The "Lamp" Picture

Progress:

So after two months of fighting about the concrete being poured extremely poorly (well it's not really fighting as they just didn't get back to me).  I was fed up after trying to get them to answer and I filed an official compliant with the Better Business Bureau and the very next day I get an email saying that they will replace my apron.  Funny how that works.  I did also contact the people Jayman "said" they were going to contact which is the Alberta Ready Mixed Concrete Association (ARMCA).  It also helped that I work next to engineers who deal with concrete in every kind of way from overpasses, highways, sidewalks, curbs, etc.

Did I already say my Hunter Douglas blind cord snapped?  Well, it did but I am bringing it in on Monday to have it fixed which shouldn't be too big of an issue.

NOTE: If you are building with Jayman watch out for where your oven is in correlation to your fire alarm.  Mine is under my alarm and so I have to make sure all windows are open and the fan is on and that isn't even when you burn something.  I don't know if you can make them on opposite sides but if you can, definitely try because it makes things a little bit harder.

And to my lovely co-worker; here are the pictures I promised you (sorry for them being a bit late):

The far right corner is where the lamp will be going.

Better view of the type of living room we have.  Phantom is laying underneath the table staring at me.

Not Much Progress Really

Progress:

So just to give an update on where our house is at.  We have waited for a very long time for Jayman to get back to us regarding our concrete pad but either they have conveniently forgotten or they couldn't find an engineer that would sign their name to their incorrect pour.

Sadly, we have also found out the backsplash in the master bedroom is crooked ever so slightly (doesn't matter too much I guess though as I don't know how you would fix that so it's just easier to not bring that one up to them aside from maybe letting them know so they can maybe be careful with that in the future, who knows).

Odd thing: our light switches are slightly crooked too.  Not the outside but the part that you press (again not something that I will bring up and that one might even be from the manufacturer itself).

Oh! Our Hunter Douglas blinds broke, yup yup.  The cord that you would open the blinds snapped in our kitchen.  Many of our blinds seem to have this weak point on the cord (not one that should be there).  Will let this know how it all goes down.

Our neighbours aren't having much luck with their builders either (their paid for garage pad that's suppose to have been up a month ago hasn't been because their builder hasn't poured the "curb" for the pad).  Among other things of course.

Ooooh and we're missing a part of our concrete walkway (so we get a moat when it rains) but I don't know what is happening with that though.

Light in the Darkness?

So if you've been reading regularly you have undoubtedly read the issues we have been having with Jayman.

Here is a bit more information as well as some good news!  Ta da, who knew!

So in regards to the concrete that we have a problem with; I have talked to my engineers at work that deal with concrete and here is what they say:

       
            1. The rebar is doing absolutely no good now as reinforcing.
            2. No bond now between the layers.  It will break up and the design strength will not be there.
            3. Cold joints between layers are never recommended.  Any moisture settling in the cold joint may lead to degredation of the concrete (as water expands and freezes cracking will occur and joint susceptible to shear.
            4. If any engineer signed off on this (which they wouldn't) they could be sued.

So they have contacted ARMCA (the Alberta Ready Mix Concrete Association) which is a good start because my engineers gave me their contact information as well.  Granted if they come and say that "some engineer" said it's fine i'll be finding out whether it is a real life engineer (real and practicing) and talking to him personally to see what he actually said.

in regards to the patio door leaking, the window has been fixed but we are waiting to see if they fix the seal that has to do with the frame of the house itself or I guess the "deck people".  Not too sure exactly who they are though.

So I have made a meeting with Jayman and a few contractors who are suppose to be coming at 8am which is relatively working with my schedule so kudos to Jayman, it only took over a year and a few ragings (not a word but "Hulk impressions" would be too strong).  I am on "vacation" that week so I have it off but I have to leave relatively early so 8am makes me a happy camper.

