Excel Homes

Not happy with the material and labour work have been done on the home third class work. Even nobody get back to since my last survey posted to the company.

Very poor customer service. They had to change the whole carpet due to their fault during the installation and still, they haven't finished yet it's been almost 6 months. I keep fighting for the service that the promise in the purchase agreement. Six months walk thru issues still outstanding after one year. One year walk thru done but no response or follow up by excel. All in all the worst company I have dealt with regarding the warranty of its product and service. The customer guy just doesn't listen, lazy guy.

Well if u want to build with a builder that tells u one thing then changes it and then tells u it’s not a option but really is this is the company to go with absolutely disappointing really
Not just one thing but multiple
You will pick your design and agree to a number the. Few weeks later you will get be finishing up with another girl and make sure u read everything
Because things will get changed
And then you will be told it’s extra to get what you already agree to

Very bad service, will never recommend Excel home to anyone. I have signed the purchase agreement in October 2018 and still they saying possession will be after November 2019 but not guaranteed date. I have paid my 5% deposit and Excel homes is sitting on my deposit with no progress. They simply gave excuse that they are overloaded with order. Sales team is good but back office does not care about the customers.

We purchased our new home 20 months ago in Hillcrest in Airdrie. I have been exceedingly patient in waiting to write this review but my patience is done. We viewed 3 spec homes in Sep. '17 and purchased the 3rd one we viewed the same day. Most companies would do everything they can to look after a customer like that, knowing that they will most likely be a repeat customer. Not Excel. The purchase went smoothly; everything that came after has formed my 1 star opinion of them. The six month visit lasted about 30 seconds as they give you no advance warning till you complain. For the 12 month they gave advance warning. The minor deficiencies such as drywall, ceiling, paint were quickly repaired. The HVAC company treats you like you know nothing and outright refused to repair most items (5" duct take-offs installed in 6" holes and held in place with 20 pieces of duct tape, duct joint sealing only done on 3 sides of the duct because no one looks at the 4th side, right?) The worst issue is the new Excel home they completed to the west side of us. They removed the soil from our final grade (which we had previously signed off on for Excel) and used it for the neighbouring houses final grade. This has left a 18" instant change in elevation on our rear yard. When Kidco excavators were on site in Oct. '18 with the Excel tech their response was that our house was graded wrong, the new house was graded correctly, and they are going to do nothing about it. I asked who graded our house? Their response: they did. They exposed up to 16" of foundation wrap on our east side foundation; the Excel techs solution: cut the wrap off and leave the parging 16" above what Kidco calls final grade. The next day I get a call at my front door: Kidco wants me to move my vehicles from my driveway so they can jackhammer it open to fix a water valve. I tell them it is now October; what are the plans to fix the concrete. Their response: they will fix it in the spring sometime. My next question: I did not buy a new house with a concrete patch on the driveway and you cannot leave a hole in my driveway all winter; how will you be fixing this? Their reponse: if you don't let us do it we will call an Airdrie inspector. My response to them: once the inspector is on site we will have him review your final grades and see what they determine. Since then: silence from both Kidco and Excel. I have been waiting for 20 months since purchasing this home to fence the backyard and there is no end in site; I have no idea which elevation to fence at. I have had to keep a vehicle parked over the water valve in the driveway for over 7 months to prevent Excel and Kidco from destroying the concrete driveway without notice.
It has been my impression since purchasing from Excel that to them their contractor is always right, not their customer. The first 95% of our Excel experience was great; the final 5% makes you wish you had purchased elsewhere. The after purchase service people leave you with the impression that they do not like their jobs and would much rather be elsewhere.

The TL;DR version ... sales process is great, overall build quality is serviceable where it matters but corners get cut all over the place, get everything in writing, and post-sales support is mediocre at best.

Lowering my score from the original three stars I gave Excel homes to zero.

One of the issues I didn't mention earlier was the garage door. It was noisy and got stuck all the time. I brought it up with the builder a few times and they sent out the company that installed it. Got everything from that's normal, the sun is interfering with the sensors, needed basic maintenance (that they charged me for) and my favorite you must have hit it with your car when all their other diagnoses didnt hold up. The bottom panel was rusting, mostly due to the way the driveway was poured water pools at the lip where the garage pad meets the driveway. Finally became completely inoperable at the five-year mark. Then I found out that parts for this type of door are only available from the company that did the original install, given the terrible job that they did and lack of service over the years I didn't want to get anymore work done from them. So - another $6000 down to get a new garage door and opener.

An update on the driveway, it's completely peeled, parging is falling off the side of the house as well but on the plus side it looks like it's been sandblasted - win I guess? Instead of getting the basement finished next year Ill be fixing the holes in the floors that Excel left behind on the second floor because they have gotten noticeably larger and then spending $10k on getting the driveway resurfaced.

Excel homes - the gift that just keeps giving.

Original review

Had our new house built just about two years ago. Overall, the house is great, and we love it, the sales process was excellent but starting from the build to after sales care I have to say my experience has been trending downwards from my initial experience with this organization.

