Country Homes Ltd.

We purchased a new build from Country Homes and took possession in June 2013. From day 1 we had issues with our cold cellar, which the Builder actually forgot during construction. This was an upgrade that we paid for and they backfilled it, forgetting it in the initial building process. We had to point out this flaw to them, to which they promised us that "we would have the best cantina" on the block. Funny because they also forgot our neighbour's cold cellar as well. After going back and forth, they had assured us that there would be no issues with the cold cellar, as they would have to now excavate the area and go about putting it in a different way than how it was originally supposed to be put in, cutting a door way in the concrete and now waterproofing the exterior wall of the house. Since day one of taking possession of our home, we have had water on the floor and walls in the cold room. Country Homes had assured us that this was our problem, as we were not maintaining the humidity in the cold room, as there was condensation and mould forming on the MDF door they put on the cold room. When Country Homes was contacted about the mould on the door, they were quick to remove the door and discard of the door, but again we were told that this was our fault. The door matter was finally resolved after Tarion was contacted and a proper 3rd door was installed which was a steel solid core door that we fought for. We thought our problems were over, however winter came and we battled the cold room daily as we had water and frost build up on the corrugated steel ceiling, and water dripping on the junction box that the light was attached to and when the first thaw came, we cleaned up over 100galons of water and damaged personal contents because water had been penetrating through the wall which is the issue that Country Homes was made aware of from day one when spotted on our PDI with the Service Manager, at which time we were told "it was water from washing the floor". When the water matter was brought to their attention in the Summer of 2013, they did not bother to water test or excavate the wall and find out what the issue was, but rather it took a winter of water constantly coming into the cold room, for them to finally dig up our front yard in the middle of May, because they had advised us that they could not dig in the Winter because the ground was frozen. Had the work been carried out and completed when the water issue was brought to their attention, we would not have been dealing with the Winter and situation that we dealt with, instead of always blaming the grading, the way the water was running against the wall and not having sod put down in the beginning. We also had to have our cold room vent moved 3 times which means coring a 4 inch hole in the concrete wall each time. So they finally came and dug up our front lawn after hiring a Landscaping Company to do the digging and waterproofing in May 2014, and not the forming company who originally did the work. They dug up our front lawn to which they found that the waterproofing membrane around the Hydro Service was cut and not waterproofed correctly. At this time, the waterproofing was completed with a Blue Skin and a dimple board membrane and the area was backfilled. A few weeks later, after our sod was replaced, we watered the sod and discovered that the wall was still leaking as water was coming in the exact same spot as before. Again, we contacted Country Homes and the Service Manager took his time to arrange the repair. From May - October, we yet again dealt with water in our cold room and finally took it upon ourselves to contact the forming company that had originally done the work during construction and was told that Country Homes had never contacted them regarding this issue. At this time, Country Homes was contacted by the forming company and arranged for Country Homes to send them out. This was finally done in late September and after weeks of waiting for an approval from Country Homes, the forming company came out and completed the work by exposing the wall, applying tar, blue skin, and waterproofing dimple board membrane. Within the same day, they backfilled the area without properly backfilling around the utilities. Ex. Cogeco & Bell Fibre Optic cables, Water Line, Hydro Service and Gas Line. Since this date, our Cogeco cable snapped, our Bell Service was disrupted as the line was pulled out of the Bell Box on the wall, and our driveway has collapsed in where the excavating was done underneath it. It's now been over 2 weeks and the Builder has failed to check into the matter and send a landscaping company to repair the patio stones that were disrupted during the work, as they said they were going to send somebody over a week ago. We are still waiting to determine if this repair will fix the matter and for Country Homes to repair the damages to the front step and cold room vent that were done during this most recent repair. Country Homes takes their time to contact their customers with concerns, blames the Home Owner for issues they do not want to assume responsibility for and funny enough once Tarion is contacted, you'll get the best customer service possible and resolution to the matter brought before Tarion. This has been nothing but a nightmare dealing with rude service people. We have sent countless e-mails, photos and made phone calls to Service and too have experienced extremely rude Customer Service. The one and only person who has resolved some of our concerns with other issues is Mark and we are grateful for his great customer service, repairs and people skills as he resolves the issues properly and not trying to put blame on somebody else as he is there to make the customer happy. As for Management and other Country Home representatives, we are highly disappointed in the level of Customer Service that is given back to THEIR CUSTOMERS and the lack of professionalism is appalling and the feeling is mutual in the neighbourhood, as a lot of our neighbours have had issues and dealt with the same rude customer service and being BLAMED as the homeowner. We have shared our story with several people and nobody can believe the issues and problems we have told them about as they just can't believe it as the house is brand new. As you can tell from my review, I would not recommend Country Homes to anybody looking for a new home and do not wish this experience on anybody.

Would NOT recommend Country Homes to anyone. Terrible customer service, terrible with honesty, terrible commitments, terrible contractors, terrible quality. They design a nice house, take your money with fake smiles and make you feel like they are doing you a favour in fixing ALL the lazy contractor errors (which are MANY). They sell a nice house layout and design but nothing more. They hire lazy cheap contractors that barely get the work done on time and correctly. Their safe working habits LACK and they have no regards for the consumer. They take forever on returning calls and emails, and when they do they make it your fault. Do yourself a favour and steer clear of Alcona by the Lake Country Homes. Nothing but headaches since move in.

We brought a detached home from Country Homes in the summer of 2002, we have had more complains about this company than praises. Now I understand that Country Homes do not actually build houses themselves, they contract it out to contractors. Here are some of the "good" we see in this builder:
(1) The design is attractive, we admit we do like their styles
(2) Their selection of designs.

And here are the "bad" we found with this builder
(1) They took FOREVER to respond to ANY of your complain if at all - took them over two years to reply to our first complain about the cracks in the basement concretes. I had to call and fax the complain countless times. And when they did came, it wasn't helpful at all, they say unless the crack is large enough to put your over-sized pen in it, they will not do anything about it.
(2) They hired the WORST plumper to do our plumping. Those guys are too cheap to even put in a few clamps on their copper pipe, so every time we use the water, the pipes are making so much racking noises. One of the pipe actually broke and flooded our house during our second year here. Country Homes did not respond to this complain and we had to pay for the damages and repair out of our own pocket (our house was under warranty!)
(3) The guys doing our insulation is barely doing it to code if at all. My bedroom on top of the garage is freezing during the winter months. Our heating bill during the winter months hover around $600/month. We had to take out the drywall around the house and added more insulation 3 years ago. Our heating bill during the winter months now max at $250/month.
(4) Country Homes only make upgrade recommendations that cost us a fortune and ignored all of the minor "upgrades" such as phone jacks and lights in the shower. They manage to convince us to spend $5000 plus tax to upgrade the oval bath tub to include 6 jets, so that is like $1000 per jet??? We was stupid to buy into it because we used the jets less than 10 times over the last decade. Because they didn't tell us about the phone jack upgrade, we had to call Bell to do it, not only Bell charge $75 a piece, they had their wires all over the house on the baseboard. They say they cant hide it behind the wall (they are too lazy to fish the cables) and insisted that if we wanted it inside the wall, it had to be done with the builder.

I have many more complains regarding this builders, but I think you get the gits of my review. I would definitely NOT recommend this builder.