DILSHEIMER COMMUNITIES

Construction delayed due to very bad winter weather, then rushed during spring & summer of 2003. Move-in day: muddy path from driveway because slate walkway had not been installed; when slate was finally installed it retained puddles (feet wet walking from driveway to front door), their proposed ?solution? was to remove a strip soil next to walkway, which would have been unsightly (my husband put crushed rock underneath & replaced slate, which was the solution, which they had refused to do); grading of property extremely poor: swale at side/back became a one-to-two-week ?lake? after each rain (we contacted County inspector who exerted pressure to fix and then add the promised topsoil ( ?soil? was mainly road construction debris & clay); concrete basement floor badly cured, surface chalked badly, impossible to apply concrete paint without heavy scraping on our part; and moisture from curing concrete (likely poured after framing-in) caused plywood underlayment of vinyl kitchen floor to warp, rising about 6?. Notwithstanding the Home Warranty, they refused to replace vinyl flooring but merely put in a patch, of inferior quality & not exact color, patch deteriorated & bllistered to the point floor had to be replaced. OVERALL EXPERIENCE: Beyond ?F? ? not describable in polite company. Dilsheimer Senior had a wonderful reputation in the building industry as a high-quality builder. Unbeknownst to us when we decided to purchase our home, he had retired and turned over business to his sons. Our assumption that the company would continue to provide the same quality homes was way off. PRICE: overpriced for the quality (i.e., lack of quality) of construction and follow-up service. Two years prior we had had a house built in central Florida for about the same price, but of much, much higher quality. QUALITY OF THEIR WORK: overall ?F? a list of ONLY some of the problems: house wrap never installed in places on exterior walls--project by front door necessitated temporary removal of vinyl siding at which point we discovered this; abysmal interior paint job (sags, drips on walls, poor surfaces on trim, paint drips on carpet; house sill (framework to concrete basement walls) not sealed/caulked, allowing hundreds of crickets to infest basement; lavatory bowl in one bath chipped & deliberately covered with paint ?speck? to disguise damage; heating duct on floor immediately next to toilet in master bath (a potentially serious problem if toilet overflowed or other mishap due to illness; wall/ceiling juncture at wall dividing dining area from rest of home mismeasured and off?they refused to repair citing infinitesimal measurement difference; quality of double-paned windows so poor that interiors ice up in winter; walking on the floor in dining area caused dishes to rattle on the hutch ?so-called fix (nailing a single board between several rafters) did nothing to improve; cold air entering from lower section of back door, worker pushed a 6-7? piece of felt, rather than replace improper weatherstripping. RESPONSIVENESS: promptness ?C? followed by incompetent or inadequate service consequent to our complaints: ?F? PROFESSIONALISM: Not very professional. We did the walk-thru immediately prior to closing at attorney?s offce, the carpet apparently littered with construction dust, not vacuumed, told they hadn?t yet had time to do so, but they would finish clean-up by the time we had returned later that afternoon from attorney?s office. (not done I suspect probably so we wouldn?t realize that carpet had multiple paint spatters.) Maintenance foremen repeatedly made excuses, such as ?your problem with the kitchen vinyl was caused by water, you should be careful when you open the dishwasher.? Of course, totally specious excuse, sheet vinyl flooring is washed with damp mop). Builder attempted ?payback? after they were required to re-grade swale & top with real topsoil by sending us an order in violation of FCC regulations & Federal case law to remove our rooftop TV dish.