Our experience with Zancor has been frustrating and disappointing from the beginning of our home purchase to its delivery. We have had two floods due to improper plumbing that have only been repaired to Zancor's building standard, which included the removal of half our living room ceiling and my son's closet. We have followed up with all of our concerns in extensive correspondence to the appropriate parties, with the response that the owners of Zancor and their administration are not willing to resolve the issues they've created.
Patricia, the sales representative in Pine River, could not answer any of our specific questions regarding the design of our home before purchase. Every inquiry we made, she was clearly annoyed that we wouldn't just purchase the home and clarify these issues later with the designer. She wanted us to sign a contract that outlined our agreement to something we communicated we didn't want. She made it very clear of her irritation that we were actually reading the documents and had questions regarding the material. We had a very specific vision and later realized that when she didn't know the answer to a question, she just guessed, which put us in a stressful situation later when we had been provided with so much misinformation. We made an official complaint to head office regarding our dealing with her, and when we took possession of our home and I requested the keys from her, I was completely ignored and had the keys shoved into my hand. Her lack of professionalism when discussed with the Zancor home office is completely acceptable to them, as their administration is often even worse.
During the building of our home, I stopped by to check in on its progress and realized they were putting in the wrong carpet. When seeing they were installing a cream colour instead of the chocolate brown we chose, I immediately contacted the super across the street and home office. I had documented in photos all of our design choices after dealing with the incompetence of the sales office. Zancor's response to the issue was that they were already in and they were not willing to replace with the incorrect carpet unless we were willing to pay an additional 50% of their costs incurred.
During the pre inspection of the home, our shower would not turn off when tested. When we continued on to the next room, it revealed a closet full of water due to the plumbing being installed improperly. In the living room, the water was pooling in the ceiling and dripping through the seams and down the wall. After the repair of the plumbing, we had to have the ceiling repaired only to notice weeks later that water lines were showing new stains. Upon inspection, a Zancor repairman found an additional leak in the toilet which had water sitting above our drywall for over a month. They cut a small portion of the ceiling out to find this, repaired in with drywall and wanted to stipple over the mess. With a ceiling that is squishy to the touch, we requested a water moisture test be done before we would consent to this repair. We are now having to deal with Tarion and a half cut up ceiling, as Zancor will not consent to test the moisture content from their flood and would rather just cover up their mistake.
When meeting with the Zancor Designer, Elaine, we requested maple stairs to match the engineered hardwood we were choosing to upgrade the entire main floor with. She denied our request for this, despite our disappointment, as oak stairs had already been ordered. She told us that the oak stairs could be stained to match the engineered hardwood perfectly and found a stain to match that surpassed our expectations on this. We had wanted to stain the stairs ourselves, as I'm an artist who works with stain regularly, and $2,000 seemed like a large upgrade for minimal work. Elaine convinced us that for the convenience of not being able to walk on the stairs when we finished them, it would be much smarter to pay the cost and have it done professionally, ready for move in. When completed, the stairs were stained so poorly, with holes from error in installation being filled with wood filler, pools of stain in ever edge and corner, and then the outer portion of the railing and inside portion of the posts weren't even touched. We requested the $2,000 refunded, as after seeing the lack of workmanship from the painters, we didn't feel they could repair them properly. Zancor denied the refund, so we requested a proper repair of the stairs to be sanded down and restained. They denied this as well and commented that they are only required to complete the finishing to "builder standard". The repair resulted in two additional thick coats, so that the entire staircase matched the corners and edges where the stain had pooled. It now looks like we have painted stairs instead of stained stairs, and the contrast on the landing to our engineered hardwood is extreme.
Despite all of our issues and the stress and inconvenience Zancor has put us through, they have made no effort to improve our building experience. We moved into our new home with the floors covered in filth, our window ledges filled with dead bugs and paint stains all over our engineered hardwood floors (yet to be repaired still). The driveway was filled with workers nails, broken glass, garbage and cigarettes, as well as the front and side of our home. This is our sixth home and second new build and until now, we didn't appreciate how wonderful the workmanship was in our previous residences. We understand that building a home has challenges and issues that require follow up along the way, but the apathetic attitude of Zancor toward helping their buyers resolve any issues and accommodate repairs makes the process nearly impossible. For these reasons, we would not recommend purchasing a new home from Zancor and wish we had followed this advice as well.
With this being said, there have been three Zancor employees that have been more knowledgable and helpful than most. Simone, who we dealt with briefly to choose our granite counter tops because Elaine could not find them in our decorating appointment. She has followed up with us when promised and was professional, knowledgable and helpful in our meeting. Eric, one of the Zancor builders who has been in our house to repair many issues. He has been pleasant and respectful when entering our home, kind to our children and animals, efficient, thorough in resolving issues and mindful of his mess, cleaning everything thoroughly after each visit. Dawn Kelly, our new liaison between the builder and us, has been punctual, thorough, extremely timely in responding to any and all concerns and helpful in coordinating repairs to ensure our home can get to a state we're proud of as soon as possible. Although she's the messenger of Zancor's unwillingness to resolve many of our home's issues, these responses are from home office and we understand she's just doing her job in carrying them out. She has brought all of our concerns to the appropriate individuals attention and is prompt in communicating their response. We wish we had connected with her earlier in our buying experience instead of having to deal with home office ignoring all of our inquiries and concerns.
