Hunter Homes....yes or no (credit, loans, home builder)

[firsttime homebuyer]

Originally Posted by phantomplan

Drive around a few HH subdivisions and see how many houses are for rent and/or not kept up. That should be more than enough to draw a conclusion.

Their older subdivisions are HORRIBLE!!!! Of that I have no doubt. The one that we are looking into I have driven through about 3 times and people keep up on their lawns, the houses don't look rundown and everyone we spoke to were the first owners of the homes they live in. The conclusion I draw from what I saw is it is a good subdivision.

[Seth Parker]

Yep. Breland only started building again back in '09. They've made a lot of progress in a short period of time.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth_G

HB2HSV: Can't compare Breland/Adams to HH in the same neighborhood...since I was willing to try, do I get the recommendation? LOL. In all seriousness, I am now curious. I am going to do some serious nose to the grindstone comparisons this week. It will take some time, so give me a couple of days. Here are the issues with this research: Breland has only been building a few years this go round. Adams has been around for quite some time so that won't be an issue. I think the best thing to do would be to pull by school district? Thoughts? I can easily compare HH, Breland and Adams in Bob Jones district. Let me know how you would like this search to look like specifically.

Hi there, Elizabeth !

Well... ah hem.. as a mean to incentivize you to do the 'comp', I think you will get a strong recommendation from many people on this board as a result.

The only subdivsion that I know of that has a mix of Breland and HH homes is the Ashbury subdivision on Countyline road, city of madison and in BJ school district. I also know up the road on Countyline road in Stonecrest <?>, Stoneridge <?> subdivision was a mix of Adams and Breland homes, also in madison city. Both subdivisions are relatively new with Breland came in 1~2 yrs later. I think there are more Adams/ Breland mix subdivisions in the Huntsville area than HH/Breland.

Comparison will be on houses of comparable #bd/ ba and sq.ft.

Thanks in advance on the behalf C-D forum inquiring future home buyers.

[bomberman760]

Most home developments on my street are Hunter. Watching them go up every day, I see the materials, I see the incredible speed at which they go up, and am appalled. They are not building quality, they are banking on volume. Link another poster said, ft2/$.

Also want to add thtt yes, I have toured a few, and they were appalling. Spacious, yes. But that's it. You can actually see the shortcuts and cover-ups if you have an eye for it.

[firsttime homebuyer]

That is why we are planning to be there everyday for the next Xmonths to make sure they do it right. If we are not satisfied then we don't close on it, it's as easy as that! Just wondering why the people we talked to would say they love their homes and have had no problems with them if they are so appalling?

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by bomberman760

Most home developments on my street are Hunter. Watching them go up every day, I see the materials, I see the incredible speed at which they go up, and am appalled. They are not building quality, they are banking on volume. Link another poster said, ft2/$.

Also want to add thtt yes, I have toured a few, and they were appalling. Spacious, yes. But that's it. You can actually see the shortcuts and cover-ups if you have an eye for it.

I watched Breland homes built. Same thing. They put up frames in 1 day, from just the foundation in the morning to a fully framed house in the afternoon. Is it bad?

[firsttime homebuyer]

My point exactly!! I don't think anyone should have an opinion unless you know for a fact they use crappy materials or their building skills suck!! Most people just go off of what others tell them.

Stop deleting comments that have no reason to be deleted, it's frustrating!!

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by xmarx

You have now ventured off into engineering aspects of which I have some knowledge so I can't help but respond. Engineered roof trusses are in fact stronger than most stick built roof framing depending on the materials used and the extent to which the carpenters brace a stick built roof. The reason roof trusses are stronger is because they are engineered and designed by CAD programs to direct forces through the truss system which dissipates forces such as wind load, weight from rain or snow etc. They use geometry to direct those forces through the frame members to load points within the structure of the home. This same force directing could be accomplished through stick framing but how many structural engineers do you have working as carpenters? For most applications, roof trusses are the most structurally sound method of building a roof along with being more cost effective and are also efficient.

Now as for pre-built wall panels, that is an entirely different subject. They are actually right the opposite. They are usually weaker in most applications, especially for exterior walls which are the most important in the structure of a home. The problem with them is they come in certain lengths (usually 16 feet I believe) and walls over that length are built in multiple pieces. These multiple pieces are then usually nailed together with a few nails to make the long walls, whereas a stick built wall is built in one piece by staggering the framing members so they are not assembled as small sections. Additionally, discrepancies in the building process of the home are compensated for as walls are stick built on site such as the slab/foundation being out of level or square. Pre-built walls are just pulled out of the pile and put in place. Since they are prebuilt, there is no compensation for abnormalities in the building process and they are also often out of square themselves which only adds to the issues. Therefore, you often have weaker, out of square, and/or out of level walls when using pre-built wall panels.

