"Potato" chip wall

[jrb]

Hi,

The walls in my townhouse are now primed and the ceiling has the california knock down on it.

However, the first wall i see when i walk into the house is as "wavy" as a "potato chip" along the ceiling.....LOL

Has anyone had this issue? In addition if this is raised during the future PDI will they fix it.......

In most cases the townhouse looks great. Other than I am sure they drywalled over an electrical box in the upstairs hallway.

[dvar]

Our livingroom ceiling is so bad for the seams being visible (even through the knockdown) that they are redoing our entire ceiling at the year end. You can also see every nail/screw around the entire perimeter of the ceiling. We have been told they'll be in here for 3 days or so redoing it. Our bedroom wasnt done very well either but the living room is really bad. You can see every seam in the ceiling. Not sure who did the crap job because all of the walls look pretty good and the rest of the ceilings are decent as well.

Its a judgement call I think (if Mattamy's standards and yours are the same), they had drywall guys come in and say our ceilings were fine. I told them that no, the ceilings were done by someone who didnt know better or didnt care. A warranty guy came to look and Mattamy decides whether to fix it based on his opinion...he came in took one look and said it "was a shit job".
I guess if he thought it was acceptable quality like the drywall guys did then we'd be out of luck for the repair.

I cant believe (well, yes I guess I can) that the drywall guys could sit there with a straight face and say the seams were not that noticeable and within standards. The rest of the house looks pretty decent though.

[jrb]

Thanks DVAR,

In my great room and kitchen, the ceilings are just painted (no California knock down) and they look amazing. I can see no seams at all where the dry wall joins.

But, that one wall-celing when i enter the house looks really wavy. I will raise the issue at my future PDI. Down the road i hope to put molding along the ceiling, hopefully that can hide some of the issues if Mattamy doesnt fix it.

The wavy ceiling is in the formal room. So, when i have dinners in there I am sure people will look up and see the wavy ceiling...lol Maybe it will be a conversation starter..........lol

[K.C.]

Jason, we had alot of items on our PDI list that were not fixed. We transferred all of the unfinished items onto our 30 day list and every single issue is being dealt with properly. Make sure you put this on your 30 day warranty form and eventually it will get fixed. We've been here over 4 months and they are just now finishing up the last of the items on our warranty forms. The warranty department is very small but they do care so just hang in there. Don't let them off the hook and accept poor workmanship.

[jrb]

Thanks for the input KC.

[dvar]

FYI-There were a few items on our 30-day list that we carried over from the PDI. The handyman sent to work on 30day items seemed confused. He went to check out our file in the construction office and when he returned he said that someone has signed off on all of our PDI items as being completed.

If anyone wonders why they are waiting for things to be address it might because they think it has been done. We have a 2 inch by 2 inch gap beside our ensuite vanity that hasnt been fixed that was on the PDI...over 3 months ago. Still not fixed, Mattamy says its Aya's job and Aya says it's Mattamy's job.
We had shingles missing, they replaced them and signed off as completed...the exact same shingles blew/fell off again. I am not sure how the guy "replaced" them (scotch tape?) but we are still without shingles and Mattamy says they have fixed the problem. I will eventually end up hiring someone to replace them and then it's small claims court I would imagine. The rain is bad enough but I wont go through a winter with missing shingles.

I was missing a single shingle next to a dormer on my last home and it took approx 8 months but eventually we had a leaking ceiling on the 1st floor...water worked its way through the walls and finally came out in the livingroom ceiling.

Might be worthwhile checking out what they have marked as "complete" in your file.

[K.C.]

There seems to be alot of finger pointing that is going on both on the part of some of the construction crew and Aya.

I've found the warranty department are the only people who actually care about doing the job and making the customer happy instead of trying to cover their asses.

If I were you Don I'd call the warranty tech on his cell phone and explain the situation clearly and I'm sure he will take care of you. We wanted them to have one last look all over our roof to make sure a shingle had not blown off because it didn't form a proper bond and they said they are waiting for the roofing company to come out to take care of about 4 different houses all at once and that Sofi would call us to say when they would be coming.

When I told Sofi I had signed off on the PDI because our PDI guy came over and asked me to she said don't ever sign off on anything that's not been completed. I said we had already transferred all the incomplete items onto our 30 day list and that the warranty tech had acknowledged he would take care of it.

[Joanne]

Mattamy says its Aya's job and Aya says it's Mattamy's job.

Great! Everything left on my PDI is AYA! I was told that Mattamy has been waiting for some PDI items from AYA since February.

[K.C.]

Great! Everything left on my PDI is AYA! I was told that Mattamy has been waiting for some PDI items from AYA since February.


Joanne, get Sofi to follow up with Aya on your remaining items. If there was anything added after the PDI make sure you have something in writing from whoever at Aya said they would take care of it. They seem to have selective memory.

[jrb]

I was just wondering what problems people are having with Aya.........They should be a pretty good cabinet maker.

Is there anything I should be on the look out for when I eventually have my PDI.

What i notice now in my townhouse is that the basement floor is always wet in some areas. ie. around the edges, around the furnace, where the drain is. I have noticed that in a number of townhouse basements I have looked in. I cant tell where the water is coming in from. It is hard to believe that water could be coming in where the wall and basement floor meet. I am not sure if water is coming up through the drain, or if there is a vent cover missing somewhere and water is getting into the basement. Feels like more water than that casued by condensation.

They just put eve troughs on in last 10 days. I hope that fixes things, but now my place is locked. Phase 6 hasnt been graded yet, so hopefully they do that before I move in to prevent water coming in during the winter.

[K.C.]

I was just wondering what problems people are having with Aya.........They should be a pretty good cabinet maker.

Is there anything I should be on the look out for when I eventually have my PDI.

They're a great cabinet maker. The problem is they cause a lot of damage during installation because they're rushing. If you can, try to get into the house before your PDI so you can inspect the cabinetry without being rushed ... make lots of notes. Look for cracks and dings both outside and inside. Also look for scratches on your counter tops or any small dings. With the counter tops you have to look really closely and look sideways for scratches made by cuts with a knife. I noticed some additional dings on the counters only a few weeks ago but I won't be able to get Aya to do anything about it because I didn't notice them before. There's alot of counter space in this house and I didn't realize I was supposed to go over it with a microscope. I did that with the walls but not the counters.

If you don't flag everything wrong with the cabinetry and counter tops during your PDI Aya could try to weasel out of it and say that the damage wasn't there before.

I think Mattamy only has to allow you 1 hour per 1000 square feet. With the smaller houses that doesn't give you alot of time for the PDI. Inspecting the cabinetry alone could easily take you more than 30 minutes.

[jrb]

Thanks K.C. for the tips.

I will try to get in, eventually one of the contractors will leave the place unlocked...lol

I guess I could call the construction office just prior to PDI and go through it to give myself more time.

I might take my digital camera and take a pic of every defect. The pics on the digital camera can be set to show the date stamp, I think anyway.

Jason