The new problem we have found is that they only ran 14 gauge wire to the pad and it is suppose to have been run for 20 amps.  But they are going to look at it the same day that they come on the 8th. 

I have been dealing with the manager of the warranty area for Jayman and so far he has been exceptional.  Maybe it's because he always is maybe it's because i've been a little rage monster but either way i'm happy.  Especially because I no longer have to deal with their admin employee or whoever she is but she was horribly useless and I know that sounds bad but you give me a nice way of saying not competent and i'll go with that instead. Not living up to the scope of her job?  That one sounds a bit better.  I better stop writing before I start to ramble some more.

Little Jayman Shop Of Horrors

"Progress"

So dealing with Jayman I think a good way to describe it is like being in a bad relationship.  You have the "honeymoon" phase for the first four months as they court you and things are lovely because they haven't got you money yet.  But after that honeymoon phase it's like being in a abusive relationship.

If you look that is what this blog is like.  The first four months are all good things and excitement and then the abuse starts.  If there is one thing readers go away from this blog knowing it is to not build with Jayman.  Everytime I deal with them it confirms that they have as good customer service as Telus (you know where you wait on the phone for three hours and then they accidentally hang up on you).  I will never recommend this company...not even to a person I didn't like.  If you do still want to build with them I again recommend not upgrading anything because even their base builds they have troubles with.

So here are the updates:

- Don't know if i've commented on this before but one of the bedroom doors doesn't close.  To be more specific it does close but when it's "closed" I don't have to turn the latch, I can just push the door with my finger lightly and it opens.

- One thing I am curious about are the locks on the doors.  Most locks, you can still kind of get in if you really have to by getting a butterknife or something (say your child locks itself in and for some reason can't open the door...my sister has done that before...so it's good to be able to get in that way) but these locks you don't even have to have nails to turn them.  Makes it interesting when needing privacy, you really have to trust the other person to not open the door.  That really isn't a Jayman problem but a door problem but it's interesting to note.

- Hey, you guys remember that concrete?  So the woman that we deal with, I may as well be talking to a door for the responses I get...or lack there of.  No one got back to us on the concrete but All Weather Windows and Jayman came in today (they didn't phone like they were suppose to so I could come from work to see them instead of missing work and sitting around the house...it takes me 25 minutes to get home, luckily Tyler was home for them as he worked from home just in case they didn't call) and looked at the windows (will get to that on the next point).  So what the person from Jayman had to say about the concrete was: "If there are any problems it would normally surface in the first year".  I'm sorry, you f*** up and you want me to wait and see if anything surfaces in the next year?  We wanted to build a garage...if we build a garage (even if we wait until after a year is up) what are they going to do then?  I've talked to many professionals as well as posting on the Mike Holmes forum and everyone says that they need to fix their mistake and do it over again.

http://www.mikeholmesfanforum.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=51758

- Those leaky ol' windows: so I touched base last time with the fact that the patio windows are leaking.  The problem is a combination of the windows themselves AND the guys that did the balcony didn't do a proper seal!!  REALLY?!?!

Oh, can I say again the Weiss Johnson is wonderful?  They came by on Sunday and were very competent and quick and they installed everything that was suppose to be in our one upgrade and they even fixed the flap flap flap on the side of our house!!!  Remember I asked Jayman before I chose the upgrade to make sure that sound wasn't there and when it was they told me to buy a ladder, do it myself, and put some sort of two sided tape on it?  I will definitely be looking into getting an air conditioner from Weiss Johnson in the future due to their customer service and competence of the technician.

Oh and I found Jayman missed a paint spot on our roof when they walked through the house before we moved in.  That one i'll give them because it's in such a weird spot we didn't notice it until two weeks ago.  Hopefully it will be fixed though.

Here is a link to another womans blog I found about Jayman.  Much older (2004).

