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We purchased our D.R. Horton house in September 2008. We have had numerous problems and little to no success getting them fixed. They will send contractors that will fix some of your problems but the result of the repair is unprofessional work that I could've done myself. Certainly not work that is to my satisfaction. That is if they correct a problem. The majority of my problems have some kind of explanation like shifting and or settling, just part of owning a home, etc. nevermind the fact that this is my 4th home, three of which I was the first owner and contracted the builder to build to my specifications. These problems however, are not just some small cracks in the drywall. We are talking you can see into the cracks at least a quarter thick in several areas throughout the upper level of the home and the ceiling in our childrens room can be moved by pushing on it. We had a crew of three drywallers spend two hours at our house and will be returning to complete the job.
Our plumbing is horrible. I will spare you the specifics on our toilets but in addition to awful toilets, we have no water pressure, if someone brushes their teeth or flushes a toilet you have bad pressure, and possilby a 3rd degree burn or frost bite depending on the day. The temperature is never consistent nor is the pressure. Our pipes are hitting the wall and the floor in the master bedroom. We have already had a leaky sink which resulted in the cabinet below being warped. I told them I was very angry I now had to disclose the leak when I go to sell the home and the representative replied in a frustrated tone of voice he wanted my realtor's number to verify my information. Very unprofessional. I felt like he was calling me a liar and calling my realtor who gave me the information a liar. Of course the fix it guy would know more about realestate than my realtor who has owned his own brokerage for several years. Why should my realtor have to back me up anyway? And even more important, why would I have such low ethics that I would be willing to hide something on a disclosure statement? I mentioned to the representative that I would NEVER be so unethical to lie on a disclosure statement as he was implying I should do. I told him just because they did that to us does not mean it is something I would ever consider doing to someone else. How disgusting.
My kitchen sink has leaked but the plumber that came could not see where it was leaking from.
My screen door on the sliding door has fallen off. My front door is warped from water damage and squeaking. The excuse for that is it is Alder wood and it is high maintenance. I can see daylight out of it when it is closed so when they came the first time to fix that they cut a piece of foam and nailed it in the wood. Great, that looks fantastic! I could just pick up some foam and do that myself.
Then there is the door situation inside. A couple of the doors were rubbing along the carpet. I had then come out and the solution is to cut the door at the bottom. They call it plane. That solved the carpet rubbing but now you can see a large gap at the bottom of the door. If you were laying on the floor you could watch the person in the bathroom. Wonderful. When I saw how bad it looked I told him to stop working on the other doors that it looked horrible and I would just not open the doors anymore. Ok, I am kidding. I told them to stop and I would just watch the carpet to make sure it is not fraying or anything. Our garage door is rubbing and scuffed and makes a horrible sound when it gets to the top. It must not have been installed right to begin with. I say this because our neighbor came and warned us that we will have to put some weather stripping on the sides to keep the snow out of our garage. All of our neighbors had that happen last winter because there is a gap between the garage and the house. The neighbors complained to D.R. Horton who replied they would not fix it. No surprise.
In addition to bad doors, lets talk about the soffets. We have a lovely family of birds nesting somewhere in our roof. They found a hole in the soffet and we now house a family of birds. Loveley if we were living in a tree house. Since we aren't, I am a bit angry. I told the D.R. Horton representative who replied there are several homes that they have had to deal with birds, please make a service request. This I might add is the ONLY response I get from the representative.
I actually made him come to my house to see my problems and see why I am so angry. NOT ONE APOLOGY was given, just the response "go online and make a service request." I did go online and made a request...It simply said I am requesting an immediate call in regard to my numerous complaints. Yes, I got the call, no, they did not fix most of my issues. The leak and the ceiling falling in was luckily a priority so those were, and are being fixed. Lets hope the ceiling does not look like I fixed it with a container of putty from Walmart. It is drying and they will be back on Monday. Then the painters will be here. I am not optamistic.
Their level of service is that of a teenager making $5.50 per hour. Yes, this list is long and no, I am not done yet!
My floors are squeaking and the representative could not hear it. (This is the 2nd time he has come to fix the squeak) It has been "repaired" once before however, the repair made it worse. The other squeak is beneath tile so I will bet money they will not fix that. Since he could not duplicate the noise, he ignored it. I am hoping when I submit my next set of complaints online they will address the floors. I'm sure by the time all is done I will have a dozen more nails in my floor, still a squeak and that will be the end of it. We will see. Oh how I wish I was done.
