Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2006 > January > 30 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USHousing shortcuts short homeowners
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I didn’t buy her a diamond ring. Or wine and dine her.
All I did to become King for a Day in my wife’s eyes was repair the garage door. It’d been squeaking, squawking and threatening to come unhinged for days. OK — months.
It would stop midway between up and down. It might go all the way down, then creep upward again as soon as it touched ground. Our garage door was possessed.
And I fixed it, baby.
With WD-40, no less.
So we didn’t have to have a repairman make a house call.
This time.
Rest assured, though, there’ll be other malfunctions that demand more than a squirt of oil. And chances are great it will be something that wasn’t built right or installed properly from the get-go. Stuff like defective wood, creaky floors and sagging walls. Things that require the expertise of a plumber, electrician or some other repairman.
Anecdotally, it’s a common occurrence in Gwinnett, where houses sprout like kudzu. We live in a county that attracts more than 25,000 people a year. Schools are top-notch. Jobs are plentiful.
Because of growth, we need houses — thousands of new ones every year.
Of 17,182 building permits issued last year, 6,632 were for single-family residences, according to the 2005 activity report compiled by the Gwinnett County Department of Planning & Development.
When some contractors work at breakneck speed to meet demand while juggling several projects, mistakes happen. Shortcuts get taken. Quality plummets.
And we, the homeowners, pay for it, literally and figuratively.
“The most common complaint we hear with the new homes is with the painting and the drywall,” said Chris Davis, president of Fair and Square Home Services. “So many companies use these guys they pick up on the corner. They’re amateurs, and it’s detrimental to the industry. For repairmen like us, though, it keeps us busy.”
When I moved here in 1997,the number of advertisements for handymen and all-purpose crews astounded me. Now I know why.
We hired a contractor to turn my basement into an in-law suite. We learned that there was no insulation behind the drywall. Our plumbing sprung leaks inside the walls. We learned the pipes were made of a material that had been the target of a class-action lawsuit — decades ago.
When repairmen or service technicians show up at our 20-year-old house, I ask them the same two questions:
What do you think about the general quality of homes in Gwinnett? And is a $400,000 house crafted any better than one that costs $200,000?
Their answers are uniform. Quality is a very hit-or-miss proposition. It doesn’t discriminate by ZIP code, either. A Gwinnett McMansion can be just as defect-prone as an abode in a cookie-cutter subdivision or modestly priced neighborhood.
“Forty percent of our repair work is on houses less than five years old,” said Harvey W. Roberts Jr., the plumber who installed new water pipes in my crib. “And I work in houses that range in price from the cheapest to over a million. That’s not good.”
Actually, it’s a crying shame. Because a can of WD-40 can do only so much.
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By Michael H. Smith
January 30, 2006 06:39 PM | Link to this
Just so happens after years of jeers from amongst the building trades, Georgia seems headed toward required licensing of contracts, though don’t get too excited Mr. Badie. Most likely this will, as so many other things that start out right, it could go wrong. What should happen is required licensing of the builders/GCs right on down to the common unskilled laborer who sweeps out houses. Mr. Jim Wooten doesn’t agree. He calls this nanny state. True enough Mr. Wooten it is nanny state. However, like so many times in our society when people fail to act responsibly or when tradesmen won’t or can’t police their own craft and craftsmanship, problems soon become so big, so costly and so intolerable Big Nanny State Government has to take control of our once enjoyed rights and freedoms. The benefits from such a ubiquitous required contractor and trades licensing law applied throughout the construction/building sector are many and would only improve our business sector and the quality for all parties concerned in Georgia.
By jim dumond
January 30, 2006 07:33 PM | Link to this
Rick,
Care to delve into how and why these errors slip by county inspectors?
By Michael H. Smith
January 30, 2006 07:51 PM | Link to this
Errors slip by county inspectors for pretty much the same reason a legitimate comprehensive contractor and trades licensing will never slip into Georgia law.
By Dave Oliver
January 31, 2006 12:54 PM | Link to this
I worked in the Building Industry (Building Materials retail/wholesale) for over 25 years and can tell you, without blinking an eye, that until they require licensing for Contractors and these, so called, expert Home Inspectors, things can, and will, go further downhill. My experience is this: When a person in the Building Industry picks up a hammer and a 12 penny cc nail he/she takes on the “role” of being a contractor. Further, when a person tires of using the hammer, and picks up a clipboard he becomes an “expert” Home Inspector.” Of course these people are not what they present themselves to be, as many are not qualified, period. Hence come the shoddy work and problems for the home purchaser. I am not naive enough to think that licensing will offer a 100% solution to poor quality work, but a license will make a huge dent in the number of shysters and unqualified that plague this Indursty.
We also need to take a hard look at the Real Estate Indurstry that walks hand in had with the Building Indurstry. Both are staffed with questionable employees from top to bottom.
By Diane
February 1, 2006 07:04 AM | Link to this
The General Assembly finally created a licensing board last year. You know, like the one they have for auctioneers, barbers and podiatrists. Only they didn’t put any funding in the state budget. So, when your state legislators tell you they voted for the bill, don’t forget to ask them about the money. Find your legislators at: http://www.sos.state.ga.us/cgi-bin/Locator.asp
By Cindy S
February 1, 2006 06:29 PM | Link to this
The defects in new homes were a problem in the 70’s when Elizabeth Dole who was with the FTC then, addressed the building industry and told them to clean up their act. They didn’t. In fact this problem has gotten worse. Now instead of shoddy construction we have more cases of structural failures and dangerously defective work. This is given a wink and a nod by the building industry and many inspectors who are either incompetent, or corrupt, or both. I don’t know what is wrong with the good people left in these industries, that they don’t speak up and demand that the bad ones be weeded out. Who are they afraid of?
By debbie
February 2, 2006 03:57 PM | Link to this
As a new homeowner in Georgia with 72 building code violations, I personally don’t think liscensing is enough. Grandfather all the bad builders? Doesn’t make sense to me. What about requiring those with complaints to resolve them prior to being issued a liscense? Who enforces these laws in this state? How about a consumer board made up of ripped off homeowners? How about DA’s prosecuting them for gran larceny?
By Michael H. Smith
February 3, 2006 10:42 AM | Link to this
Any licensing schema is only as good as the scrutiny and enforcement applied, and any licensing that would willfully ignore to serve due diligence in a meticulous review of an applicants past work/performance history within the respective field of chosen endeavor before granting a “Grandfathering�, is nothing short of a license to commit fraud, theft and infinite sundry injustices. Furthermore, it would defy use of the term “comprehensive� and render in any sense the concept of “legitimacy� laughably inane and totally void.
If the mature battle hardened weary from within the construction field composed of contractors and tradesmen with a minutia of professionalism in their demeanor had their way of it, the slipshod, flybynighters, con artists, illegal alien workers and illegally operating businesses would be parsed from our ranks. While admittedly no thorough purge of 100% is probable and construction costs to the consumer initially would increase up front, eradicating the worse elements from our construction industry that are doing the most damage and the removal of hidden costs incurred by the consumers who seldom are capable of doing their so-called “Homework�, eventually the economics would prove a “legitimate comprehensive contractor and trades licensing� valid to serve the greater good for all parties concerned in Georgia.
By Marie
February 10, 2006 03:20 PM | Link to this
I’ve been reading all the comments and it really worries me a lot, is there any reputable builder that we can trust?
By Marie
February 10, 2006 03:25 PM | Link to this
If I were to buy a new house in Georgia, what steps do I have to take to make sure my house is going to be built properly, are there any inspector going to the construction site on a daily basis to make sure contractors are doing the right thing?