Excel Homes

I waited for around a year and a half before providing my honest review about Excel homes in Calgary South East.
So here it goes…

We decided to buy a NEW home just because we didn’t want to deal with fixing issues with a pre-owned home. We decided to buy a house in south-east Calgary. We had several options (Builders) to choose from and zeroed in on Excel mainly because of the price.

Our salesman back then was very efficient in relying to emails and messages. I never waited for more than an hour during working hours for a response. This part was great.

The buying process however felt a bit rushed and the selection of all your options were literally done in the basement of the show home. Some may like this as they have limited options as compared to other builders. I found it extremely hurried and chaotic as you had to decide then and there.

Here is the important part - MAKE SURE YOU GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING
Let me tell you why…
We decided on a color for the Granite in the Kitchen on the day we signed the offer.
Everything was fine until one fine day I decided to follow up on the status of the house and not sure why wanted to confirm the color of the granite and I’m glad I did. The color they had was totally off. Now you will hear this a lot that the color of the granite will differ from the sample which I agree but this was way off like black and white!!! Lucky they were able to stop the order before the granite was cut and installed thus me saving the builder thousands of dollars. The irony is I got a faulty island as a thank you.

The island issue was pointed out as a deficiency during our final construction walkthrough and the construction supervisor said they will fix it. We took possession of our house under the impression that this issue will be fixed. At the 6 month walkthrough the customer service manager installed some blocking in the basement but that did not fix the issue at all.
So we contacted customer service again and were informed that this was a known issue with this model of excel homes and that the island was built by code.

Now remember this word cause you will here is a lot. Build as per CODE.
That is how you will get a response to most of your complaints after you take possession to problems excel homes cannot fix.
The cherry on the cake was I was told to contact new home warranty…. For a brand new home!!!
They too confirmed that it was as per code. But if this was a known issue why was this not brought to our attention when buying!

There were several other issues which were identified during our walkthrough and after moving in.

The garage door was faulty and the tech came in and rewired it but still gives us issues till today.
He did not know what the issue was but told us that we will be charged if we call him again even though the issue was not resolved.

The water heater did not work when we moved in and we had cold water for 2 days due to a faulty part.
These are supposed to be brand new equipment and appliances which the builder should have checked.
Can you imagine no hot water after driving and moving for 12 hours! Since it was a non-emergency as per Excel we had to wait 2 days for the issue to be fixed.

The Furnace was leaking 2 times within the first 2 months and the HVAC had to come in to fix it.
The washing machine stops working and we had to do a hard reset several times.
There was a problem with one of the gas burners within 9 months which the service tech fixed.
We have our fingers crossed now that the appliances are out of warranty.

Apart from this …

Several walls not painted properly. A lot of paint flashes and drywall discrepancies.
Be aware if you have a drywall issue or cracked paint they will only fix the drywall after you take possession. We already have several paint cracks on our walls and we were told the contractor will only fix the crack and not paint it. We were not informed about this earlier and had to cancel the appointment. Make sure you identify any paint issue on your final walkthrough or else you will have to fix it yourself later.

A window frame cracked within 6 months but was replaced. Hopefully this was a one off because if anything breaks now it’s out of warranty.

Screen in the basement and bedroom were missing but were later installed.

The toilet bowls were wobbling and they fixed it using a shim!

There were several other issues that were identified but fixed as we caught it during our walkthrough so pay good attention.

On the bright side the customer service representative we dealt with was amazing and extremely helpful. She went above and beyond to help us as we were first time home owner and knew very little.

So the bottom line is we decided to go for an Excel home because of the price as compared to other builders in the area but we definitely paying the price for it now. If I knew I had to settle for a new house I would have taking my chances with a pre-owed or gone with another builder.