More Problems With Jayman Innovations

Progress:

I was expecting this blog to be done by now because this blog was set up for friends and family to see the progress of the house.  Now it seems it is turning into a blog to warn people NOT to build with Jayman Innovations, or anything Jayman really.  I am very sad to say that I don't have any good new for this update as that is the theme lately I guess.  Here's the update:

- Remember that clean air option that I talked about last time and how they didn't really believe me that they didn't install it.  Well they made an appointment to come fix it (or so I thought).  What ended up happening is they got the guy to come in to check if we had the two stage furnace.  Well, gee wiz people, that is the only item from our upgrade that we actually had!!  Good thing I kept the paper that lists what came with the upgrade because we didn't have a single item on it other than the furnace and that was a $5,000 upgrade.  Very con-artist like of them.  The Weiss Johnson guy was exceptional.  He not only has made it so that all my parts will be in he has scheduled a time for Sunday that he will come in (odd how Weiss Johnson can work around my work schedule and Jayman can't (even though it's their f**k ups i'm missing work for) and I didn't even spend the price of a house with Weiss Johnson for them to do that.  I have nothing but good things to say about Weiss Johnson (see, i'm not always negative lol).

- The plumber came in yesterday as well to fix the master bathtub and it went smoothly but now our toilets make this weird sound when we flush it and I'm hoping that maybe he just didn't turn the water on fully but we'll see.

- While I was home yesterday, it was raining, and I found that the third floor balcony door/window leaks.  I've contacted Jayman and they think it's the windows.  The leak is in the doorway/slider area but it also seems to be leaking right where the carpet meets the wood under the window (not coming down from the window but underneath the wood).  The other weird thing is it's not just wet right under the window but over the couple hours of it leaking there were wet spots a few inches from the window and not touching each other.  So Jayman has to set up a meeting with me and the All Weather Windows (which I doubt very much it was their installation that screwed it up but we'll see) and I bet you money they are going to say they can't do it unless it's during my working hours.

This door has not been opened.  The sliding door is on the right hand side and it slides to where that water is.

Right in front of my fingers is all extremely wet carpet.  3 inches from that is the wet spots.

- One more big kicker of a problem.  So they pour our concrete pad for us and then we build our own garage later.  So when they came by to pour it they only poured part of it and then left.  This would probably have been fine if they had come back right away and not waited three plus hours and it had dried enough that my friend could STAND on it without making prints!!  Anyone knows even a smidgen about concrete knows this is EXCEPTIONALLY bad!!  To anyone that doesn't the simplified version of this is that you basically now have two layers of concrete...two seperate layers...and those two separate layers are going to move, expand, etc at different rates which is bad when there is going to be a building on top.  I am hoping that they will change this because if they don't fix it and we build a garage on it and if they moved in the worst way and caused structural damage to the garage what am I suppose to do years down the road sue them because they didn't fix it in the first place?  Not a fan of that option at all.

Dry Concrete...lovely.

-  Oh, here's a weird one.  So we have a square island that we don't have a sink in.  The lights that are above the island and they are small hanging lights that are three across in a horizontal line.  They are not centre to the island but they are installed like there should be a sink (if there were a sink there the lights would be right above them and it would make sense).  The bigger problem which is more of a safety problem is that the big hanging light that would be over your dining room table is over so far to the island that you can't centre it over your table EVEN if you had the smallest table you could buy.  There is no way even with a tiny table that you could seat guests on this side of the table unless you move the table off centre.  You have to move it off centre enough that even average height people will still smash their heads on it if their not careful.

Oh!!  The Weiss Johnson guy is also going to fix the slam slam slam that I talked about yesterday where Jayman told me to get a ladder and do it myself even though I specifically asked about it before I got the upgrade.

Problematic Jayman Innovations

It's about time for another post I think.

Progress:

So we moved in May 15th and it has been a very hectic month.  We still aren't fully unpacked and organized which we should have been by now but that's what this weekend is for.