There is still more. I have tiles rising in my childrens bathroom to which they replied it was not shifting so it was ok. Sure, ok, if you aren't the one living here. I find it unacceptable. If I had contracted the tile guy I would not have paid for that. They obviously noticed it before we purchased the home because several of the tiles are filed down on the edges. That is professional tile work somewhere I am sure. While we are discussing the bathroom, I should mention I can move the bathtub faucet enough I can see behind it. I am hoping no water gets behind there. If so, they will just caulk it and pretend it never happened, meanwhile black mold will be happily spreading through the warm, dark insides of our home. Just what a homeowner always wanted.
And yet still more, My kitchen cabinets and pantry door squeak, my garage entry door squeaks, and of course we already went over the front door squeaking. I need all of my windows re-caulked, my grout is coming away from my tile in two of my bathrooms, the grout around my master bath tub and in the shower has separated from the wall and glass, the grout around my granite counter tops needs to be redone, the grout under the counter around the sink is missing in some areas and some water has leaked below. We also had to have the faucet reinstalled because it was falling into the sink and the sprayer just recently had to be tightened because it moved so much you could see below. I had my own plumber come install a water softener and he said the plumbing has a few things that are actually illegal. He asked if we had a private inspector inspect the house before we purchased the home. I should have listened to my realtor when he said we needed one. We had been fortunate in our other homes and not had any problems so we thought the same would be true for this home. We were wrong!
Our carpet has debris left under that they just carpeted over. The carpet is lumpy and makes noise when you walk over the debris. Also, the seams in the carpet are visible and the carpet is already matted down.
One of the subcontactors working in our neighborhood told me there have been MANY angry D.R. Horton customers and several people are complaining. I saw on this website there are several complaints for D.R. Horton but not in my specific neighborhood. I am not sure if my neighbors even know where to begin. I do know they complain. You should hear the complaints I hear at basketball games, school programs and any other neighborhood function. I know several of our neighbors have spoken to the model home in our subdivision but they just get referred to the website. If you have ever tried to call D.R. Horton it is the same story, full out a request online and or call your local model. Also D.R. Horton has just built a spec home in our culdesac that has white windows, soffets and faccia, front door and garage door. It is THE ONLY ONE in the D.R. Horton subdivision and looks cheap. It stands out and is embarrassing. Our neighbor started an email campaign to get them to change it as it is a spec home and is not a customer's color choice. The response from the corporate office was call the sales woman in the model. I called the Utah representative who said they would not change it due to cost. We have since filed a complaint with our home owners association.
Also, when we had our walk through we were missing some trim in the kitchen. The woman we had the walk through with said it was being ordered by one of the local cabinet makers. It was ordered on appx. September 5th 2008. We still do not have the trim and since then the lady who ordered it does not work for D.R. Horton anymore. We will probably not see our trim.
Our dishwasher is AWFUL, we have to run dishes two and three times sometimes to get them clean and we always rinse first. The oven smells of gas so bad that when you first turn it on you have to turn the fan on or you singe your nose hairs! The front panel of the microwave is loose.
I was asked via email how my experience was as of the 30 day mark. I told them how awful things were and got NO REPLY whatsoever. One would think if they valued my opinion they would at least have the courtesy and professionalism to contact me and try to resolve the situation and possibly throw in an apology along the way but that is what you or I would do, not the most horrible builder I have dealt with in the last 15 years would do. No, they still have not responded.
Needless to say, if you are buying or considering building a D.R. Horton home you can plainly see it is something you should think twice about and research thouroughly.
I read reviews about hotels, toys, cruise ships and other things I am spending money on and usually think the people are nit picky and maybe a little crazy but I can assure you I am not. Maybe "picky" could be used but I think you would agree if you purchase a "nice" home you do not want these things happening and do not want half- as* repair work. If that is nit picky then so be it. Take my advice before you are sitting at your lap top spending an evening venting about your house that you are stuck with.
Sadly, this will not be the end of my D.R. Horton nightmare.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
DrH treats my neighborhood like it is their private party place. They play music really loud day after day. After several complaints they are still playing it.
