Pulte Homes

The stains on each is so different that they look awful. The problem began before closing and we were promised to go ahead and close because the issue would be rectified that following Thursday, to our satisfaction. Pulte has come out five times, replaced doors, and still, they do not match. The issue was first addressed with the superintendent of the house, Josh **. He was absolutely amazing throughout the construction. Unfortunately, Pulte pushed him aside from the problem and brought in another person, Travis **, who also promised to solve the problem within the next seven days. That passed and the problem was escalated to their supervisor, Jason. Jason came to our home with a "you're crazy-lady-and-I'm-not-going-to-replace-your-cabinets" attitude. I may be 55+ but I'm as bright or brighter than the youngster.

Having experience in staining, because I'm a crafter, I knew that the stain drips on the doors were not knots, as he tried to tell me. After Jason told me four times that "we can agree not to agree," or something along those lines, I finally had enough. I called him and told him that I no longer wanted to deal with him and would like to speak to his supervisor, Patrick. Patrick called me a day later and we arranged to meet the following Wednesday (six days later) when he was first available. I work and needed to do mornings. He could only do 3:30pm. Fine. He was due to come out and "I can tell you in 30 seconds whether or not I'll approve a change in cabinets." On Tuesday night, I receive a phone call from Jason. "I've been thinking about this all day and came up with an option. What if he would install a fake door panels where the skins are to dissipate the coloring? I was okay with that, pending the colors would match across the front.

I agreed once again to his solution and he assured me that the problem would be resolved within the next five-to-seven days. Why? Because it would take about three days to make the two panels needed for the sides. He was giving himself a couple of days extra, just in case. I agreed and was fine with the situation. He asked if Patrick still needed to come out on Wednesday since Jason and I had agreed on doing the door panels. "No need. I'll trust you this time," I said. Well, it's now two weeks later...no word from Jason. No panels. No returned phone calls. No returned texts. I finally get a text from Jason **, explaining to me that Pulte received an audit and everyone has been busy this week. It's Thursday. He stated that he would try and find an answer for me as soon as he could. We went back and forth for a bit and when I asked him for Patrick's phone number again, the texts ended.

I tried to call the corporate office, to no avail. This is just one of the seven issues we had with the house. We kept on top of the construction a couple of times per week and my husband found several things that were incorrect but Josh immediately took care of them. He was so on-top of the situation. He is meticulous and detailed like I've never seen before. Daily, the construction site was spotless, unlike the others around. We were kept on the loop about every detail of the house. Josh worked so many overtime hours that he never accounted for to make things right for us. Pulte has these construction supervisors on an hourly wage not salary, per my research online. Many of these guys are working overtime without clocking in because the work needs to be done on time, but not enough hours in the day to do that. Nothing to do with my situation but thought I'd throw that in as a side note.

We had several change orders that were not our fault. Sales forgot to put the right information into the system. Things were left out or added that we did not ask for. Josh rectified those things. He's the one who should be in the corporate office behind a nice desk with an air-conditioned office. It's now a day later...still waiting for a returned phone call from Jason or Patrick. No resolution to the matter. What I do know is that we were baited into signing the closing of our house - it was an oral promise that never came through! Go figure.

Our external siding kept falling off in 1 place in near the top of the home. I put in multiple requests only to find them push the siding back into place. After several complaints / warranty tickets, they came and said it had to be nailed in and it was overlooked in error. Not sure how you can overlook it multiple times before finally resolving...

Now moving on to the bathrooms, when trying to use the 1 of my bathrooms I found the electrician tied the bathroom light to be tied into the living room light (primary light switch). If the living room light wasn't turned on, then the bathroom light wouldn't turn on (regardless of if you flipped the light switch or not). Simple job, yet attention to detail and being proficient at their job seems to be the real issue. Not only was I having electrical issues, but the hot water heater wasn't working (no hot water). I reached out to Pulte who sent someone to fix this issue. They replaced something on top of my water boiler and left claiming to have fixed the problem.

