There are a number of reasons for the development of this web site. Let me detail a few…

My wife and I have owned three houses in the past; this is the first that we have had built. Our trust in the seller and builder of the house was misplaced and we made a number of errors in judgement that can serve as lessons for others planning to purchase a new home. The primary reason for coming forward in this way is to prevent others from living our experience.

Additionally, I’ve made numerous appeals to both the seller and builder of our home to stand behind their work. Neither the seller (Bill Cirmo of Passport Realty) nor the builder (Mark Nugent of XL Properties and Custom Development, LLC) have shown any inclination to do so. I have asked them to split the expense of replacing the cracked floor, a request that I thought was quite reasonable. That was refused. Instead, Bill notified me that he was engaging their legal counsel in an apparent attempt to dissuade me from going public with this story.

There are many lessons to be learned from our experience. Here are a few:

• Heed the red flags during construction! My wife and I would visit periodically to see how the home was coming along. The first “red flag” was when the tile work was performed in the guest bathroom. Rather than use spacers to assure that the tile was placed evenly on the walls, it was obvious that the installer had been eyeballing it, quite badly. I let it slide. When the master bathroom was tiled, it was obvious that the work had been done very poorly around the shower stall. It looked like an amateur job. I complained to Bill Cirmo, the seller, and the tile around the shower opening was removed and replaced, but the tile inside the shower remained and is uneven and poorly laid.
• Perhaps the biggest lesson that I learned concerned the new home warranty that the seller provided. I mistakenly assumed that this was the builder’s way of standing behind their work. I’ve since come to the realization that the opposite is true. Builders, especially unscrupulous builders, purchase new home warranties to give the purchaser a false sense of security while shifting their obligation to stand by their work to a third party. Of course, the policy is written in such a way as to be almost useless, especially in a situation like ours. Unless the house is “unsafe, unsanitary or otherwise unlivable”, the structural defect claim is denied, as ours was.

There is a simple answer to this question and a more complex explanation. Let’s start with the simple answer:

The cracks in the ceramic tile floor are a result of the builder not adhering to ANSI standard A108, according to Donato Pompo, the founder of Ceramic Tile and Stone Consultants, a consulting firm that specializes in ceramic tile and other construction products. Mr Pompo wrote in response to our situation, “According to ANSI A108 industry standards they should have never installed tile cover a crack substrate.” There are readily available products that should have been employed to prevent the existing crack in the slab from transmitting to the ceramic tile to which it was adhered. Rather than use an uncoupling membrane, for example, the builder likely wagered that there was no way for us to demonstrate that the cracked slab existed prior to the laying of the tile floor. Fortunately, we had taken pictures during framing that showed the cracked slab.

Perhaps the more interesting question is why the slab cracked so soon after it was poured. Bill Cirmo, the seller and our contact throughout construction, indicated that the crack seen in our photos during construction was a normal surface crack that is common in all concrete. Terry Johnson, the structural engineer hired by the home warranty company, stated that the cracks in the slab which originate at re-entrant corners are the result of normal concrete shrinkage and quite common. He also stated that these cracks are not “surface cracks” but likely extend through the full thickness of the slab. This can result in the intrusion of ground moisture through the slab. He further stated that if we were a Costco or Publix, measures would have been taken to prevent these re-entrant corner slab cracks that aren’t taken by residential home builders, as a rule.  

Given that the concrete slab had cracked even before the ceramic tile was laid, wouldn’t the prudent course of action been to mitigate any future problems by employing an uncoupling membrane beneath the tile? Instead, the builder proceeded as usual, leaving us to foot the massive bill to repair the problems.

There are a number of reasons for the development of this web site. My wife and I have owned three houses in the past, but this is the first that we have had built. We misplaced our trust in the seller and builder of the house and made some errors in judgement that can serve as lessons for others planning to purchase a new home. The primary reason for coming forward in this way is to prevent others from living our experience.

There are a number of reasons for the development of this web site. My wife and I have owned three houses in the past, but this is the first that we have had built. We misplaced our trust in the seller and builder of the house and made some errors in judgement that can serve as lessons for others planning to purchase a new home. The primary reason for coming forward in this way is to prevent others from living our experience.

There are a number of reasons for the development of this web site. My wife and I have owned three houses in the past, but this is the first that we have had built. We misplaced our trust in the seller and builder of the house and made some errors in judgement that can serve as lessons for others planning to purchase a new home. The primary reason for coming forward in this way is to prevent others from living our experience.

There are a number of reasons for the development of this web site. My wife and I have owned three houses in the past, but this is the first that we have had built. We misplaced our trust in the seller and builder of the house and made some errors in judgement that can serve as lessons for others planning to purchase a new home. The primary reason for coming forward in this way is to prevent others from living our experience.

There are a number of reasons for the development of this web site. My wife and I have owned three houses in the past, but this is the first that we have had built. We misplaced our trust in the seller and builder of the house and made some errors in judgement that can serve as lessons for others planning to purchase a new home. The primary reason for coming forward in this way is to prevent others from living our experience.