Either their corporate policy must be to abuse the people living near their building sites
or their management is so lazy they can't manage a few workers.
Whichever way DrH is a horrible organization to have near.
DrH is a pitiful group of people.
Is there a way to ban such a piece of garbage from building another house in the town?
I too am a DR Horton home owner and these horror stories of warranty claims that are never fixed couldn't be TRUER!
It has been a total nightmare getting them to fix anything and when they do... well, its only done on the surface, not to solve the problem.
My warranty is about to run out and I have had alot of trouble finding an email address or ph. # for DR Horton builders. I have been using the homeowner warranty site to send my claims but thats as far as they want you to go. I am throughly disgusted with them and am thinking of going to the media to get my warranty claims known.
Does anyone in the Round Rock, Tx. Tervista com. that are DRHorton homeowners have a Ph # or email I can use?
In Dec. of '09 we signed a contract to build a D.R. Horton home in far North Fort Worth. We were drawn to the subdivision and the contractor came second. Had I read all the online complaints at that time I'm sure I would have dismissed them saying D.R. Horton builds so many home there has to be a few disgruntled buyers.
The community we were building in is tiered and that concerned us from day one but I was told over and over again throughout the entire process to "wait for the final grade". I see from the complaints other people have been told the same thing. We had 3 closing dates and finally it looked like it was really going to happen. Two weeks prior to closing I was told the final grade was in. What concerned me most was the one neighboring house that didn't have gutters on the side of it and their sprinkler system that seemed to gush water over the retaining wall in places. We couldn't see any kind of grade what so ever and couldn't tell if the water was to run to the front or the back. When I voiced my concerns to the construction supervisor I was told this is it...period. We decided to hire a Structural Engineer to look at it. Thankfully we had the money and had experienced foundation problems prior to be aware of this. The Engineer told us just what we thought...5-7 years down the road we would be looking at up to $30, 000. worth of foundation work. To make a long story short it took a week of abusive phone calls from the corporate bosses before we firmly told them we weren't going to close and that we want to cancel our contract. Of course we had put down over $2, 500 in earnst money that we'll probably never see again but in the long run I think we got away cheap.
I can't tell you how disheartening all of this was to us. I'd grown to love that house design and I still think the neighborhood is one of the best around. We had given our notice to the apartment complex we were renting from and they had already leased our unit so we had to move. Before D.R. Horton would even start to build our new house we had to sell our old one. We found a new builder and new area and after being "homeless" for 9 months we are starting to see an end to what was a horrible experience. FILE A COMPLAINT WITH YOUR LOCAL BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU.
I am so glad we didn't buy a D.R. Horton home. They know what they are doing by having great salespeople up front. After reading every complaint I could find it seems that D.R. Horton has lots of problems with water in one form or another. Buyer beware.
I bought a house in Cibolo, TX and am having the same problems..shifting of the house! Have had over 50 floor tiles cracked, over 5 foundation cracks, the arch in the entranceway nearly fell down, over 100 cracks in the walls...large ones of nearly 4 ft long, doors off so that they will not open or close, bricked flower beds I had installed in the front yard look awful due to the shifting ground. And do you know what they tell me...I am not watering properly! I have owned 4 homes and 3 of them have never had a problem. I water the same way as I always have. The house is just defective and that is the best answer they can come up with. They have fixed the damage several times & the cracks start reappearing the very next day! The stairs to the upstairs separated from the walls of nearly 3". I will never ever buy another DR Horton home...EVER!
I have owned a DR Horton home for 14mths now and have found the house to be built well and any problems that I have had they have addressed in a timely manner. I recently had my one year warranty inspection and they went above & beyond what we had asked them to fix.
The only complaint I have which is a new one is now they are starting to build on the lots next to me with spec homes and the workers are not considerate to neighboring yards. They have been using my front yard to put all of the house frames, scraps etc. on. There is a hole about 2ft x 2ft dug out, workers walk all over it and they have parked blocking my driveway several times when they could have parked elsewhere. I have seen ladders and wood set up in front of other neighbors homes and they have the length of 8 houses all together on one side of the street they could be using... I called in about the large hole in my landscaping and missing gravel, and they told me it should be fixed once the construction is done. So I guess I just have to put up with a messy front yard for several months...
I have also heard their music BLARING through my walls from 7am to 5pm. I have a newborn baby and work from home, so this is extremley frustrating...
