lousygolfer
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Here's my situation: two days ago my wife and I had an offer accepted on a house that's about half built - the exterior is mostly done but the interior is only framed out and has basic plumbing and wiring installed. It's a $400k 4 BR, 3.5 bath house in a nice subdivision in the midwest (where $400k can actually buy a nicely built and fitted-out house of this size) where the average house is at least as large. We saw another house the builder did nearby that was very nicely done and nicely fitted out with amenities and based on an express comparison with the levels of fixtures and other specs on that house, plus representations from the builder, we felt comfortable that the basic level would be quite nice (he boasted how all plumbing was already in for Kohler fixtures throughout the house) and he would not nickel-and-dime us on upgrades just to get up to the minimum level one would expect for the house.
Yesterday, we met at one of the supplier's showrooms and were rather shocked to find out that what he had spec'ed with the supplier was basically the lowest level, least expensive stuff available in cabinets, countertops and bath and kitchen fixtures. We found out that our current "starter" home that cost not much more than a third of what our new home costs has the same cheap, white plastic-looking cultured marble bathroom countertops and sinks as the builder spec'ed for our new home and the cabinets in our old home (which were purchased from a discount hardware chain) are actually quite a bit nicer and better built than the ones the builder claims he intended to put into our new house.
While the kitchen faucet the builder has spec'ed is a nice one, the other Kohler faucets are all the cheapest ones available, look rather awful and are not as high of a level as the faucets in the builder's other house we saw. In particular, all of the shower fixtures (which retail for $47.00), including the ones for the double shower in the master suite, have cheap plastic heads and look like what you would expect to see in an apartment rented by your average college students.
We suspect this builder had two spec sheets, one featuring nice amenities commensurate with this house and neighborhood that he was planning on using if he had to build the house and sell it as a finished house, and another one with all low-end, cheap items that he would furnish to the suppliers if the house was purchased mid-construction, as we did. We plan to meet with him in the next two days and see if we can get him to bring the level of his amenities up to the minimum level we expected that would be included in this house. In a worse case scenario, we can walk away from this house because we have a contingency regarding specifications meeting our satisfaction, but we want the house, just not fitted out with bargain-quality fixtures and amenities. Just as a rough guess, we'd have to spend a minimum of $5,000, maybe as much as $10,000 just to bring the quality levels up to what we expected would be the base level on this house.
So, I have two questions:
1) Is there any reasonable likelihood that in a master suite double shower, that is to be tiled (not just a fibreglass shower insert), any builder would actually put in low level fixtures with plastic shower heads, if he intended to sell the completed home? This a higher end, luxury home feature that is one of the highlights of the house, so I cannot imagine any builder would include a tiled double shower (rather than just a regular shower with liner) unless he planned to make the entire presentation look sophisticated and have an elegant appearance (i.e. would not have cheap fixtures). This seems to me to be the most obvious example (and a good starting point for our upcoming discussions) of the downgraded quality levels on our spec sheet, analogous to an auto dealer delivering your new $50,000 Mercedes or BMW and trying to convince you that its vinyl seats and plastic hubcaps are standard equipment.
2) Is there any industry-wide consensus on poor quality control with low-end Kohler fixtures? Two years ago a friend of my wife's moved into a bigger, more expensive, brand new home nearby that featured all Kohler fixtures and within the first year she lived there, every single Kohler product - all the faucets, all the toilets - broke and had to be replaced. She found out that the problem was that Kohler's low-priced products are made in China, not the U.S. Anyone else encountered something similar and if so, has Kohler turned things around with QC in its Chinese plants in the past two years or is reliability on their lower priced products still a concern? From what I gathered reading online about chronic problems with some of their toilets, Kohler's customer service ranges from indifferent to plain awful.
Thanks for wading through this rather long post and giving me your input.
Yesterday, we met at one of the supplier's showrooms and were rather shocked to find out that what he had spec'ed with the supplier was basically the lowest level, least expensive stuff available in cabinets, countertops and bath and kitchen fixtures. We found out that our current "starter" home that cost not much more than a third of what our new home costs has the same cheap, white plastic-looking cultured marble bathroom countertops and sinks as the builder spec'ed for our new home and the cabinets in our old home (which were purchased from a discount hardware chain) are actually quite a bit nicer and better built than the ones the builder claims he intended to put into our new house.
While the kitchen faucet the builder has spec'ed is a nice one, the other Kohler faucets are all the cheapest ones available, look rather awful and are not as high of a level as the faucets in the builder's other house we saw. In particular, all of the shower fixtures (which retail for $47.00), including the ones for the double shower in the master suite, have cheap plastic heads and look like what you would expect to see in an apartment rented by your average college students.
We suspect this builder had two spec sheets, one featuring nice amenities commensurate with this house and neighborhood that he was planning on using if he had to build the house and sell it as a finished house, and another one with all low-end, cheap items that he would furnish to the suppliers if the house was purchased mid-construction, as we did. We plan to meet with him in the next two days and see if we can get him to bring the level of his amenities up to the minimum level we expected that would be included in this house. In a worse case scenario, we can walk away from this house because we have a contingency regarding specifications meeting our satisfaction, but we want the house, just not fitted out with bargain-quality fixtures and amenities. Just as a rough guess, we'd have to spend a minimum of $5,000, maybe as much as $10,000 just to bring the quality levels up to what we expected would be the base level on this house.
So, I have two questions:
1) Is there any reasonable likelihood that in a master suite double shower, that is to be tiled (not just a fibreglass shower insert), any builder would actually put in low level fixtures with plastic shower heads, if he intended to sell the completed home? This a higher end, luxury home feature that is one of the highlights of the house, so I cannot imagine any builder would include a tiled double shower (rather than just a regular shower with liner) unless he planned to make the entire presentation look sophisticated and have an elegant appearance (i.e. would not have cheap fixtures). This seems to me to be the most obvious example (and a good starting point for our upcoming discussions) of the downgraded quality levels on our spec sheet, analogous to an auto dealer delivering your new $50,000 Mercedes or BMW and trying to convince you that its vinyl seats and plastic hubcaps are standard equipment.
2) Is there any industry-wide consensus on poor quality control with low-end Kohler fixtures? Two years ago a friend of my wife's moved into a bigger, more expensive, brand new home nearby that featured all Kohler fixtures and within the first year she lived there, every single Kohler product - all the faucets, all the toilets - broke and had to be replaced. She found out that the problem was that Kohler's low-priced products are made in China, not the U.S. Anyone else encountered something similar and if so, has Kohler turned things around with QC in its Chinese plants in the past two years or is reliability on their lower priced products still a concern? From what I gathered reading online about chronic problems with some of their toilets, Kohler's customer service ranges from indifferent to plain awful.
Thanks for wading through this rather long post and giving me your input.
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