SPECTRUM HOMES INC

We would not recommend Spectrum Homes in Whitehall PA to build a home. Once final payment was made, we felt they lost interest in our project & did not value us as customers, allowing warranty work to remain unfinished for over 1 year. With Spectrum and its subcontractors giving contradictory reasons for faults we feel their capabilities did not measure up to our project’s custom design including questionable levels of craftsmanship, lack of listening to our concerns, not following agreed upon plans, low attention to detail & little empathy. They offer a Total Quality Assurance Program stating they “care beyond the day you move in” with written claims to schedule warranty work within 30 days, have a final review within 11 months, & close our file in 12 months. None of those milestones were met for us. We felt project management attention was lacking on the job site including: • Installation of the wrong siding. They rectified this. • Deck steps were missed. We noted & they were added at the last minute. • A set of stairs was not painted. This was rectified after the owner conceded that it should have been done. • Laundry plumbing & electrical rough in heights were mispositioned not accounting for appliance risers that were repeatedly mentioned & documented. They refuse to fix. • Sloppy “finish” work: partially caulked window; holes in shower grout; shower threshold pitched outward allowing water to run onto the bathroom floor; uneven kitchen & bath cabinet doors; poor cuts to outdoor deck; flooring miscuts without cover up; cracks, dings & unevenness to trim work; paint drips throughout & varnish spills left to dry on stairs. On move in day in early March 2023, several issues were discussed at final walk through & we jointly agreed these would be rectified by Spring 2023. We believed Spectrum would act in good faith to honor & complete our project in a timely manner & we paid them in full. By Autumn 2023 work was still unfinished. Spectrum’s owner came to the house in Oct 2023 after we requested a visit. He promised his lengthy list of concerns would be made right. Unfortunately, only a few items were addressed & again work was delayed until Spring 2024 “due to weather” not accounting for indoor items that could have been completed sooner. In waiting over 1 year & 2 months for Spectrum to address our warranty work, we felt they did not empathize with our biggest & most important concerns. We rarely felt heard, respected & were made to feel that it was an inconvenience to assume a new house would have high levels of professional work & be delivered with timeliness as contracted. As a result of their disorganization, planning & promises that would wind up changing without notice, times of inflexible communication, “forgotten” discussions leading to multiple occasions of us having to provide documentation of contract agreements & email trails led to our concerns about the integrity of Spectrum Homes. Notably cost-cutting on warranty work, a 2nd well needed to be paid for after we were not notified the 1st one collapsed, being pressured into signing off on completed work not actually done when papers were put in front of us & requesting “our story” for this Google review before the job was done. Warranty work caused several new damages to concrete, metal beam wrap, mismatched paint was applied & uneven replacement column wrap was installed. On the interior they backpedaled & would not address some work previously agreed to & they worsened already poor situations to our flooring. In the end, they say it is normal for lights to flicker if the washer or dishwasher is on. In under a year a window cracked & siding came loose. We’re told it’s normal for countless drywall nails to be loosening on ceilings & walls, windows to not open easily & door weatherstripping to fall off. Spectrum’s owner has told us more than once “I have this same problem at my house” & we feel if that’s the case, perhaps he should have selected a different builder.

I would never recommend that you use this builder. Ever. They have major integrity issues and, except for a few of their subcontractors, their work is sub par at best. They built a home for us and the process was laborious. They demand money to move forward n each phase, but then delay the building. Every upgrade item that we wanted different from standard was exorbitantly expensive. Usually they blamed it on the sub-contractor. AVS tile was the worst offender. They demanded $1 a square foot to set tile on point and another $1 because the tile was 20 inches square instead of 12. The problem is that we asked before we selected tile if there were additional charges and they indicated that there were none except setting tile on point. So they demanded an extra $1,000, or we had to start over with our kitchen design. Our roof leaked in a number of places because shingles were attached with nails exposed instead of being under the overlapping shingle. Some of the sliding closet doors did not have the proper bottom guide. One door was so warped that we asked to have it replaced. They took the door which was on the first floor and moved it to the second floor hoping we wouldn’t see it. Without consulting us they moved the location of the boiler from one end of the basement to the other. They said it was because of code, but after measuring, the original location was within code. The result is that we have a boiler at one end of the basement and the air handler and oil tank are at the other. That’s right we have an oil line running under the basement floor. They used Clima-Temp for the HVAC and they installed an obsolete air handler. It’s a real struggle to get parts for it. We were supposed to have a black and white bathroom, except they installed a tan tub. When questioned, they told us to install a tan toilet and it would match. Except we had black and white tile, vanity, sinks etc. We delayed closing more than once because there were too many incomplete items. We finally ran out of time because our other house was sold. Ken Snyder told us not to worry that we had his word that any remaining items would be fixed. Of course, they weren’t and I spent countless hours calling them for repairs. We wanted to escrow $10 thousand at close for unfinished items and they called the day before saying they wouldn’t do an escrow even though there was no driveway. We were then stuck because we had to move. They offer a warranty which basically includes nothing. Beware of these guys. The list of things they did incorrectly is endless and they treat you poorly on top of it.

It went very well, very smoothly. It was a smooth sell. He was very dependable and reliable. It a certain pecent commission.