Lucy in Edmonton

We built our home in the far northwest of Edmonton, near St Albert. We built with Gillbuilt Homes and it is like a bad dream - possession Dec 4, 2018. Where to start, our experience is this company likes to cut corners. Unknowingly we took possession of our house before it met building codes because an occupancy certificate was obtained. The final electrical inspection was not done by the builder before he sold the house to us. We had breaker problems & when we had the electrical work inspected, the house failed with a page of deficiencies – an occupancy certificate should not have been issued BUT the City of Edmonton says it is the builder’s responsibility to ensure all inspections are done and PASS. Pretty big shortcut taken by Gillbuilt Homes! One item on the deficiency list was our breakers.....many of our breakers had to be replaced with the correct type of breakers that have been code for years. We don't know why correct breakers were not installed in the first place. Correct breakers cost more money; if unaware of building codes, wrong breakers might be used, we may never know Gillbuilt’s reason….and we did ask. Our breaker panel pictures of before, with wrong breakers and after, with correct breakers look very different from each other. I doubt we are the only people who thought their contract was fulfilled when it was not. Home buyers call their builders to fix the problems they encounter….what about the problems you do not know about? Home buyers would not know if all inspections were done and passed because they don’t check with the city on the status of their inspections. Once you own your home the city says you have the right to all of your inspection results and the notes in your file….this is the key to finding out if your building contract was honored. Consumers need to protect themselves and not just trust their builders. Occupancy stickers DO NOT mean your house is built to code. For us the scary part is that we had potential fire hazards we would not have known about without inspection. Scary to think what could have happened if we had a fire – would our insurance cover us when the final electrical inspection was not done? Next, in our build we have had our stairs and handrail fail inspection with the outcome that the staircase had to be replaced.....but Gillbuilt waited until the home was complete before starting. Our issue was riser heights being uneven and too much of a span between the top step and bottom step. They tried to fix the bottom step by pouring a lump of cement to hide the part of the height problem.....but just made a mess of our carpet. That's a whole other story! The home was not put back into the same condition as before the stairs were ripped out....we now have a "finished" closet under the stairs where the ceiling and the adjoining wall have a gap between them - you can stick your fingers through! Gillbuilt said they will not fix this mess. The original closet had built in shelves, tile floor and a textured ceiling. Shelves that were destroyed were not re-built and a short cut was taken on the ceiling finish as well. Next large item.....icicles.....big ones forming behind our gutters and corners etc where they shouldn't be...nearly the whole side of the house leading to the front door was covered in icicles and many along the front of our garage too. The thawing & freezing that occurred this winter left us with huge ice patches on our sidewalk and driveway. We had to watch for falling icicles.....some a foot long! Will this problem cause us the water & mold damage experienced by the reviewer below? Don't know what we'll find next, the nightmare continues. By the way Gillbuilt Homes…..fixing the problems does not excuse you from your duty to build a house per building code and the purchase contract in the first place.