New Construction Build Porch Poured Wrong
Hello!
We are building a custom home and at the beginning when we got a quote we put together a room by room spec sheet on what we expect for our home build. Those details went into the contract. It was agreed that our porches would be poured, colored, stamped concrete, steps too. Since steps are part of the porch.
We showed up one day to look at our build progress and the porches were sitting ready to be poured in concrete. They had the metal decking in place to support the concrete and we noticed that the builder had the masons do a brick border at the front of the porch. It's was ok to have a brick skirt to the porch but we never wanted brick on top of the porch anywhere because it hurts your feet and we like outdoor living and didnt want to be stepping on brick anywhere. We wanted and understood that it was to be stamped colored concrete.
The builder was upset that we didnt like the brick. But this was something to builder either assumed we were ok with or ignored that we wanted stamped concrete for the ENTIRE surface of the porches. He basically talked us into accepting & to go ahead and pour the concrete and leave the brick border on top along the front of the porch. He said we can tile the whole porch in slate to cover the brick surface. It was going to cost him big to lower the porch to allow for a concrete stamped slab surface. Reluctantly, we agreed hoping it would look ok. We spent so much time picking a natural tile for the porch to compromise with him.
Fast forward to door installation. We just went to the home to see the doors installed and the hardwoods laid and discovered the builder raised all the doors leading to the porches by almost 2.5"-3"!!! This is with hardwoods installed. So what this means is that we now have a tripping hazard going in and out of our home at all entrances and he said he raised the doors to account for the tile porch surface! He says he cannot lower the doors back down. What essentially is happening is that the exterior porches are HIGHER than our finished interior floors. To make matters worse, we have a slider door and those are notorious for having a higher thresh hold sill. We are so upset. It makes our home look terrible. I dont want to trip and bust my face or have guest get hurt. If he lowered the doors, water will inevitably intrude over time. I don't want water intrusion in our home.
I can't imagine this passes code.
How do we tell our builder, we want those porches redone the right way!? We feel they now need to jackhammer the concrete porches and lower them. It is unacceptable to have your interior doors (EGRESS) be 2 1/2" to 3" high up from your hardwoods. It sucks that this could have been fixed before the concrete was poured but he told us it would be fine. This is not fine. How can we negotiate with the builder so this can be fixed and not break our relationship with him? We still have a way to go in this build.
I'm hoping someone out there has some thoughts who is a GC or a home owner who have built a custom home.
Comments (12)
doc5md
2 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (21)We opted to go with concrete. I didn't stamp it since most other decks/patios I've seen that were stamped collect and hold dirt in the grooves. We also didn't stain it since that option tends to need to be repeated once traffic areas wear through. You also have to keep the surface of the concrete clean from spills and stains during the build. Everywhere something spills is a spot where the stain may not adhere. Instead of all of that we worked with the concrete company and had our concrete colored. They added color dye to the entire batch of concrete and when it was poured it had a nice mellow brown tone. This blended in nicely with the house. Almost all of the synthetic wood decks I've seen have their issues. Some can be simply keeping them cleaned and free from mold, others I've seen suffered from sagging and swelling. All of them require some type of maintenance. We're going on two years and I've done absolutely nothing to our suspended concrete deck, patio, or covered concrete patio below. They are solid and sound. Not sure if you can utilize concrete or not, but look into seeing if your concrete company will add dye, maybe another option for you. FWIW - I would never install a wood deck - way too much maintenance....See Morequestion about placement of screened porch (new construction)
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Comments (14)Thanks for all the input! The current concrete piers for these two posts are 2' in diameter and about 18" deep. So, they are larger than the others that were poured with sonotube. The concrete guy poured these two when doing the foundation and before discovering that he didn't have a good enough plan at hand for placement of the others. Then, when he came back to finish the rest, he used quickcrete and the sonotubes for the rest of the post piers. Seems like in this case it would be easiest (due to the gazebo porch cover that is already completed) to somehow install rebar into the existing 2 piers and then pour an extension. I suggested that they brace up the gazebo porch cover for support, then stabilize the posts using stakes and 2x4's, and then cut the posts off at the proper length. Then, install a new post bracket and place the new concrete form around the installed rebar, then pour the concrete to the proper level. The "stem" for the post bracket would then be anchored in the concrete - but the post would be above it. Does that makes sense to anyone?...See MoreFoundation pour - porch is all wrong!
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