Clayton Homes

Then, we paid our down payment so they would get started and it took them a while to make our home. It was on my birthday, in May, that it arrived to the store for us to go look at it. So the process started from the end of November all the way to May. But that was understandable with the COVID virus slowing everything down. Then for Christmas, they closed for two weeks, which we knew about beforehand. So the process took a little longer than we thought but our expectations may not have been realistic given today's circumstances with the virus.

So we went and looked at the home that they made in May, then it was June 1st that it was delivered on our property. After that, it was end September when we moved in and a lot of that was due to a lot of rain we were having, so it was hard to get things quickly. There were also a few times when I felt like the communication with Clayton's reps could have been better. But as a new person doing something like that, I was just a little insecure.

So far, we're very happy with the home and it feels like a solid one. We've been through one really bad storm, the effects of that last hurricane, and we were nervous because it was our first storm in it. Fortunately, the home's out in the field and the woods are backed off from us, so we didn't have to worry about trees falling on us. But we were nervous because the winds got pretty hard for Georgia. Still, we didn't feel like we needed to leave and go get somewhere safer. The home held up really good and there was no damage to it at all. The air conditioning and the heat seem to be really efficient, too. I'm happy with our electric bill. It went up a little this past month, but that's because it's been so cold. But the home seems to be very comfortable and a cozy place. It’s such a pretty home and it has the little built-in front porch on it with the stones on the column. We get a lot of compliments on it.

My husband was working in Nashville and he was driving by a Clayton place and saw The Abigail. He pulled in and looked. It was about 80% of what we had drawn over the years. So, he told me about it but Panama City didn't have one at the time. So, we drove all the way across to Georgia. The woman up there was one of the rudest people I've ever talked to but I gave a brief look anyway. Then, I waited a few months until they got one in Panama. I went and looked at it, and when I started questioning about adding extra windows, doing different things, so on and so forth, is when D.C., the rep, told me that they could do anything we wanted. So, I was hooked. We went to Jasper, Alabama and looked at the factory, which was when I was set on it and when I wanted it.

With the problem now, I called DC, who is the lot manager in Panama City. He was the first one we spoke to. I kept calling until they got that home in over there and then, Stephanie called and let us know it was in but not together. So, I called D.C. I told him that I wanted to look at it and that I don’t need it together. I just need to see the front half of the house. He said that he would get the stairs and we would go in it.

We have carpet in the house and we have that linoleum we paid top dollar for. It’s supposed to last for 25 years. They didn't sand down the floors like they were supposed to and they also didn't make sure that the things were sealed before they put it in. We've only had our home a few months and because of the COVID, the young man, Boris, couldn't come back out and do a lot of fixing. The whole floor has got to be replaced. I've got some places where it’s 4 to 6 inches, and there’s no way I’m gonna let them pack it when I gave $12,000 for it. I’m gonna have to get a lawyer to fight it to make sure it's done.

Also, there are humps. If you throw an area rug down and one of your kid’s balls or a toy gets under, you can feel it. So, that is the biggest issue that I have with our house. I don’t call DC and complain to him about it because there's nothing he can do. There's no need to complain to Jeremy either but I have talked to a young lady up at Clayton in Jasper, Alabama. I was a contractor and I used to build homes from ground up so I know what the process is. They didn’t sand the floor and they didn’t put the board that was supposed to be put underneath this. It's supposed to be a seamless, airtight floor so that the floor was supposed to be sucked down to the existing floor, and they didn't do that.

The construction of it is fine but I’m a detailed person. My center island is off three quarters of an inch. So, instead of it being 3 foot from counter to counter all the way down on each side, it’s not. It wasn’t put in right either. The way that they built this home was they were behind. They were pushing out a lot of homes for the hurricane victims. I get it but what I don’t get is sloppy work. I even had to screw everything up when I came to the house. Even my siding is popping off the house. It’s not cut right. Every time I've had somebody call me and ask me if I would recommend Clayton, I would say yes, all the way across the board. But if I ask if I could talk to them about the factor, they would say no.

