Firstview Homes

This builder is so incompetent they applied for a building permit and submitted plans to the city based on the wrong model of home. They committed numerous building code violations and many violations still exist today. They made over 60 errors in the construction of our customized house from footings to finishing. They had no on site supervision and we had to attend the property daily to point out all the mistakes because they never caught any of them. Even the city inspector never noticed the obvious, that the house being constructed was not what their plans showed. How can you properly inspect the construction based on the wrong plans? On occupancy the builder left several health and safety building code violations such as loose stair railings at the top of two 9' high flights stairs that were not secured to the stud walls. This caused an extreme falling hazard and even the service manager noted the loose railing on the PDI when he nearly lost his footing descending the stairs. Speaking of PDI, this incompetent service manager did not even know enough to bring the proper deficiency listing forms and instead scribbled deficiencies (illegibly) all over the face of our New Home Warranty Certificate. The furnace was also in violation as you cannot give occupancy with a non working furnace. It was not passed by Enbridge which was required by the Ontario Energy Act. Now of course when your builder violates serious building codes you would hope the Barrie building inspection department would at least enter the property and catch obvious health and safety violations before giving it an occupancy permit. Well not in this case, they might as well have signed off on it at the office, wait a minute that would make sense because you would have to be either absent or blind to pass the construction of this house. The builder back filled the poured concrete foundation wall and entirely framed our 2 storey home prior to the installation of the required (by code) engineered 2 x 6 lateral foundation support wall. This caused undue stress on the foundation and the wall moved causing two large 9 foot diagonal cracks to develop. The Barrie building department (also very incompetent) finally realized the building code violations and ordered the builder to obtain a engineers recommendation for a support wall. This support wall went in over a month too late and this foundation has continued to crack and leak 5 times to this day, 3 years later and 2 previous repaired cracks have leaked and been fixed again. The Ministry of Housing adviser for the province stated that the building code would require the foundation to be sufficiently damp/water proofed so as to prevent the ingress of moisture into the basement. Even if this foundation is structurally sound (doubtful) it requires excavation of the exterior surface and installation of a flexible rubber membrane to prevent leaking on any future cracks. We have filed over 260 deficiencies over the first 2 years and currently are in dispute of over 50. We have never had more than a few deficiencies combined in all 6 previous new homes we have had. This builder has forced three home warranty conciliation inspections, then refusing to complete warranted items has now forced four cash settlement offers. Now here is a builder worth avoiding unless you want to be involved in years of repairs. Our expensive upgraded 100,000 btu high efficiency furnace could not heat our home. We have experienced max temperatures of 60 F on the main floor and as cold as 50 F in some areas of the 2nd floor on cold days. When we complained to the so called builder, he said "turn the heat up". What kind of idiot tells you this when the furnace is running flat out 24/7 and can't satisfy the thermostat at 68 F. Any person with the least bit of knowledge of heating knows a single stage furnace runs at full capacity and turning the temperature up is useless when it can never achieve the set temperature. We froze for 2 winters because this builder could not bother to ensure we got the necessary service to find the problem. We had to call the heating contractor ourselves and after several visits they never found the problem. We contacted the furnace maker who came out after the 2nd winter was over and diagnosed the problem after a few minutes at the furnace. The gas pressure was set at about only a quarter of what was required. This effectively made our 100,000 btu furnace operate at about 40,000 btu. The blatant errors made by all involved, wasted an incredible amount of gas with the furnace running continually in cold weather. This is aside from the electricity and additional gas from using electric heaters and our fireplace to help heat our home. Aside from this the heating design is also faulty and there were two supply air vents omitted and two 2nd floor return air vents not even connected to the system. There is a current estimation of thousands of dollars to repair the heating system errors.