The "energy board" that was mentioned has a few different brand names. It is simply a highly compressed cardboard with a vinyl type coating. It does provide some structural bracing but very little insulating value. The biggest problem with it is if it gets wet, it loses its structural integrity and it next to useless. It is basically a cheap solution that is used instead of using the proper more expensive types of construction materials such as plywood.

I have no idea who uses what and it does not really matter to me but it does bother me when someone starts posting incomplete or inaccurate information.

So did your husbands' research tell you all of that or did you miss those important aspects or decide to just post the part you liked?

I read your post and the first thing that popped into my head was... PARAGRAPH !!

Thank you for posting ! I am always curious about the house-building process and techniques. Since you are an engineer, your post begs an inquiry. I like what you said about engineered roof trusses (see bold quotes above) and that makes sense to me. But what I don't get is why can't they use the same CAD design to build wall panels? (see red font quotes above).

The wall panels do not need to be nailed together, but they can use the same construction method as they build roof trusses, can't they? Outer wall panels mostly experience compression loads with occasional tension loads due to wind gust. Those loads can be likewise to directed through frame members to load points. Afterall, what is the point if the roof holds and only have walls collapse when a strong wind blows? Like you've said, it is far easier to design this right, pre-fab them, and without having an engineer trying to design this at every construction site which would be very costly.

As for abnormality in slab/ foundation and how to compensate. First and foremost is to do it right then little needs to be done. But if when there are imperfections in slab/ foundations, then individual sticks can be fab'd on site and attached to pre-fabs in order to compensate?

For a brick face wall, do they still put on plywood on the outside before they install bricks? I don't see Breland or Woodland homes do that neither.

I am not in construction so I don't know the trick of the trades. But I would think this is not tough to figure out, even for a engineer.

As for perfect square corners, I don't know how many houses have perfect square. I doubt 99% of homeowners even care or aware. I just know from HGTV (blame this on da wife ) that most houses don't have perfect square, a la Holmes on Homes.

[Seattle2Madison2010]

I have lived in the Savannah subdivision since March and would definitely recommend it... and have to several people! You do have to look at it as price per sq foot over cost if you want to have the maximum optimism. However, I was very pleased that included with your home is: fully sodded front & back yard, hvac system, baseboard trim (some newer homes even come standard with crown molding!), etc. Sure, I wish our garage was bigger and it would have been nice if they included molding around the windows, but is it a deal breaker? Certainly not. We have a large fenced yard, our neighbors are quiet and respectable. The part of the street we live on has a majority of 30-year-old first-time home buyers, perfect for us. I love the peace & quiet in the summer, we've seen an owl, coyote and even (eww!) snakes. You can't get that in a lot of the "nicer" subdivisions toward the city.

We have nearly 3000 square feet and I feel the construction is very durable, when I'm upstairs I can't even hear the doorbell. As for the "cheaper" hunter homes with siding i've been in I can't say the same. The only issue we had was with our heat pump in the summer & the repair guy fixed it the same day we called! Our neighbor had issues with his home, though, so I would caution if you're hesitant during construction to just watch the workers... we did & it turned out great.

Message me if you want more info on my experience!

[phillib]

My husband and I built a house when we were engaged and it was completed about 8 months later...a month before we were married. We have over 2100 sq. ft and most of the features we were looking for. They build a lot of houses relatively fast, so there are issues. Smaller issues are nail pops in the floors and ceilings. The biggest issue that we've had is leaking around our patio door when it rains. Hunter Homes has sent people out to "fix" it several times, once they even replaced the door and frame completely. We recently hired an independent contractor to caulk all seams in the siding around the house and that seemed to help more.

When we bought our house, the choices were somewhat limited but here we are almost four years later and the most recent houses being built in our neighborhood have stone exteriors (a choice we didn't have) and prettier columns and just look more upscale in general. Since the outside has more choices, I would assume that there are more interior choices.

They do build energy efficient homes...it holds the heat/air well. Our utility bill is less than some people's with houses half the size. My friends and siblings are always surprised by the lower cost we have.

Overall, we love our house and think that we got a good deal for the money. Building a house from the ground up with them was pretty low stress.