There are other high dollar issues. I told them when I first got the home that the toilet rocks left to right and it’s due to the fact that the floor is not level. So, the floor wasn't locked down properly. There were no head bolts put in the floor to hold it so that the toilet wouldn't do that. If you don't put it on the beam you put it on the edge of the beam, it's gonna work its way down so it's always going up and down. You have beams that go across the floor, that's what the board connects to. So if it's not there, and it's over on the side of the beam, then the floor is gonna go up and down. They have stated that they had to go underneath the house and do things, which means that they got to cut my insulation. It’s a repeated problem.

I bought an extended five-year warranty but at the same time, I'm not gonna claim any of this on my homeowners insurance because I'm not gonna let my homeowners insurance go up because the factory chose to do a shoddy job. Also, they put the dryer vents four inches from the wall and it is six inches, so you've got a 10 inch gap between the wall and the back of your dryer, which has my dryer six inches in front of my return air. So I have to move the dryer, unhook the dryer, pull it out, to drop the returned air to take the filter out. It was slap it together and get out of here because they were behind schedule. At the same time this was going on was when they fired that one factory manager and hired somebody else, and put in another one.

Our biggest struggle was we bought late in the year and the weather held us up from getting it. It took us about three months to be able to get in and get it moved here. We've officially moved in here in January and there's still a lot of things that need to be done and it seems like feet are getting dragged. There's some discrepancies with the people at Clayton on as to when to do things and when not to do things. There's a vapor barrier that has to go underneath the home and there's still some discrepancies on that. We still haven't gotten that done. Some of the people at Clayton say that it should’ve been done already. The manager at Johnson City told us that we gotta get our underpinning put up first. But that's kinda like putting the horse behind the cart. It seems like it would be something that would be harder to do with the underpinning up because they have to go under the house to do it.

We finally got our front door replaced yesterday. The door was messed up on the lot, which is understandable because they told us that people would go in and look at the homes and not close the doors and the wind would blow and catch them and warp them. They worked on the door twice before they decided to replace it. They put a bunch of shims in and it was so funny when the guys took the door out yesterday. About 50 shims fell in the floor. The guy said it was crazy. But when they replaced the storm door, they didn't send the door handle for it. But the guys were really nice about it. They even went to town and bought one and brought it back. But it wouldn’t fit and the guy said that’s because a lot of mobile home things are made where you have to go back to a mobile home manufacturer to get stuff. So he just pieced together what was on the old door.

When they worked on the door, my door handle was actually two different colors. The guys that was here yesterday tried to make things right. I've got four mini blinds that needed to be replaced and they brought out blinds and it had my name on the box. When they opened them up, they were the wrong size. It took them three tries before they finally got the right screens to put back in my home because there were screens missing and there were some that were messed up on the home when I bought it. They finally got them squared away a couple of months ago.

When the guys were here yesterday, they said that they would go back and let them know that the wrong blinds was sent out but I have no clue how long I have to wait for new blinds because it took me forever to get them. Also, I had to have the blinds replaced on my sliding glass door. The blinds fall off of it all the time. I had the guy put them back on yesterday. Now, this blind has only been up for a month and a half but it was messed up when the boy put it up. The boy said that he was gonna tell them that it wasn't right. Apparently there are some clips inside of it that were broke off.

I'm still waiting to hear about my bathtub in my master bath. When they brought the home out, I had to go through and clean everything before I could even move stuff in. When I was cleaning all the dust and fills out of the bathtub, I noticed that there was a puncture hole in it. I talked to somebody at Jiles about a month ago and I'm still waiting to hear about that. It seems like if you talk to one person then it's like everybody tries to make good with everything. But it seems like there isn't a chief at the helm that takes responsibility to try to correct things. The people that came out here to work on stuff have been great.

I'm just by myself so I didn't really need a dishwasher. Otherwise, if I had one, I would have to stack the dishes for a week at a time. I would've rather wanted a cabinet covered in that spot and they did that. They took the washer and our dishwasher out and put a cabinet in the space in that area. I was very pleased with that. Also, the homes now, they come with the solid glass door for the front door. I didn't want that. I wanted a combination door so they changed that out for me also.

