Richmond Blues
 

Purchased a new home in Maxwell Villas all the way out on Monument Way. The closing is coming up real soon. Not very happy about the condition of the streets leading into Maxwell Villas. The streets leading up are littered with nails, sand completely covering the street, and construction debris.Not really safe to drive your car through construction debris. Also, if we find and point out problems with hanging lights and things like that in the house during the walk-through. Is the builder required to fix or replace them? Any idea why the brand new concrete driveways do not always look the same color throughout? Is this a quality control issue with the contractor?

This too shall pass………..

Has the concrete completely cured yet?
Expect construction debris until the village is completely built out. We were an early build in St Cats and bought tire insurance - we had at least a half dozen claims on it.
When you do your closing, you are just doing a 'how does the heating and airconditioning work' kind of discussion. In the weeks after closing, make a list. Submit that list to warranty and they will start to have the subs call you within 48 hours.
You can have an inspection done just after closing. Some do it just before the year is out too. We have enough building experience to feel comfortable doing our own inspection. Plus, we visited our build every single day (sometimes twice) until we were locked out. We had a lot of our list made before we even closed.

Nothing unusual for new development. Will clear when built out

As Bogie stated, this too shall pass. Any of us that built or bought a new house have had to endure the dust, the noise, the flat tires. You’re living in an active construction zone.

As far as defects with the house itself. None of that will be addressed during your walkthrough unless it’s of an urgent nature. You have a week(at least it was a week when we bought) to submit cosmetic flaws. A year for most other issues. Some systems have a greater than year warranty. It is strongly suggested that you get a professional home inspection done prior to your year anniversary. Book that early as the better inspectors book up months in advance. I recommend Frank D’Angelo. The Villages respect his reports. We had absolutely no pushback from Warranty on any of his findings.

If the concrete does not look the same color throughout, it probably is a quality control issue. But, unless it is really bad, you will most likely be stuck with it. The only solution would be to rip it out and replace it.

We designed our Designer home and moved into it 8 years ago. The quality was and is superb. We’ve made quite a few upgrades over the years and so satisfied.

Unless we come into tons of $$$ we would never consider moving especially into a new home in a new Village area.

To each their own. Hope it all works out for those with new in a new area. Those days are gone for us.

Good advice on prior posts.

First..............breath, breath.

You purchased a new home in a new division, so you are in a construction zone.

The Developer has an EXCELLENT history of fixing issues with new homes.
I have never met anyone who was not happy with issues being addressed.
(now that I posted this, you will see a couple posts)

We accumulated a list of issues and everything was fixed 100%.
There were issues (minor & marginal to me) that I asked a Sub about and the Sub said h^ll yes.

Home inspections.............if you are not comfortable doing your own, do hire.
Money will spent if you are not comfortable.

Welcome to TV & Enjoy the journey.

The concrete around here is poor quality. It'll crack too, don't worry.
TV usually does a pretty good job on the walk-through at closing and then your follow-up warranty.

I would hire an independent home inspector.

Anything you see on the walk through or even before they will fix. Then for a year they will take care of things. The day we put a deposit on our house there were 3 or so issues that we pointed out to our sales agent and they were fixed the next time we saw the house. We closed through the mail so we didn’t do a walk through. Our first time down our son who is a contractor made a list for us of things to be fixed and everything was taken care of.

We bought a spec home just south of 466A in 2013.
The Villages is great about fixing problems.

Welcome to your FIRST New Home in TV. Right now the streets in Richmond are at least drivable.. few months ago couldn’t tell where the road and property began. As everyone has said…all newly built villages have issues with dirt..nails and more Dirt. Is your drive different colors, or different from one house to another. Different houses will be poured from different trucks. As far as mix, it’s not like the old days where where experienced driver did a good mix. Now everything is automatic. Only difference is if company had multiple locations, than the water will be different, rarely will products be different at other locations, because the buyer is purchasing for all locations. Yep sitting on a truck can make some difference, in other places, however TV is pouring more Crete in a day than most pour in weeks. Trucks pull up unload, and two lots over and continue.

Your walk through is just to make sure everything is in place. You will have a sheet of things to fix right away. Simple process your agent can help. As builds on each street are completed roads will be cleaned up. Don’t worry your area should be done in about 4 months. The custom build roads will take little longer.

You have 30 days to fix any outside landscaping or it’s no longer covered. On our first home sprinkler control box was defective. I arrived Fourth of July, 3 weeks after closing and everything that should have been green was dead. Warranty department took care of it within 2 days.

In all three of our houses we had Frank D do the inspections. We contacted him at 10 1/2 months after closing on all of our new houses. He took our punch list, and made sure everything we noticed plus what additional things he found was emailed to the villages on the same day. We will be using Frank on our custom build, his reputation is stellar.

The the warranty department will take care of contacting appropriate companies.

Take a breath it’s just a house, like any other house you have bought new. Difference is the Warranty Department staff is here and happy to help.

I watched an area that I'm interested in go from garbage all over the place to showroom condition in a little over a week.

As far as the concrete color problem unless it is a drastically unbelievable situation then you get what you get. The reason for the difference in color can be due to many factors. Too much water per yard of concrete, and the concrete was on the truck for too long before it was placed. The biggest item that will affect the color is the sand that is used to mix the load. It could also be from two different brands of cement to make the load. Too much Slag or Flash can drastically change the color.

The rust marks on a driveway are usually because a landscaper threw down fertilizer without taking care to not apply it to the concrete.

Normally concrete cracks because it is not deep enough for the purpose it is being used for. A quality driveway should be at least 6 inches deep and uniformly excavated. If it's deeper in the middle and shallower on the sides then it's a matter of time before it snaps. A sidewalk of quality is 4 inches deep not 3inches as most contracts use to save a buck.

On the back of any concrete delivery receipt that I've ever seen from many different companies it clearly states that there is no responsibility for the finished color of the mix.

The contractors that they use for placing concrete in the new homes are artists with concrete as they are fighting with the biggest enemy of concrete and that would be the heat. They have a whole lot going against them and the work I've seen is top-drawer.

Good Luck and welcome to The Villages. You are going to be just fine.

Cannot speak to quality further south the concrete guys just north of 466A did a great job. Had no idea they have no responsibility for the finished color.