Jan Moyer, you are correct, the brick they have is of the pink color, but what we chose was suppose to be white thru and thru. my biggest issue is the builder didn’t give us a heads up that it’s the wrong brick or they thought it was faulty, they just started laying the brick. i think the builder should have said something to us before hand. and btw, we still don’t have a closing date when we were supposed to be moving into the house no later than November of 2018

The difference in upgrade fee for the brick was given in writing and we all signed it. Thank you asking tiggerlgh

Jan, he is in Texas and so is ACME (in fact I live about 20 miles from the plant just off Hwy 36). Has anyone heard of totally white brick 'white thru and thru'? I know my folks had a 'Roman brick' (very thin rather than the traditional thickness, which I think is more decorative?) that might have been white all the way through, but I would suspect white bricks would have lots of cement/limestone in them????? I suspect the 'peeling' of the white on the bricks is that they are supposed to look aged.

A couple of things make me think you might not own the property yet. If that is the case, your control over the situation may be limited to close/no close and whatever leverage that gives you.

Sorry about the schedule but trades are stretched thin. Even building inspections are a few days behind. One builder was happy his inspection wait was reduced from a month to a week.

Your purchase agreement documents should specify a completion date. However, many builders add provisions that make the completion date dependent on permit approvals from the municipality or availability of building materials from suppliers. In some cases, the manufacturer of certain products, like windows, may have a separate warranty or guarantee and the builder might refer all issues with those components to the manufacturer instead of handling any issues directly.

I have a distressed white brick and it is not white through and through. My builder told us if we wanted a true white brick then we would have to paint/stain it.

New Home · More Info

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I apologize if white thru and thru meant pure white. I meant the brick that’s in the first picture, but what we got is pick brick with a white coating that flakes off with a touch of a finger

This is what we wanted,

But this is what we got

White brick with dark joints looks weird and unnatural to me. Can it be painted?

If photos were taken why aren't they posted here?

I have attempted to post pictures since yesterday, tried several times, but for some reason it won’t. I will try again

Well...as Jeffrey points out above, your situation may vary depending on whether you are building a truly custom house design on your own land, or building a tract home on land owned by your builder/developer. Your construction contract will give you the pertinent details.

Why is this important?

Because with a truly custom build you (and perhaps your bank) are the owners of the land and the in-progress construction. As a result, the general contractor works for you.

On the other hand, in a tract development, the builder/developer owns the land and the in-progress construction. You only become the owner when a certificate of occupancy and final closing take place. In this situation, you have very little control or management of the builder/developer and his in-progress work.

Read you construction contract to see what rights and responsibilities you may have.

Be sure you are posting .jpg or .png files not .pdf or .gif files. Click the Photo button below and browse until you find the file and double click on it. Then wait for it to load.

White brick is very often not a white core. As is shown above. It often is white coated. Which is what it appears that you have. A full white bodied brick is a substantially lot more of an upcharge than 2K.

I think you are majorly jumping the gun to say that what is being installed is "wrong". If what you have is what is named in the contract, it is the correct brick, and is likely doing the perfectly normal bit of being darker than its final end result due to the installation moisture. It is normal for the white to shed a bit. And it's normal for it to be darker than it will end up looking.

Well our problem with them is it’s not the original brick we wanted, we specifically said we wanted the Arctic white, and we showed them a house in the neighborhood that had the brick we wanted, and they told us the type of brick that house had, so we chose that during the contract. Delayed for 5 months, the brick finally arrived and when when we went to look at it they have already laid it up. We mentioned its not the brick we wanted, and they came up with a BS excuse that there are different places they had to get the brick because they didn’t have enough in one of the plants And its the same brick. I went to another house across the street from where we are building, same builder and neighborhood, and picked up one of their bricks and that’s the brick we wanted. Are they trying to convince me that our pink brick is the same at the whiter brick? See for yourself in these pictures

This is what we have

And this is what we ordered

Side by side.

We pointed this out from the start but they continued laying the brick. That’s my problem

Unless you own the property and hired the builder, you aren't dealing with a true custom build. It's at best a semi custom build. And on that type of build, the builder gets to substitute substantially similar materials without consulting you. So, even if it is not the exact brick named in your contract, it can be considered substantially similar enough to move forward by the property owner. Which is the builder.

You cannot simultaneously gripe about about the job taking longer than planned and also want to hold out for backordered or unavailable items. The project has to move forward. And sometimes you have to adapt during the process.

Are you sure the other house didn’t get your brick? Have you spoken to the people building that home? These mistakes happen in a multi hole community. Our neighbors down the street received multiple items of ours. It was a $&@? Show.

We thought the same thing, and mentioned that, but they didn’t answer the emails or the texts and just said no when we spoke over the phone

as builders and contractors, from the above pictures does it seem like the brick will be ok with all these fractures? And these are just 3 different bricks that are already on the house, and there are so many more bricks with internal fractures. We just want to make sure these fracture don’t pose problems in the future

I have no experience with projects where I am not required to approve material submittals/samples. I can reject materials if they do not match the approved submission. Since the GC knows this, its rare I need to reject anything. If this is an example of how projects without architect oversight function, I should raise my rates.

Well our problem with them is it’s not the original brick we wanted, we specifically said we wanted the Arctic white, and we showed them a house in the neighborhood that had the brick we wanted, and they told us the type of brick that house had, so we chose that during the contract.

You noted in your OP, "to our displeasure we noticed once the brick was placed up to 4 feet on one of the walls, it wasn’t the brick we ordered. We had a discussion with the building supervisor and they agreed to give the upgrade fee for the brick back in closing money. We agreed to take it and settled on brick that’s not what we wanted."

You settled...

You generally don't get to agree to something and then decide that you don't like what you agreed to, that settlement is a contract. An offer and acceptance for an exchange of consideration that has mutuality of obligation between parties with capacity.

If the brick is faulty then you have recourse available to you, but you should be careful referring back to what you wanted before you agreed to the refund. As for whether or not staining will work, that depends on what the industry standard is. If the brick looks substantially similar to what you agreed to and has the warranty I suspect that is going to be all that is "required." Not to say you can't get more with the right application of leverage.