re: DR Horton new construction framing finds by home inspector

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I’d think the average time owning a DR Horton home is 5 years or less so who cares. If you’re looking for your lifetime ownership in a mass produced house, you deserve what you get.

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Publicly traded company that games flood and planning regulations and does not sell houses at a discount.

These are the coolie cutter houses you hear about. There shouldn’t be construction issues

Yeah I’ve been in one (DSLD) for 5 years. Probably selling in 2 years. Has been a great first house for me. They definitely go cheap on paint and doors and light fixtures, but that’s also why they are affordable.

I paid $113/sqft, and looking at the prices now it’s going to be hard to want to build anything else

Thread title needs work

We live in a custom home built in the 70s. I do think the materials and construction is better on this house than most new houses today other than high end custom homes.

But you also have 50 year old plumbing, electrical, foundation etc. I've spent a small fortune in maintenance on this place.

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I’d think the average time owning a DR Horton home is 5 years or less so who cares. If you’re looking for your lifetime ownership in a mass produced house, you deserve what you get.

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I could not disagree more. They are in the same industry as home builders who do not do these things...the authority having jurisdiction should enforce the codes equally. they do not, it is not even close. DR Horton should be banned from doing business ANYWHERE...most states will not allow licensing to remain in effect when you have 1/10th the complaints that DR Horton gets...yet for some reason they are allowed to build these shitty arse houses and consumers, no knowing any better, continue to buy them. I take your point but it impacts the entire housing market, housing prices and values are based on location and to a lesser degree levels of finish, not quality of workmanship, especially in fundamental phases like foundations and framing.

This is a good example of why licensing by the state and inspection by local authorities is a silly notion. First off the state is not qualified to say who is and who isn't qualified...if you doubt this watch the way people drive and consider that the state said they were qualified. The same is true of local inspections....they are not liable for anything they miss, what is the point? The point is revenue....and jobs....it is not to protect the consumer from shoddy work or even dangerous work...and it leads to all manner of corruption and other ill shite that impacts everyone, not just current buyers.

I was an electrical contractor for years and my employees were union. Most of the inspectors in Georgia were once union electricians, many still are. They are almost universally far more critical of the work done by union electricians because, and I have been told this many, many, many times by multiple inspectors...that union electricians know better than to do work that way. It is a silly idea for the state to license any profession and a silly idea for local authorities to inspect anything....they are not qualified and have no skin in the game.

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Horton is the bottom tier of tract home builders but even whale shite like them needs to meet minimum standards.

If the inspector keeps turning up shite like this, which is why there is a lawsuit around Lafayette, that should be reason to pull their permits.

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They have more lawyers than they do subcontractors. They will find a judge somewhere who will lift any sanctions while they case is being worked out. They will be allowed to continue to build because banks are involved. Eventually the local authority will back down or come to some sort of agreement because of pressure from government officials interested in expansion of the tax base. If they were building 10 houses a year they'd have been ran out of business in the first few months doing the type of work they do.

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I’d think the average time owning a DR Horton home is 5 years or less so who cares. If you’re looking for your lifetime ownership in a mass produced house, you deserve what you get.

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DR Horton has homes in Houston selling for $500k to a mil. I had no idea Dr Horton was building houses like that.

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Those have their own set of issues.

You can get a high-quality house built today you just can't go in asking for the most square footage at the cheapest price per foot. Just being frank that is the way most houses are built today.

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Tract or spec houses built today are plagued with the same quality issues that have plagued such housing forever. A structure is only as good as the buyer insists it be....building codes are, for the most part, meaningless. They are a bare minimum and are often detrimental to the end product....arc fault breakers jump to mind immediately as does whole house surge arrestors. At the end of the day IF you are paying someone to build something for you it is incumbent upon you to make certain it is done in a manner that suits you...which would include satisfying the bare minimum required by the AHJ. The problem is, especially in residential construction but it is true to some extent in commercial and industrial construction, the buyer has no idea what right looks like and assumes the local authority does. They do not. They are paid squat and have no liability (no skin in the game). They act as if they are experts, however, going through plan reviews and nit picking standard practices while not having the experience or knowledge to find things that are blatantly incorrect...and their pretending to be experts leads the public into a false sense of security.

I am in the process of permitting a timber frame shop and pavilion. I have a PE on board but the design is mine. Specs call for green ungraded SYP timbers, a building practice in the south for HUNDREDS OF YEARS. Again, have PE on board...a licensed professional in the state of Georgia. The county is balking, insisting that the timbers be graded, which is of course nearly impossible and, if it is done, consists of a person who has taken a 40 hour online course to come out and "inspect" the timbers to determine, among other things, the species and moisture content (they are green, they are what they are...and the moisture content in ALL wood eventually reaches equilibrium with the environment it is in no matter how dry it may have been at one time). There is nothing magical about a grade stamp or a paper trail supporting the grading of lumber...a pine tree is a pine tree. I have a PE on board, I have 40 years experience in the construction industry and I know what a pine tree looks like. It is the magical stamp which means nothing more than someone who took a 40 hour online course says it is a pine tree that really matters. This is how backward the system is. Companies like DB Horton can do all manner of ill shite and lawyer up and berate the AHJ into submission....an individual, with as good credentials as anyone involved, has to jump through hoops to do something that has been done for hundreds of years. It is ridiculous....and it has not happened organically, it is by design.

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They built our starter house. There wasn't a 90 degree angle in that place

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Houses are built from dimensional lumber. If it was 90 degrees when it was installed it is never going to stay that way