Matt

We have had an absolutely terrible experience dealing with Lincolnberg Homes so far. My home is only 5 years old and already has a huge mold problem in the basement. This is due to the Insulation and Vapor Barrier in our basement being installed incorrectly when they built it. We opened a case with the New Home Warranty program who immediately denied our case. We escalated our issue to the complaints officer who directed us to the Lincolnberg Service Manager. After weeks of emailing back and forth, we were finally able to convince them to come to our house to check out the problem firsthand. The Service Manager came to our home and looked at the issue. They admitted that the mold is an issue and clearly not something that happened overnight. He inspected the Insulation and Vapor Barrier and informed me that the problem we are facing is due to frost forming in the upper rim joist and on warmer days it is melting down causing moisture behind the insulation. The Vapor Barrier was not installed with tacking or acoustical seal; meaning the red tape used to hold the vapor barrier up was not properly sealed. This is where the air was getting into the area and causing mold to form from all the previously mentioned moisture. He then went on to inform me that five years ago, tacking and acoustical seal was not required to "meet code" on new builds, so they will not take responsibility for that... even though that's a defect that is the root cause of the issue. The mold has clearly been forming since the house was built, and the moisture is so bad it has now caused parts of our upper rim joist to rot out. He then asked why my home inspector was unable to locate this problem before we purchased the house. I explained that this is a latent defect (a fault in the property that could not have been discovered by a reasonably thorough inspection before the sale) since it was hidden behind our vapor barrier and insulation. He doesn't have the authority to rip down the vapor barrier to search for mold/rotted wood in hidden spots. Thirdly, he put a lot of the blame on the previous owners for 'Using too much moisture in their cooking.' This is where I really started to question some of the things that they were telling me. For such a new home, cooking too many soups (if they even did) shouldn't lead to this big of a problem so soon if it was built/insulated correctly. Lincolnberg refused to take ownership of the problem and is constantly passing blame to others. I have never experienced such unprofessional service from a company that prides itself on it. We are now facing a $3800 repair bill for mold remediation alone, and that bill will grow with having to replace the rotted wood, spray foam insulation on the upper rim joist, and re-install insulation and vapor barrier. I fear that since 6 houses on my block were built by the same company at the exact same time, this issue is something that will affect more than just my family. Lincolnberg is a big player in the industry and if this is the standard they hold their newer builds up to, there needs to be some major re-consideration on how the city approves their new homes.