GAINES HOME BUILDING CORP

We engaged Gaines Home Builders in 2001 to build a home for us. My wife was diagnosed with pre-cancer, and we asked to be let out of the contract. They did so and gave us our $1000 earnest money back. I was impressed and felt that this was a good builder with good business sense. Fast-forward a few months and my wife's condition settled down and we were again ready to take on the stress of building a first home. We went right back to Gaines -- unsure that they would work with us again -- and they did. Another point in their favor. But, things didn't go so well after that... The process was OK, but we always felt that we were in debt to them, and that combined with my youth led me to not call them on some pretty big problems: 1. We have a very high joist in our floor, since diagnosed as the cantilevered joists on the bay window not being near-long enough. It drives me nuts to this day and would cost over $15,000 to fix; big hump in our floor that runs for 20+ feet across the house. 2. Our lot was graded absolutely incorrectly; water drains directly toward our front steps and the crawl space was puddled badly with standing water around many of the footings. We since fixed on our own with a french drain. 3. But the big problem was the plumber they used (no chance this person was a licensed plumber). I was too inexperienced at the time to know how bad it was, but over the years as service folks go under the house, they always return telling me that the plumber did an AWFUL job. For example: all of our pipes were suspended by duct tape...yes, duct tape. Making it worse, The president of Gaines and his son went under our house some months after we closed to review a big mold problem we had after the toilet leaked and ruined our tile job (all out of my pocket -- they simply sprayed some white mold guard all over the place). Imagine: they saw all of this plumbing work first hand and didn't stop to say "we should fix this!" 4. I didn't know what a sewer fly was and we've had them for years... We had always noticed a slight sewer smell in our guest bathroom, and I have no idea why I never took it to the next level to figure out why (having kids now, we spend more time in there than before). Well, one night recently the sewer gas was especially bad and I decided to call a plumber the next morning suspecting a clogged vent. He arrived and I went under the house with him, and he was literally jaw-dropped as he saw the shoddy plumbing work ("Duct tape?! Have they heard of metal straps?!"). But the big problem for me was there was NO P-TRAP installed under our shower drain! All these years we were inhaling toxic sewer gas. And this leads me to the ultimate reason for this negative review: I wrote to Gaines Home Builders just last week to inform them of the missing P-trap and to give them a chance to make it right (keep in mind, a full 13 years after they built the home for us -- but that's not the point). The next day, I got a reply saying that our 1 year warranty had run out and they were grateful for our business. Whether that's justifiable or not, I'll leave to you... but to me, I think it was an extremely stupid business move on their part, for they could have sent one of their plumbers out to our house for 45 minutes to install a P-Trap with an apology letter... instead, I got to pay $175 to have one installed myself and now I'm having to spend the time all these years later enlightening you to the way they'll treat you after the money's in the bank. Warranties are there to cover things that stop functioning as they should, not for code-required things that were never installed in the first place! And about the codes inspector who somehow signed off on this house and plumbing job? I will start the search for him/her today. I suspect they may be friends.