Boverhof Builders

The process of building a house with Boverhof Builders was by far the worst experience we've had building and this is the third house we have built.  The previous two houses we built were with "production builders" who typically have a bad reputation for poor quality and taking shortcuts.  We had good experience with both previous homes with no major quality issues.  When we decided to go with a "custom" home builder we expected an even better finished home and no shortcuts.  We ended up with the exact opposite.  The building process was unorganized with terrible communication, the final product was very poor quality and it took two months longer than originally estimated.  I wouldn't complain about the extra time if the final product looked like Boverhof Builders were obsessing about the final details for two months but that is defiantly not the case.  There was absolutely no quality control over the work that was done and any the majority of the items we pointed out during the building process were not addressed at all or were made worse.  I could go on forever about how awful the process was for us...here are a few examples of what we dealt with....

Attempted to give us smaller windows than the size drawn on our blueprint.  They claimed that the lumber company sent them the wrong size windows, however they framed in the windows weeks before the windows actually arrived at the jobsite and they were framed for the smaller window.  If the framers were following the blueprint the window opening would have been too big but they opening wasn't too big.

I asked for all the wall paint to be an eggshell finish, not flat.  Flat is hard to wash and shows everything.  Boverhof never told the paint contractor so all the paint was ordered in flat and several rooms painted in flat before I stopped them.  Boverhof made us feel llike we were being unreasonable because they had to order new paint and re-paint the areas that were done in flat paint.  Boverhof told us they had never spent so much on painting a house as if I had made the error. 

Was told to get paint colors from Benjamin Moore by Boverhof which I did.  The paint subcontractor then told me he uses a completely different line and couldn't match my colors exactly.  I discovered this after they had several rooms painted and the color was off from my samples. 

The paint contractor did a poor job leaving brush marks around many of the door frames along with visible roller marks in many places.  I have had previous houses painted inside and no one has done such a poor quality job as these painters.  Boverhof did nothing on our behalf to correct the paint issues. 

The drywall contractor was just as sloppy as the painters and again Boverhof did nothing.  We have drywall seams that are showing, uneven outside corners, inside corners in several rooms that cracked open in the first year and instead of dealing with them like a professional drywaller would Boverhof put silicone in the corners and painted over the silicone.  It looks terrible not to mentions paint doesn't stick to silicone and it can be rubbed right off. 

Worse than the paint and drywall is the trim work.  We have a large amount of white trim work, columns, built-ins, crown molding etc..  We discussed the trim and caulking several times with Boverhof and we were assured it was all done properly and that a little caulk cracking during construction was normal.  It has now been two years and I have extensive caulk cracking on every piece of wood work they installed.  You can now see that the trim was done poorly and caulk was overused to compensate for poor cuts, improper cuts, pieces that were too short but installed anyway.  The seems in the crown molding are popping and coming apart, door trim is joints are cracking, floor boards corners are cracked, cabinet doors are cracking.  It is as if Boverhof had no idea how to install white trim and use caulk appropriately.  I expect some settling and caulk failure but this is ridiculous and not normal.

As I said before I could have dealt with the unprofessional, unskilled, unorganized process of building with Boverhof if the finished product was what I expected from a "custom home builder" but the quality of the final details is so poor I still get angry discussing it.  I get to look at the flaws every day and know I paid for someone to do this and this is what I get.  Since building we have met several people who built with Boverhof and had similar experiences with their poor quality. 

During the time that we built a friend of ours also built in the Grand Rapids area with a different builder and they discussed with their builder all the trouble we were experiencing with Boverhof and that builder confirmed that Boverhof Builders reputation with other builders was poor and they were known for poor quality homes.