Whitney & Co.

PROS: The house is beautifully situated on an attractive property just a few blocks from downtown Exeter. The foundation was solidly built with proper drainage. The basement is always dry. The exterior design is attractive without being showy. The interior design, except for the lack of a foyer, is thoughtful and pleasant to live in. Overall, we love the house and its location. CONS: Note 1: These "CONS" are all things that the home inspector missed, but that we discovered over time. Note 2: All defects in workmanship and code violations were shared with the principle of Whitney & Co., Whitney Saidla. His response was that he "built the house within the budget he was given" and "What do you want? The house is 10 years old." (1) The front porch was not built according to code. It is an exterior structure but was constructed with kiln-dried floor joists and hollow, finger-jointed pine columns. The result was that it collapsed in 2007, ten years after it was built. Whitney & Co. came to inspect the damage but refused to compensate us. Because part of the damage was considered "hidden rot," our homeowners' policy paid for part of the $17,500 complete rebuild. (2) The screened in porch, built one year after the rest of the house was completed, also began to rot, for the same reasons as the front porch. It, too, collapsed before it could be repaired and had to be completely rebuilt. (3) A few pieces of the interior framing are noticeably out of square (e.g., the top of the master bath door jamb pitches several degrees, relative to the horizontal line of the ceiling). (4) The chimney was well designed but hastily constructed with mortar that failed in some places within a few years after construction. Cost of re-pointing the chimney and sealing the bricks to prevent leakage: $3000. (5) The shower drain in the master bath was improperly plumbed, resulting in a failed drain and mild water damage to the drywall ceiling in the kitchen. Cost of plumbing repair and ceiling repair: $500 All houses have quirks and no build is perfect. However, we were struck by how little responsibility Whitney and Co. took for their obvious mistakes.