Complaint Review: Eastwood Homes - Greenville South Carolina

One day I noticed water coming from the wall in my garage.  Two plumbers verified that I had a slab leak, which is very expensive to have repaired.  Eastwood built the house in 2003 and did not use pex pipe, but FloGuard Gold, which is known to become brittle and break.  They also did not put the pipes inside a sleeve, which Ive been told they are supposed to do, or insulate the pipes with anything.  Turns out that pouring concrete on top of plastic pipes is not such a great idea.  As the house settles there is nothing to cushion the pipes, and they break quite easily. Im not even convinced the plumbing was built to code.

My options for repair involved 1) jack hammering until we found the problem and trying to fix it, although more leaks could develop at any time.  At a minimum of $2,500 per leak, it could add up rather quickly.   2) repiping the entire house, which involves going through the attic and walls to move the plumbing out of the slab, and costs about $9,000 if performed by a reputable plumbing company using quality pex pipe. 

I submitted a claim with Eastwood.  Their website claims a 10-year warranty, but according to them thats only for structural components, and they define plumbing as mechanical with a mere two-year warranty.  How terribly convenient for them.  They sent their subcontractor to look at it. The Eastwood representative also showed up and immediately handed me a paper and asked me to sign, stating that they came to my house but BORE NO RESPONSIBILITY.  I refused. 

He claimed they did not know FloGuard Gold was a faulty product when they installed it, but then wanted me to put a Band-Aid on the problem by hiring someone to better locate the leak and then playing hunt & peck jack hammering away at my house.  If I had met the Eastwood representative before I bought my house, Im pretty sure I wouldnt have.  He was extremely rude and not the least bit sympathetic to the fact that he put me in a real financial bind having to pay for major repairs to a newer home something that should have never happened. 

Eastwood even sent me a letter afterwards stating that The Eastwood representative has reviewed the requested item with you and communicated that it is outside the parameters specified in our warranty agreement.  Please be advised Eastwood Homes considers your service request complete and has removed the request from our outstanding service report.  This is the lovely type of letter that you too can receive from Eastwood should you buy one of their homes. 

Eastwood also never graded the land properly around my house. My neighbors house is elevated, and all the rain from their house and all the rain from my house ended up in this area beside my house and would be 4-5 deep after a heavy rain.  It had nowhere to go and never dried.  I had to have a drainage system installed.  The drainage people wondered where Eastwood imagined all this water would go.  It only cost $775 to have that fixed.  After the plumbing bill it should probably seem like a deal. 

Have I mentioned their quality electrical work?  When I first moved in, and I asked if they could hook up the electrical outlet beside my gas logs because it wasnt connected.  They referred me an electrician who worked on their homes and he connected it for $50.  It worked, so I thought he had done a good job.  Last summer I asked the same person to install an outdoor receptacle for me so I could have some patio lights.  After he left I noticed that I could see the metal screws on the side of the outlet, which werent even covered by the bubble cover, meaning that water could also get to the outlet. 

He didnt even install the electrical box or attach it to a stud, he just cut the vinyl siding and plopped an electrical outlet in the wall, attached with one screw to the vinyl siding.  It wasnt even a GFCI outlet in an area that was exposed to rain.  He even put the bubble cover on upside down.  I had to pay $150 to have real electricians fix it.  If this is the quality of the electricians who built my house, I am scared.

I believed Eastwood to be a quality builder, and Im completely disgusted to find out how lacking in construction skills, not to mention ethics, they are.  Im considering consulting an attorney to find out if I have legal recourse against them.  The fact that Eastwood was so eager to have me sign their form saying they bore no responsibility kind of makes me think that I do.  I will never buy a slab house or anything built by Eastwood ever again!