No need to apologize at all. I used the forums and my blog to vent our frustrations reguarly! :) All I can say is I understand your sentiments totally (not that it helps any) and we felt the same way during our build. Why should we have to babysit a builder, not to get anything more, just to do what we asked them to do and to do it the correct way? Didn't seem like we were asking to much to us? All I can suggest is to stay on your builder during the process, keep your fingers crossed and pray! :) Hopefully in the end everything works out for the best!

Here is a link that might be useful: Our home build/sell blog

Repeat the mantra, this too shall pass.....this too shall pass....

...in between yelling at the builder for being a pea brain!

;)

I'm sorry - unfortunately this seems to be the norm with lots of things nowadays. Anything service related I seem to have run into this with.

Anyways on the crown - it shouldn't destroy the drywall to remove it. Will leave some nail holes, but assuming the crown you are using is of similar size this will be covered back up and if smaller size they can patch the holes.

The nail holes from the crown mould can be fixed. By far the bigger concern is the fact that hardwood floors (and drywall by now) are installed without heat at this stage in October. Without heat the moisture levels in the home are too high for both the hardwood and drywall. Everything drys- and usually shrinks - when the furnace becomes operable. The golden rule is to never,ever install finish floors and woodwork without a/c in the summer (again, humidity control) or heat in the fall/winter. It sounds like the builder isn't tracking the progress of construction nor scheduling things in time. Usually a sign of over-commitment with too much work or a builder too far from his home base of operation.

what will happen to the drywall since we have no heat in the house?

From the USG Handbook

26. Joints�
    Ridging
    Cause: All building materials grow or shrink in response to changes in
    temperature and humidity. When they are confined to a specific space,
    such as gypsum panels in a partition or ceiling, they are put under
    stress, either compression or tension, depending on the temperature
    or humidity conditions. These stresses are relieved when the panel
    bends outward in the region of the joint. Once this bending takes place,
    the system sets and never returns to normal. It becomes progressively
    worse with each change of temperature or humidity. This progressive
    deformation appears as a continuous ridge along the length of joint,
    with a uniform, fine, ridge-like pattern at the center.
    Remedy: (1) Let ridge develop fully before undertaking repairs; usually
    a period of six months is sufficient. Make repairs under average
    room environmental conditions. (2) Smooth ridge down to reinforcing
    tape without cutting through it. Fill concave areas on either side of
    ridge with light fill of compound. After this is dry, float a very thin film of
    compound over entire area. (3) Examine area with strong side lighting
    to make certain that ridge has been concealed. If not, use additional
    feathering coats of compound. Redecorate. Ridging may recur, but is
    usually less severe. Continuous wetting will aggravate condition.
    Prevention: Where available, use Sheetrock brand gypsum panels, SW
    edge, which feature a rounded edge designed to prevent ridging. Follow
    general recommendations for joint treatment (Chapter 1) and approved
    application procedures, which include back-blocking and laminated
    chapter12.indd 382 1/13/2009 10:33:44 AM

Ok. Will this happen to my thick drywall in 50 degree temperatures? There is a portable heater in the basement and I worry that will make the basement drywall too hot while the top two floors remains in the upper 40-50s at night.

Ok - humidity swings vary in different parts of the country so this is not one size fits all.

Obviously, drywall has to go in before climate control can be achieved. In my jurisdiction, you would never get NG turned on before drywall. In most construction, the humidity inside would never be true final humidity without the drywall up even if the furnace could be turned on.

Record cold is not a builder's fault and I believe most of us set records last night. If the windows and doors are closed, the interior temps are probably well above the outside - even without a furnace.

My build which I think went by just fine had some crown installed wrong. Sure - not the whole house - just the dining room - but it isn't a big deal. My latest build had the entire interior painted the wrong color - a rather dark green. Sure - it cost someone (painter I think) a few thousand to fix. And - there are areas I can tell there is a dark color underneath.

You have to approach a build knowing that mistakes are going to happen. Someone of them are truly irreparable. But most houses are going to be far superior to a resale that you had zero control over the build....

We had our house "conditioned" before hardwoods went in - it was summer so the a/c was on for several weeks and the wood sat inside for a while so it could become acclimated. Drywall went up before floors went down I think???

I would be concerned about the hardwood floors as they WILL buckle/shrink as the moisture level changes.

The sheetrock is no big deal - they were patching sheetrock until we moved in and we just had to replace a wire cut during construction which cut off some of the outlets (basement fireplace flue was the culprit I think). The hardwood floors though would require a conversation from me though! We had buckling floors in our last house because they didn't let the wood dry long enough (installed hardwoods after we moved in in an older home and the wood sat inside in our den for a while before they installed it).

The main thing with flooring is to have it at the same level of humidity as the house when you install it, so that everything will (sort of) move together. There will be movement and seasonal opening and closing of cracks as the humidity changes over the year, there's nothing to be done about that, What you don't want to do is apply bone dry flooring on a wet subfloor/frame because over time the flooring will pick up moisture and expand while the floor/frame shrinks resulting in buckling. (or gaps if the flooring is high moisture and the frame low). There will still be seasonal movement because the subfloors are either plywood and more dimensionally stable than flooring or planks laid perpendicular to the flooring and thus expanding and contracting in different directions. In general the effects of temperature on wood are trivial compared to humidity, just the opposite of metal or plastic.

In a perfect world you'd install everything at a nice annual median temperature in humidity. Good luck in getting your builder to schedule that!

All of this movement will continue every year as the seasons change forever, so during construction all you're really trying to do is to avoid mismatches in humidity levels. Wherever possible make provision for movement--for example in making frame and panel doors for cabinets finish the panels fully before installing them in the frames so that when the panel shrinks in winter you don't expose an unfinished edge.

For what it's worth drywall is billed as moving about 0.016 mm per meter per deg C or 0.072 mm/M/%RH change, so a sheet of drywall isn't going to change very much. Wood movement on the other hand can be up to 20 mm for a meter wide tabletop for normal seasonal swings in humidity from 20% to 80%.