Our New Greenboro Home, Located in the Lake at Heritage Pointe, Alberta

We've moved! The house is located just south of Calgary in a new Dewinton, Alberta, community called the Lake at Heritage Pointe. With the Deerfoot extension open as of December, 2003, its only a few short minutes away from our old home in Douglasdale. Possession date was March 31st, 2004. Click on picture above for lots of pics.

The builder we chose is Greenboro Homes. Can't say enough about the Greenboro experience so far. Big thanks especially to Chuck, Jacqueline, Ryan and Chad!

UPDATE 1/8/04: The water system has been a problem out here. It is run by a local utility company, not the City of Calgary. In the 4 months we've been here the water has turned off to the whole neighbourhood twice for hours at a time.

Things we want to change

Here's a couple of things that we signed up to but that after seeing, don't like and want to change.

	CHANGED Change the Fireplace Surrounds Now that we've seen it, we don't like the appearance of the fireplace surround. We find it too big and bulky for our tastes. We'd also like the fireplace surroundings to work with the in-wall speakers. We'll work with Greenboro to come up with something that works for us. UPDATE: We signed off on this updated design. It wasn't cheap to change but it will be the way we want it. You can see they've already started changing it. And now its almost done.
	CHANGED Change The Main Door Headers The front door and patio doors have a large header moulding above them. We really don't like the looks of these and would like to just continue the basic moulding around the top.
	CHANGED Space Basement Stud Pair for Home Theatre Equipment Alcove After we take possession, we are building an alcove to hold our Home Theatre equipment. In order to build a big enough alcove, one pair of adjacent studs needs to be 24" OC. Studs are all originally 16" OC. Please move red stud to yellow stud location giving a single 24" OC space for the alcove. Diagram is an approximation. Please locate 24" OC space by moving the stud closest to the approximate location of the red one. Click on picture at left for a larger image.

Current Outstanding Issues

Here's some stuff that needs fixing in the new house. Some of these things are silly and were probably being done by the builder but we saw them before they were finished. Either way its a great way for us to track stuff. A picture should tell Greenboro a thousand words.

UPDATE 30/7/04: Fixing things certainly slows down once you move in so try to get as much stuff corrected as possible before you take possession. All the outstanding problems below are related to the building of the house. They aren't things that have broken after moving in. Unfortunately once you've taken possession the problem fixing process slows down a lot. We didn't do any holdbacks on the seasonal stuff. In hindsight this might be a good idea as several things below were started and not completed after we took possession due to seasonal effects (basically all the problems except the basement carpet ones).

UPDATE 05/10/04: Hawthorne interiors replaced our basement carpet. It wasn't until the company owner came to check it out that things happened. He agreed that it was unacceptable and now we have the same carpet but without the issues! Persistence and patience paid off.

