to fix. We bought new construction 5 years ago and had a lot of problems too. My advice is to make sure you contact the builder immediately when problems occur. The floor in my son's bedroom (2nd floor) is buckling up. It was like that for about a year and we kept putting off sending in a warranty repair request and then our builder filed bankruptcy and now we have to fix it ourselves.
    Gavin 7.30.08
    Dylan 2.24.05

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