As I went to take a shower the next morning, I am greeted with a nice cold shower. I reached out to Pulte again and they tried to explain that it just took a long time for hot water to reach the upper floors. I explained I left turned on the hottest water possible and found only cold water coming out (I let it run 30 mins with my hand in the running water to confirm it wasn't getting hot). They came out, tested and found the part they fixed / replaced didn't work (again) and changed it. Now I have hot water.

While on the topic of water, lets dive into my leak issues from our roof / loft into my master bedroom. We've had our master bedroom ceiling opened up and fixed at least 3 times trying to trouble shoot why we'd experience leaks. At one point, we were told the rain blew sideways into our air vents causing the leak and there wasn't much to do about it. Pulte needing to schedule in advance was never able to see this issue while it was raining; therefore, they were at best "guessing" at what the problem was. I finally figured out the cause for the leak, which came from cracked caulking on my loft deck door. Pulte came to caulk this item, but it failed shortly thereafter. I had to re-caulk it to be sure it wouldn't become a problem again (as I was tired of scheduling warranty issues time and time again with sub par quality being provided). Sure enough, no more leaking issues in my master bedroom to date.

Moving onto address all the flooring issues I've experienced. Never in my life have I imagined / expected flooring professionals, builders, quality control to sign off on a home build with un-even floors. Pulte did just that! When requesting this to be repaired, they came out to inspect and would try to use a "level" around the issue spot (and not directly on the issue spot - keep this in mind as it is their common tactic to get out of warranty work). My family had to argue with the inspector before he finally did the test right and confirmed the ground wasn't level. This resulted in our flooring under that area to be sanded down some, but still not level.

In other spots, the flooring was built on top of un-level floors, so as my children played a part of my hardwood floor cracked inwards (1" diameter caving down below floor level). My children were 7 years old or younger and shouldn't be able to cause enough stress on the floor to have it break inwards the way it did. This happened after my 1 year warranty period, so I'll have to deal with this out of pocket.

With regards to the 1 year inspection to fix all nail pops and wall cracks, this process in itself is a joke. First of all, if they hear a creak / crack in the floors, they do their best to walk around the problem areas to confirm if it's a problem (in their opinion) or if its a normal sound. The 1 year warranty specifically addresses wall cracks and floor creaks/cracks, yet this is still subject to their definition of what is an issue. What's worse is that Pulte walks around it and if it doesn't creak a minimum of 3 out of 5 times then its considered a unwarrantable problem. This is even worse when they walk on stairwells to determine if it's a problem or not, where you have to argue with them to have stairwells fixed.

After much argument and debating over the definition of warrant-able creaks / cracks, service tickets were provided. They've then fixed a few creaks, but sure enough the creaks came back shortly after my 1 year inspection shifting the burden to fix on the homeowner instead of the builder. The nail pops they fixed also came back shortly after being fixed, and once again I was told my 1 year warranty is up and its my problem to fix now. What's even worse is the people that came to fix the nail pops painted my wall a different color (white instead of cream).

To add insult to injury, I was also told there was no fix for the settling cracks along the corners of the home that happens normally during the 1-2 years a home is 1st built. I told them there has to be a way as EVERY other builder deals with and corrects these same issues. Pulte reluctantly advised these areas could be caulked (again they used white caulking on a cream colored wall) without any attempts to paint over it.

What drove me mad was that the workers took off the painters tape placed on the wall by the Pulte inspector designating problem areas to fix without even fixing the problems. Having 3 little ones, I let them leave when they said all was done. Lo and behold my surprise when I found many of the areas Pulte marked as 1 year warranty areas remained untouched (only the tape marking the area was removed). When I contacted Pulte regarding this, of course their answer was that its my responsibility to ensure all work was done (never imagined I'd have to go through my home with a fine tooth comb to ensure all the marked areas were actually addressed).