	FIXED House Trim Needs Painting Finished Various parts of the wooden trim around the house are either unpainted, damaged from the stucco scaffolding or multiple shades. They need finishing/painting with the one correct color.
	FIXED Deck Surface Hasn't Been Cleaned Since Stuccoing was Completed - Click pic for more detail Stucco was spilt on the deck surface and needs removing.
	FIXED Drivway/Walkway/Porch Have Stucco on them Stucco was spilt on the driveway, porch and walkway and needs removing.
	FIXED Garage Doors Need Painting The garage doors are not the color we chose. Not only that but they are 2 different shades. You can see the correct color on the house we specifically requested to match. Next time we drive by I'll get the address. I believe it is the house of the Greenboro Landscaper.
	FIXED Basement Carpet Pieces Laid In different Directions - Click pic for more detail If you stand at one end of the room you see a light and a dark side along the seam. If you go to the other side of the room and look back, the dark and light are reversed. Basically one of the pieces was laid down 180 degrees out of whack so that the nap of the carpet makes it look like 2 different colors. Click on the pic at left to see what we mean.
	FIXED Basement Carpet Has 3 Cuts In It - Click pic for more detail Someone has been cutting something on top of the carpet and sliced through the berber looping. You have to look really hard now to see the cuts. Update: Over the 4 months since we moved in, the cuts are becoming noticeable again. Seems like the "fix" isn't doing the trick.
No Picture	FIXED Basement Carpet Seam In the main basement room the long carpet seam actually hurts the feet when you walk on it. I checked this out some more and discovered that the seam is so bad because the installer used way too much glue and made hard lumps in the carpet all the way along the seam. The other seams in the house using the exact same technique and I assume, tools, are fine which indicates the person installing in the basement had some problems. This was the same person that cut out pieces of carpet WHILE THEY WERE LAYING ON TOP OF INSTALLED CARPET. This has been an issue since before possession.
	FIXED Downspouts Weren't reattached After Stuccoing The downspouts on the house weren't reattached properly after the stuccoing was completed..
No Picture	FIXED Microwave Not Working After the hectic move day we noticed that the microwave wasn't working properly. Later on we noticed that there is actually a big dent on the back of the microwave. After trying Panasonic, Trail replaced it and the new one works perfectly.
No Picture	FIXED Vent-A-Hood Fan Hi Speed Not Working The fan on the vent-a-hood only seems to operate at the one speed no matter what it is set to: low or hi.
No Picture	FIXED Fridge Makes Awful Noise When The Compressor is Running The fridge make a VERY loud noise when running. To the point where we have to close the upstairs bedroom door at night! Need to get Trail out to fix it.
No Picture	FIXED Living Room Window Frame Needs Repairing The window in the living room was repaired after possession as part of the walk through list. This was done quickly however the window frame that was removed for the repair still isn't fixed.
	FIXED Some of the Exterior Stones are Falling Off A couple of the front stonework rocks have fallen off. Hopefully no more of them are loose. Especially ones above traffic areas. The fallen stones are just sitting on the ground. Hopefully they don't get lost as it would make the mason's job harder to find/make stones of the right size. Click picture on right for more detail.
No Picture	FIXED Kitchen Drawers Jam Against Countertops Now that the granite countertops are in, the kitchen drawers are difficult to open because they hit the countertop. The drawers need to be adjusted.
No Picture	FIXED Bottom Basement Stairs Squeaking The bottom stairs in the basement have some serious squeaking..
	FIXED Join of Different Paint Colors in Basement We have two colors on the walls in the basement, a dark and light grey. Two of the walls (north and south) have sections where these two colors meet. Currently these joins are pretty scruffy. The joins where these two colors meet needs to be made into a straight line.
	FIXED Kitchen Cabinets Set Up for Wrong Hood Fan We ordered a 36" hoodfan at Trail Applicances and let Legacy know when we picked out our kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately the kitchen cabinets have been installed for a 30" hood fan. Here's the invoice we signed with Legacy as well as the modified drawing for our 36" hoodfan. Click the picture on the left twice to read the tape measure.
	FIXED Damaged Eave on Rear of House Some of the aluminum in the eaves at the rear of the house has been damaged. Click pic for bigger image.
	FIXED Basement Patio Door Track is Mangled The track for the basement screen door is all bent up. Click pic for bigger image.
	FIXED Strange Hole and Speaker Wire In West Basement Window There is a mysterious speaker wire coming out of one of the basement window frame casings. Josh at Trecc electric has the detailed speaker plan for the basement that shows where speaker wires should start from and go to. The rear wall where this window is located is supposed to hide three wires for Left, Center and Right rear in-wall speakers that will be installed at some point in the future. There was no planned speaker in this window frame so this makes us worried that a speaker wire has been placed in a wrong spot. Click picture for bigger image.
	FIXED East Basement Wall Needs Patching Now that Trecc Electric has fixed the front speaker outlets in the basement there are holes in the wall that used to be outlets that are no longer used for anything.
	FIXED Wrong Baseboards and Casings We ordered the C-311 casing and B-211 baseboard profiles from Regal Building Supplies. Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture (click twice for most detail), another profile, B-224, was actually installed.
	FIXED Seperated Vent Tubing in Basement Ceiling An elbow joint in one of the vent pipes has seperate dfrom the tubing and needs re-attaching. Location is in flooring above home run wiring location in basement. Click on image at left for bigger picture.
	FIXED Missing Vent Attachment in Front Bedroom Heating Duct The vent is missing from the end of the ductwork in the front, upstairs bedroom. Needs to be installed. Click on image at left for larger picture.
No Picture	FIXED Light Fixture Drywalled Over in Mud Room The drywallers have covered up the light fixture in the mud room area. Needs to be uncovered.
	FIXED Holes Drywallers Punched For Speaker Wires Need Covering Drywallers punched holes in living room and master bedroom walls and rear upstairs bedroom ceiling for speaker wires. The holes they punched are not where the speakers will go. They weren't symetrically located. Holes need to be filled in and speakers will be installed in correct locations after possession.
	FIXED Front Bedroom Window is Smashed One of the front bedroom windows glass is broken. Needs fixing.

Summary

As you can see, as we've been finding problems they have been taken care of in a timely fashion and to our total satisfaction. So far we are VERY happen with how Greenboro has gone about building our house. Based on how things have gone so far we have no reason to doubt that we will be totally satisfied when we take possession.

Thanks Greenboro and well done!

If you come accross this website in your internet travels looking for feedback on the developer Greenboro in Calgary, Alberta, so far we give a big thumbs up and if you have any questions feel free to drop us an email. Hope this helps you make your decision.

Cheers,

Paul - paul-rimmer@ronin-tech.com
Helen - helen-rimmer@ronin-tech.com