Everybody there at Clayton that I've talked to has been very helpful. You go in there and they speak to you right away and see what you need or ask, "Do you have any questions?". If I ever have any questions or call up there for something, Jay is the one I talk to now. He handled everything. Every question I had, he could answer it. Or if he didn't know it at the time, he would find it out and get back to me.

Initially, when I was first looking at the homes and deciding what I wanted, I had to put a deposit down on one to hold it then. And then, I was told by Robert that the downpayment had to be separate from that. Then when everything was done I would be refunded that $500. When it was all said and done, Robert was gone already and nobody knew about the deposit. But when I was working with Jay, he found everything out and I had the deposit back within seven days. He really did good so I told him that the survey would come out real good for me and I would recommend anybody to go to Clayton. I told Jay about this area and that if knew it would be like this, I would've chosen a different place. He told me I could always sell it and come and pick out another house or pick out the same one as I have. I love the house. It's gorgeous. I told him I might think about that if I get too disgusted with this area.

I paid 3,000 in cash upfront for the mobile home and then I paid to have the electric in and to have the septic done and everything. He did not follow up with anything. I had to get on him hot and heavy about it to get it in on time. He still didn’t get it on time and we’re running the rainy season. And it cost me money as far as getting my driveway and that put in because the rainy season hit. Now, my driveway is settling and sinking because they didn’t get it in on time. They even forgot to find the actual contract for me to get my tags for the mobile home when they made the bill. They kept telling me they were not responsible for that. And I had to call the main office and get on to them to get him to come back and do it.

Also, the mobile home when we were looking around didn’t have everything in it. I ordered it special and I’ll be darned if they didn’t ruin that. They messed up everything that I ordered. It had stuff in it that the other one had and it wasn’t supposed to. But I had to be satisfied with what was in it because if I ordered it, it would take them another week for me to get it and I couldn’t wait a week because we got a lot of rain coming.

They had carpet in it and it was not supposed to be carpet. It had mirrors on the walls, which it was not supposed to have because they start taking mirrors off the walls, they glue them things on and when you do that, you tear everything off when they do it. But that’s fine and the rest of it was hardwood. And then the sink in one of the main bathrooms was crooked and everything. The guy told us that it would cost more to fix it. But another guy, Joe, had that thing tore out, put back in, and had it looking perfect. I said I didn't want anybody coming out except him. He was the only one that seems to know what he's doing.

As far as the home, my wife loves it. It's a nice home. We have a few cracks in it and stuff like that, but that’s from the moving and from the settlement. And as soon as it gets to where we can do it, I'm gonna have Joe come out and take care of it. Once I met him and got some people in there that I could trust, it was good and everything.

To summarize, the contractor that is supposed to install the home was very upset because, “this is too green! I can’t install a house here yet! Didn’t anyone call or come out and check this out?” Believe it or not, he is the only contractor that Clayton Homes has hired that seems to know what he’s doing, or more accurately, seem to care about doing it correctly. Here are a very short list that we are turning over to the regulatory authority in this state: no rebar in any concrete (not even the tie down piers). Some support piers are only 12 x 16 inches, 6 inches deep. Painters tarp used as a vapor barrier (I saw the package the guy took it out of). We have to live in this home. We will ALWAYS now have the impression that the house is substandard. My my is in tears!!! Avoid the stress, don’t buy from Clayton Homes. They care about selling you a home, but could care less after that. But, when they made my wife cry, they stepped way over the line!

I can only reach the bottom shelf of any of my cabinets because they're so high. They're ridiculous. I’m short but even my tall friends could only reach the second shelf. The bathrooms are terrible and the vanities are awful. It’s almost useless. There's one big door and there's all this space on each side, but you can't see in there and you can't open it. So, you cram stuff back there that you don't use very often. The home is not very livable. They need to get a woman in there to help. They're the ones that use the kitchen.