Lets move to my garage issues. My garage door tension spring failed after 1 1/2 years of usage. I contacted them regarding this, and was told the 1 year warranty was over and that the best they could do was put me in contact with the originally installer of the product. Why in the world would I choose to use the same contractor to fix / replace this tensioner spring when it failed after only 1 1/2 years? These items normally last for a minimum of 10 years+. The water faucet located inside my garage and behind the home also failed to work properly. When a service ticket was entered, the contractor performed some touch-ups then recommended I don't close the faucet valve too tightly as it could stop it from working properly (never been told that before, but fine).

My final grievance (there are many others, but I'm getting tired of typing at this point) is the thermal expansion "water dripping" noise throughout the entire house. It doesn't matter if it's hot/cold outside, if you use hot water (while taking a shower) then you will hear (without fail) a "water dripping" sound coming from inside the walls throughout the house. Since it's not a leak, this is not something Pulte will fix as they don't see it as an issue.

Pulte claims to build luxury homes / townhomes, and for a $500k+ home, I expected far less issues and/or far better service than what was actually received. Pulte will do anything and everything in their power to not provide you with warranty work. When they do provide warranty work, keep an eagle eye on them as they will cut corners, beat around the bush, and leave without doing the work properly / completely. Please note it's only been 2 years since I've lived in my home, but all the above have been experienced before or shortly after the 1 year anniversary of moving into my "newly built home".

The tile behind it was one strip, causing the new stove to show wall. Then, my husband was planting some flowers in the backyard and started digging up a ton of fast food wrappers, plastic bags, and other trash, where they had not taken the time to dispose of it properly. Then a rain came (and it was only a sprinkle) and we had water flooding into our den. All in all, it’s been a bad experience from start to finish.

I thought when my wife and I decided to pay $475K for a home that they could afford good contractors. I was wrong, they hire it out to the lowest bids and the work is done to the bare minimum standard. "The bare minimum is what you get at Pulte." That is a direct quote from the building inspector in my city. You have to be your own general contractor. Go to the site every day and make them build it right yourself. Bent and broken wood. DO NOT ACCEPT IT. Gaps between grade brick and poured walls MAKE THEM FILL IT IN. Cracks in poured walls FORCE THEM TO ADDRESS IT EARLY. And lastly please do not buy a Pulte Home if you can avoid it.

There have been many unexpected expenses that have cost me thousands of dollars. Even the mechanism used to lift the garage door is substandard so the door can evidently suddenly fall down without warning on top of whatever is under it.

The never used guest bathroom tub is cracked and although we were constantly told we have a one year warranty on everything in the home, when I found the bathtub crack I was told oh the tub only had a 30 day warranty, sorry. Their personnel change about every six months, the new ones are young and inexperienced so when you have a problem the new person says oh I just got here I don’t know anything about this, even when there is a long written history of complaints on the issue. The water pressure is so feeble it is hard to wash my face. But Pulte claims it is up to their standards.

Many neighbors have had AC coils fail in under two years. Many others are finding the grout under their tiles is missing so the tiles are all cracking and sinking in less than two years.

Parts of my landscaping package were missing and it took months of questions before they even admitted that. Other neighbors have found serious mold in their attics. Scheduling work to have things repaired is unreliable and usually miscommunicated. You have confirmed appointments but no one shows up, or an inadequate and uninformed crew shows up, not prepared to do the work needed. Even though this is a senior community, the kind of furnace installed requires unusual hand strength and the ability to crawl around on the floor just to change the furnace filter. Nothing in this home is well-planned or well designed for function, only the model homes are set up to show well.

And to top it off when I asked why I had not received a feedback survey after all the poor workmanship they said I had somehow mysteriously declined the survey so would never be allowed to fill out customer satisfaction survey ever. Every Pulte employee you interact with tells you multiple times and very specifically how to fill out each question of the surveys, so I was very surprised not to get any at all. They spend much more time telling you how to fill out their surveys than they do about how they will fix your home. Even the clubhouse has had problems with pool heaters and the rooms are seriously undersized for the community.