Sundial homes - poor workmanship, shoddy homes = garbage

First of all, I am letting going to let the photos speak for themselves.

Thankfully I don’t live in a Sundial home, or in any area that has been ruined by Sundial workmanship. Unlike some poor souls out there, we received exactly what we paid for from another builder. The fact that there ARE good builders out there makes what is happening to Sundial buyers even more deplorable, even more unfair. Why should two people spend the same money, and one get a nearly-perfect home while the other end up in a horrible situation? We’re not living in a third-world country here - aren’t there regulations in Ontario to enforce quality of workmanship across the board?

Last weekend we took a drive through Alton Village in Burlington and were absolutely shocked at the HORRIBLE look of the houses. They were left unfinished! There are nails all over the place, plywood not finished or covered up, and Sundial has the nerve to say those houses have a nice “stucco-like wood trim”? It’s absolutely sickening. Their “wood trim” was dirty, smudged, and even had the builders’ writing on it, as in “16×80″ scrawled in pencil over someone’s awning. It’s easy to see that it would need to be repainted year after year at the owners’ expense.

“Builders” like these should be put out of business - by being sued by everyone they ever ripped off. Why isn’t there any more publicity brought to this? Why is the media not there alerting the public to this ripoff?

The scary thing is that Sundial is starting a new phase next month and apparently there are plenty of suckers on their waiting list. Heads up, people! Be on the alert - you don’t want to buy garbage workmanship for $400,000+ that is impossible to resell later.

So if you thought this work is shitty from the outside, wait until you hear about the inside job. Here is one complaint by an unfortunate Sundial buyer that I could find through a simple net search (complaintsboard.com):

OUR BIGGEST REGRET IS BUYING A SUNDIAL HOME. Well, here we sit in our, what was supposed to be a brand new home but is more like a fixer upper. Everywhere you look there’s a problem and our brand new home looks like it’s under renovations. We took possession of our new Sundial home October 30, 2006 and the issues in our home are just too many to list but we will mention a few of them. First of all the customer care we have received is a joke and we can’t believe that a company could possibly take so much money for a house and a lot more for upgrades and carry on the way they do.

We are so disappointed with Sundial Homes, words cannot express our feelings fully. During the construction of our new home we could see the kind of workmanship and materials that was being performed along the way, and decided to hire our own professional private home inspector, with the expectation that we might have problems. During his inspection (approximately 3 hours), he observed and noted 105 items, and of those, nearly half were building code violations, for example, both our stair cases, basement railings, missing floor joist hangers and kitchen window not sealed. The list goes on…

Within the next days we noted an additional 73 items and so in total on our 30 day list we ended up with 178 items. We have had to fight tooth and nail to get anything fixed at all and, just when we though there might be a little hope of reparation, and we might actually get to enjoy our new home somewhat, we get let down again and again. Many times if they did come in to fix something the item in question was either made worse or something else would get damaged in the process. After many months of trying to get things resolved with Sundial and getting nowhere fast, we felt we had no choice but to involve Tarion Warranty Corporation. It was made clear to us by Sundials Manager of Quality Control and Warranty Service, that if we got Tarion involved they would not fix anything at all other than the warranted items. That was fine with us since we felt weren’t getting anywhere with them anyway. Tarion put a claim against Sundial for 16 items from our 30 day list and we are still not done. Our 1 year list has a total of 305 items, some of those we added back on from our 30 day list still hoping that we would get those items fixed. It never hurts to dream. We have since discovered more problems like drafts coming in our Master bedroom windows to the point of rattling our bedroom doors, which only became evident this year due to the harsh winter we’ve been experiencing. Last year, the winter was mild so we didn’t notice this problem.

So you’re wondering what’s wrong. On our PDI, our upgraded ensuite shower was not completed, the marble threshold did not line up with the upgraded solid floor pan and the entrance was only 19 inches wide, the upgraded glass walls and door was non existent, the tiles were the wrong color, they were brown and were supposed to be gray to match the floors, and one wall was visibly not square. We had no range hood in our kitchen, no towel holders or toilet paper holder in all three bathrooms, no toilet caps on all three toilets. We paid for a rough in for a future therapeutic tub, and somehow, I guess Sundial didn’t think a drain would be required, so we didn’t get one. So, we got water supply lines, the electrical wiring, but no drain. They didn’t even supply a bucket for us to carry the water away! Our much upgraded kitchen was missing a door to the pantry and other cabinets and counters were not even level in different areas. There were damages everywhere; scratches, dents, chips, glue on counters, a screw sticking out, cracks, white paint on cabinets and numerous other problems. This is definitely not what we expected after spending $16,945.59 for a third upgraded kitchen. How disappointing!! Sundial sent the kitchen company here at least 8 times to repair things. They replaced a damaged drawer with another damaged drawer. Our missing door to the pantry was replaced with a damaged door. This is the kind of quality and workmanship we have throughout our new Sundial Home. Our master bedroom carpeting has a very visible seam in the middle of the room, not to mention the very annoying squeaking of the whole master bedroom floor (it’s no wonder people are going into their homes during construction to add some extra screws). Our main floor is not level in several areas and the ceramic tiles are not level with each other and many corners are chipped, the grout is way to deep making it almost impossible to sweep, and our floors and walls are squeaking. Worse than the “inconvenience” of squeaking tile floor, is the knowledge that this will result in cracked tiles, as the sub-floor isn’t solid enough to support them. Aside from the squeaking, we expect major problems in the future. We have been in here for nearly 1½ years now and still to this day we have never been able to use our ensuite shower, or have a drain for a bath tub in our ensuite.

In December 2006, Christmas time, we were left without a working toilet on the main floor and so my 82 year old mother in law had to go upstairs to use the bathroom, and on her way back down she tripped on the stair that exceeds the code limit, causing her to nearly fall. We have been trying to get our main stair case fixed by Sundial for more then one year. It is only now after getting an inspector from the town involved to examine our stair issues, that Sundial now has no choice but to fix or replace our whole stair case. Sundial has known about this code violation since our 30 day list of November 2006, and they have left us with the problem since then. I wonder what would have happened if my mother in law really did fall and hurt herself, who would have been liable?

My husband had a heart attack in April of 2007 and was not able to work for 4 months, nor was he to lift anything more than 10 pounds. He continued to have dizzy spells for months. The doctors hooked him up to two different heart monitors for three weeks in order to monitor his heart while at home. You would think that Sundial would be somewhat sympathetic during this difficult time and just fix stuff in order for us not to have to struggle as much and help ease some stress, but nooo. The stress level that we have been experiencing since purchasing this Sundial home is unbelievable. We can’t live a normal life in this house because of the many screw ups, so our hearts are not in it at all. Shame!

People often say, why don’t you just move out, and we say we didn’t buy this house to move again and if we did that Sundial would be getting away with it all. Not to mention that we would have to spend thousands and thousands to fix this place in order to try and sell it. We are not prepared to move again, since this was to be our last move. We do like the layout, the size, and location of our house. Why the hell should we have to move because a builder did not give us everything we paid for and expected! This is not the answer! The answer is that people should get what they pay for and expect!

P.S. We wouldn’t be surprised if Sundial replies to this with nonsense and accusations of us not allowing them access to come in and fix things, as they have used this line in the past. Nothing is their fault! Everything is our fault or someone else’s!

Hard to believe that Sundial can sleep at night! Unbelievable!

I invite anyone to contact us so that we can show you pictures of the amazing workmanship we have in our brand new fixer upper Sundial home.