Looking to build with Shane Homes

[visualk]

We went and looked at showhomes this past weekend and one caught our eye by Shane Homes. We have never dealt with them but I was hoping to get others take on their experience with building with them. How is their customer service, build quality, standards, were you able to negotiate purchase price and/or upgrades, etc.


We havent signed a purchase agreement yet but wanted to do my homework before proceeding further.

Also any tips on what we should consider when building (i.e. upgrades).

Thanks

[schocker]

I built with them and was pretty happy overall. Customer service is pretty good, still dealing with some concrete issues but that is about it. Build quality was good, there were a few issues which my dad spotted though as he is a contractor that a normal person wouldn't. Standards were good as I ended up with granite throughout, tile/carpet mix. I didn't do any upgrades and took the appliance credit and got different appliances from Trail instead. At the time where I bought was fairly new so no negotiation there but it was a good price. Upgrades you could probably negotiate in also. Upgrade wise though, would have been nice for higher lighting budget, tile in bathrooms upstairs instead of lino, wiring of ethernet and cable to rooms as I have no ethernet whatsoever and really want it, more coats of paint. This was in sage hill btw

[darthVWader]

Nenshi does not approve of this thread.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c245/bigbowtrout/Dontdoit_zps157b0739.jpg (http://s28.photobucket.com/user/bigbowtrout/media/Dontdoit_zps157b0739.jpg.html)

[Lex350]

Nenshi is a douche.


Anyway...I built with them but it was a long time ago. I designer the house and them we got them to build it. They did a great job....much better than when I built a house with Stepper.

[Mibz]

I built with them. 95% positive experience. Build quality has been really good, I can't think of any issues we had which weren't fixed properly within our 3/12 month walkthroughs.

Had one incident where they forgot to include $2300 of electronics stuff in the final statement and I was like "LOL, signed" and they were like "Whoops, pls sign new statement" and I was like "LOL, 2l8" and they were like "xD no house 4 u" and I was like "ggwp".

Don't let them rape you on their Cat5 install prices though. If it's the same as 4 years ago, they'll want to charge you $75x4 to run 4 cables to/from the same place. Tell them to get fucked. Worked for me and Benyl.

[botox]

One of my biggest regrets is not getting 9ft ceilings and an upgraded ensuite, but we'll save that for the next house.

We had nothing but good experiences with Shane. We built with them in 2006 and still living in the house. Sales lady was awesome and went above and beyond what she needed to do. When we were looking around at new homes we stopped by Shane and left our contact info. This was back when the house prices were starting to skyrocket. She called us a couple days later at a pretty late time like 10ish and told us that the price was going to go up the next day and to come now if we wanted to buy. So we did and went through all the paper work and everything and didn't leave there until about 2am. She even gave us a bit of a discount eventhough we didn't get that many upgrades. No major issues except for the siding on the side of the house coming loose under heavy winds but it was fixed within a few days from calling it in.

[JamMan23]

I'm about to take possession of a house built by them (Friday). We've had a good experience, I could have done with a different salesperson, they weren't the best at communicating.

Overall I've been very impressed with the construction staff (project manager), and though we haven't moved in yet, we've been happy with the experience and feel like we received good value for our money.

Shane has good standards, I believe all their homes come with granite countertops and hard flooring on the main floor, etc..

[benyl]

If you are building cookie cutter, then they are great.

If you plan to customize, be prepared to pay big markups. But that goes for any builder.

I wanted LED pot lights. Cost $80. They wanted to charge me $350 / light. Forget that.

[Dj_DLX]

We just built a house with Shane, everything went pretty smoothly. They did miss a couple change orders but they remedied it pretty quickly. Overall no major complaints.

[guessboi]

I have built twice with Shane Homes in 05 and 10 and they have allowed me to customize a bit of their layout in 2010. :thumbsup:

[R!zz0]

I remember reading some time ago that a beyonder had nothing but problems with Shane homes and he actually called them "Ashame" home...or something like that.

[snowcat]

Originally posted by Mibz
I built with them. 95% positive experience. Build quality has been really good, I can't think of any issues we had which weren't fixed properly within our 3/12 month walkthroughs.

Had one incident where they forgot to include $2300 of electronics stuff in the final statement and I was like "LOL, signed" and they were like "Whoops, pls sign new statement" and I was like "LOL, 2l8" and they were like "xD no house 4 u" and I was like "ggwp".

Don't let them rape you on their Cat5 install prices though. If it's the same as 4 years ago, they'll want to charge you $75x4 to run 4 cables to/from the same place. Tell them to get fucked. Worked for me and Benyl.


Visions does their prewire. It's 250 per run. It's redic,

[Mibz]

Yeah, the coordinator at Visions is who I haggled with. I'd like to pretend that I can't believe people pay the full price, but we've all got those things we know nothing about. I'm sure I overpaid for just about everything else in my house, haha.

[visualk]

We got a proposed lot plan and the front of the house is facing west. I am trying to plan which windows to make larger and/or add to the south facing side of the house. Is there anything else one should consider?

[benyl]

If you get Kohler fixtures, make sure you check the prices on Kohler Canada's website.

Canyon will charge you more than retail on the upgrade and not just the difference (i.e. you don't get a credit for what is standard).

Is the back of your house facing west, or the front?

Mine faces WSW and I have 10 fucking huge windows and it makes the house a sauna in the summer.

[superflychief]

If you're house is west facing (ours is and we back out onto a huge pond) consider getting a solar coating on your glass. It really helps to keep the heat out.

[georgemagana]

I just took posesion 2 months ago and the experience was an 8/10.

Their design center did make 2 big mistakes ( Island design and carpet color???) So we had to fight to get it fixed.

Built quality seems pretty good. All their contractors did a good job except for Carrington (missing 2 light fixtures and installing all of 3 light fixtures outside a bit sideways)

Besises that, house was completed early and everything went pretty good.

[benyl]

Carrington doesn't install the lights. The Electrician does.

[roopi]

Originally posted by benyl
If you get Kohler fixtures, make sure you check the prices on Kohler Canada's website.

Canyon will charge you more than retail on the upgrade and not just the difference.

From my experience it seems as though any upgrade has an additional markup for the builder. Whether it is plumbing fixtures, tile, A/C, etc. Each vendor must add a percentage on top of each upgrade for the builder.

It is quite ridiculous since the builder really isn't doing anything extra but they are making their margin on everything.

When I visited my HVAC vendor during the build I asked him about having A/C installed. He told me to come see him after the house is done because he will be forced to charge me more if I go through the builder.

So basically if you can upgrade/add certain items after the build you will save a significant amount. But I guess some people want everything in their mortgage.

[benyl]

Yeah, we did A/C and a bunch of other stuff after we took possession.

But I wasn't about to throw away 5 toilets, sinks, fixtures etc.

[Lex350]

Yup...my house we did the deck and AC after we moved in. They really try to hose you on a deck.

[nj2Type-S]

i will be getting a house built and it will cost approx. 8k to build a 28'x10' deck. granted, they will cover 4k of it, but 8k for a deck?! i'm thinking of getting another company to do it for me after the house is built.

[benyl]

So there is a deck designer on lowes.ca

http://lowestools.diyonline.com/servlet/GIB_Base/lowes_entrypage.html?storeid=3059&from_entrypage=1&isCA=1

This is a 28x10 deck I built that doesn't include vinyl:

http://lowestools.diyonline.com/servlet/GIB_PDFDUMP/test.pdf?projectName=test&projectID=512750942&isCA=1

Estimated Material cost is $4K.

I think doing it after might cost just as much.