Nearly every production builder in Texas gives you a one year workmanship warranty and then never mentions it again. Most people find out it existed in month fourteen. At eleven months the house has been through a full year of San Antonio clay: a wet spring, a summer that cooks the slab dry, and whatever winter does. Everything that was going to move has moved. Nail pops, drywall cracks at the door corners, sticking doors, grading that has settled toward the foundation, missing or failed caulk on the exterior, HVAC that never balanced properly, attic insulation that got walked flat by the cable installer. I inspect the whole house and produce a report written specifically as a warranty claim: item, location, photo, and the builder's own specification or the applicable code section where one applies. Builders argue with vague complaints and they generally do not argue with that. Bring me in at month ten if you can, so you have a month of slack to file. Every claim I have written up this way has been at least partly honoured, and the average buyer gets far more than the cost of this back in work they would otherwise have paid for.

Nearly every production builder in Texas gives you a one year workmanship warranty and then never mentions it again. Most people find out it existed in month fourteen. At eleven months the house has been through a full year of San Antonio clay: a wet spring, a summer that cooks the slab dry, and whatever winter does. Everything that was going to move has moved. Nail pops, drywall cracks at the door corners, sticking doors, grading that has settled toward the foundation, missing or failed caulk on the exterior, HVAC that never balanced properly, attic insulation that got walked flat by the cable installer. I inspect the whole house and produce a report written specifically as a warranty claim: item, location, photo, and the builder's own specification or the applicable code section where one applies. Builders argue with vague complaints and they generally do not argue with that. Bring me in at month ten if you can, so you have a month of slack to file. Every claim I have written up this way has been at least partly honoured, and the average buyer gets far more than the cost of this back in work they would otherwise have paid for.