The house is wonderful and we have the nicest neighbours next to us which is lovely to have.  Our final grade has not been completed which means our front landscaping hasn't been done so it's still dirt out there but we do have the cement and proper steps in front of the house which is nice.  They started pouring the parking pad out back last weekend and now it's just drying.  At least drying as much as it can given that it's been raining quite a bit the last week.

And to be a negative Nancy here are our problems we have encountered:

1. We upgraded our kitchen to a Chef's Fit Kitchen which gives a very nice kitchen and upgrades the fan.  We were in the showhome that had that upgrade to it and the fan when even the slightest wind goes by goes "slam slam slam slam" (metal on metal).  We asked before we decided to do the upgrade "will that happen in ours or will you fix that sound?" Jayman: "oh, yeah, it will definitely be fixed".....it's safe to say it has not been fixed and it is so annoying when it's going "slam slam slam slam" I actually have to put headphones in and listen to something else.  This doesn't just happen when it's extremely windy...it happens when there is wind period. We told them about it and know what they said: "Get a ladder and put double sided tape on it".  To be frank I just wanted to tell them where to go and that is putting it nicely.

2. Our hot water and cold water in the master bathroom is the opposite so the cold is hot and the hot is cold.  Not too much of a big deal, they've agreed to fix it and I can wait for that.

3. Here's a interesting one.  We made it so that we have a finished basement and our house has a central vac system but here's the thing: they didn't think to put in a central vac outlet in the basement.  It's not like the hose stretches from the main floor to downstairs and we're not totally filthy people, we do want to vacuum our basement.  We had to get our dad/in law to come and install one downstairs for us (we're not very handy).  He was such a Godsend for that.

4. Central Vac issue again: the main floor's outlet for the central vac system wasn't put on right.  So when you open the outlet in the wall there is a hose and it's an elbow and then it goes straight.  So the elbow wasn't connected to the straight part correctly and the straight part actually fell out of the elbow.  Again, we would not have been able to fix this if our "Godsend" wasn't here.

5. Another big upgrade that we did was for a clean air option to our house because we have a couple animals and we also have a couple friends and family that are allergic and we wanted to be able to super filter the house of all or most animal dander and particles.  Well, we don't have part of the system...at all.  It's not there.  We didn't get a manual (we asked for one but they didn't get back to us).  Finally they come in after we email them again about it and were like "yeah, you don't have it".  Well how about that!  We will be getting this installed but we have to take time off of work to let them in and sit there while they do it.  I'm sure everyone knows that if you keep having to take time off work especially for mistakes you either don't get paid and/or you start to look bad at work...and no one wants that because everyone likes security in their job.

6. So the guy that was suppose to come by for fixing most of the items (not the clean air guy, he comes next week) came by.  No one told me what TIME he was coming by.  He phones me 28 minutes after the "meeting" that we were suppose to have and I wasn't there.  I AM, however, impressed that we waited 28 minutes before calling me (I wouldn't have waited that long before calling).  It wasn't HIS fault that he was waiting as it's not his job to call to set up a time.

I really seems like if you want to take a chance building with Jayman don't get upgrades because they can't do it right and you'll have to keep on taking time off work because even though you're buying the biggest purchase statistically of your life they aren't accommodating with times if you work a 9-5 job.  Hopefully you work shift or evening otherwise you're going to look bad at work and you will lose a lot of money if you can't take this time paid.

On the flipside our neighbours built with Daytona and they have the Concorde (by far nicest model they make, beautiful inside) and they definitely have problems of their own.  Daytona mixed the cement of their pad wrong and it's not disintegrating because they didn't mix it right (I will be paying attention to this for the future) and their porch has already started peeling...even after a couple months (Daytona paints their porches, Jayman doesn't).  They've had their place for a year and they still haven't finished the outside painting of their porch rails on the steps.

Stone!

Stone looks a bit off (too light) but should look better when the deck (stairs) are fully complete and the front is fully landscaped (hoping).  At least it doesn't look yellow like we were worrying it might have.