DR Horton should make sure their contract workers are being respectful to their current home owners because they are working for DR HORTON...
I agree whole-heartedly, I moved into my home March 2006 and had fixes, repairs, and complaints for up to a year after moving in. It was a nightmare and I to have owned other homes built from ground up. I lived in my last home for 14 years and did not have half the problems I had in the first year here. I even oversaw the
building of my daughter's home in this same community and had hell getting things done. I had to call the building supervisor and track him down constantly, mainly because the guys working on the house could not understand or speak English. D R Horton homes suck big time, the design may be a great concept but the actual construction is below what anyone can consider a good job.
I need work/repair right now; my bedroom ceiling is crack from one corner almost to the center light. My shower seems to be leaking somehow through to the wall on the other side of the partition. My tile in the kitchen has cracked in the area of the room that I had to insist the smooth out because cement was uneven.
My garage has been off and on working poorly. I have a crack across my drive because they did not engineer the angel correctly. The topsoil on almost all the yards around here has washed away due to poor engineering. For us to suppose to have double pain windows you can hear the kids down the street playing or
maybe it’s the badly installed doors. My daughter moved into her 2-story home later in 2006 and so far other
than poor construction. She has had her doorbell to disintegrate and first set of bells to go out. The wiring in
her garage opener on the wall broke and I had to go into the wall unit to repair it. Just a few months ago she
smelled something burning and called the Fire Department. They could not find anything, but could smell
something themselves. We paid for electricians to inspect but they found nothing. One strange thing was when we both moved into our homes, we had scorpions as well for a while. She can only wait until it happens again and call the Fire Department right away.
It is so sad that we pay our hard earned money for something that is a dream for us and
someone like D R Horton destroys it with greed. In California, when I lived there I had
a recourse to report and solve the main problem with my home. When I solved mine I
in turn solve the problem for the others in our Townhome complex. Here in Texas I am
not sure if I have the same type of recourse but I am going to surely find out.
PL
SA, TX
We bought a home in AZ where it was known that the soil contraction was a huge problem with foundation cracks. Even though they had a new foundation technique that is called post tension foundation concrete ( a method that uses compression loading on the slab as it is built and prevents AZ foundation problems they choose to not only not use this but also did not use any traditional methods of re-inforcement like rebar. We purchased the home in 2006 and although the previous owner knew of the crack they had covered it up with carpet and tile.
Several months later we started noticing the carpet bunching and the tile grout line expanding and eventually cracking. Upon inspection we seen a huge gap crack that expanded the entire distance. The crack ran parallel to the load bearing wall that separated the kitchen area and ran the entire distance. This crack was later inspected by the contractors organization in AZ and it was discovered that it was not only improperly installed but that it had been an after thought during a concrete pour that must have gone wrong. there was not re-inforcement and they could not understand since the house was clearly built after the knowledge of this new foundation method that any contractor would do this type of slab knowing the risks.
After much back and forth between the home builder Horton and the warranty company they said they had no responsibility because he warranty was a option and had to be purchased. That has now changed if true and they cover this type of foundation failure for up to ten years.
They did not even have the decency to come out and look at there failure and offer even simple advice.
I have since contacted a construction lawyer who specializes in these matters and is quite convinced that under the AZ implied warranty law that they will eventually experience the effects of there failure.
I just wish that companies in America would take ethical responsibility of there products and do everything they could to reconcile obvious failures. Homes should carry warranties for these types of fundamental building requirements and own up to there mistakes.
They claim so many good things about there products but never seem to honor them. Had I did any research on this home builder prior to buying it would have been clear that I needed to avoid them, and I strongly recommend anyone who is doing investigative research to not even give them a chance at bringing them the obvious headaches and worries that they bring with there work. They are not only terrible builders but even ruder to work with. The only option is a lawyer and we complain about having so many of them. This is one clear reason why. Americans have lost there since of pride and greed and sloppy workmanship have become the alternative.
I will be extremely cautious about any major expenses in the future to get a written warranty agreement fro the institution selling the product. Even if it is a simple electronic device. Stay away from DR Horton. Also for what it is worth Arizona has the worst builders in the nation. You may as well live in a chicken coop as that is how fast and greedy they build them.
Alan L. Olsen
Mesa Arizona
DR Horton = The suck...