Anything you want changed / done get it done before they get that first deposit cheque. After they have that money, the only way you can get anything changed is if you forgo your deposit and cancel the build altogether. I think another review said get everything in writing ... seriously ... get *everything* in writing.

Just a few examples of where things started going south for us ...

1. We had a spice kitchen where we ended up with a 2 ft by 3 ft cabinet that can only be accessed via an 8-inch door. Effectively making the storage space useless. Understood that it was a code change that made this a necessity but verbally by the salesperson we were told that something would be done to make this space useful. But once the build commenced it was left as is and to be honest no one ever said anything to me besides that they personally could not help me with the matter or refer me to anyone that could potentially help. The cabinet company they used is super unresponsive, I reached out to them a few times for accessories and maybe to help me with some sort of fix, but they have been less than helpful as well. Someday when I have a bit of money, I guess I'll sort this out myself.

2. There were damaged sub floors that we caught during one of our initial walk-throughs. We directed Excel's attention to the matter, and nothing was done. Carpet was laid over it and you could feel the dip where the boards were broken. Fast forward to our 1-year inspection, Excel finally decided to do something about. They cut the carpet in a new place, pulled it back, cut out the broken piece and then jammed a random piece of board in the hole. You could obviously see that there was a bump in the spot now as the fix was not flush to the sub-floor. I just gave in to be honest and said fine good enough; was just tired of dealing with the issue and couldn't afford any more time off work. We got the lowest end carpet with the plan to replace it in a few years so the heck with it, I will fix the sub-floors properly when I do that.

3. Master bathroom glass shower doors were crooked, upon further inspection realized the top door frame was cut too short. First attempt to fix was prying the bar off, centering it and then using silicone to fill the gaps. Didn't work. Finally came back a second time to replace the defective part but the guy who did it just made a gigantic mess with the silicone. Excel's response was that's good enough. So, I did my best cleaning it up and add it to the list of things that I'll get sorted myself someday.

4. Front landscaping. This one is funny and I'm not really bent out of shape over it just thought I'd mention it. I guess the developer decided that all the properties needed landscaping in the front. We took possession right on the day of a big snowstorm in October, landscaping had been done too late. Grass is dead, slope is all messed up, whatever, I didn't have to pay for it will fix it next summer.

5. Driveway, gotta love that less than 10% damage means that it's okay rule. Driveway started peeling the first few months, according to Excel it was salt which is weird because it was only in two specific spots and nowhere else, including the sidewalk so I guess its magic salt that defies the laws of gravity when it hits that point. There were also massive cavities on the side of the driveway where the pad didn't go all the way to soil / landscaping - which made a perfect home for a family of some type of small rodents that I'm still fighting off. They fixed it after a bit of back and forth, but it was like pulling teeth to get it done. Best part of this one is that an Excel representative told me not to seal the driveway for the first year and then when it peeled same dude said to me why didn't you get the driveway sealed. Just to repeat myself - get everything in writing.

6. Basement window didn't have gravel in it and was filled with construction debris. This one got on my nerves, the first person we dealt with didn't want to do the outside inspection due to the snowstorm. By the time of the next inspection that guy had quit, the dude that took over from that point on started using "Should have noted this during the move in" as a mantra for any issues on the outside of the house. Wanted me to clean out the window well so that the gravel could be done which I did a few times, but it would fill in with trash again because they wouldnt come and fill in the gravel. Took a few months but eventually the gravel was put in.

7. Que the "Should have noted this during the move in" mantra ... there were a bunch of drill holes on the siding on the garage obviously from the installation process, but they wont fix them because we didn't do the exterior inspection.

I could go on but it's pointless ... just wanted to give a small sampling of the after sales Excel vs. before sales. Before the sale, the customer service is amazing. After the sale, they start from the position of "can't do anything for you buddy".

The floor plans, initial build, adherence to budget, timelines, etc. are great. It's just they are a very rigid and inflexible through the build process and to be honest once the thing is done, they are done with you as well.

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.

Can not stress enough to make sure everything is in writing, as in all finishes, upgrades and discussions. Sales lady has no word and does nt care once she has your money. She caused us so much unnecessary stress. No ways professional. Let the team down big time. They have moved her to another location now. Lots of fellow excel purchasers we have been talking had same experience. Not good enough when you are parting with so much money. You need to get what you are being told you get for your money. Not the case. Once you ve parted with your deposit there is no changing things so just be careful and read and verify all ,and put verbal agreements in writing. We were also give a 3 month build guarantee by the same lady however she forgot to let the construction team know so we did nt get this guarantee either . Major room for improvement in communication

Garage pitted in less than year
Garage door opens and massive viberation felt on 2nd floor
Paint coming off already
Garge door safety sensor inoperative ( reapir person looked at it at 1year warrenty appointment for random Garge door opening issue) guess what safety sensor does not work after that.

Very poor customer service. Have had to fight for the service that the promise in the purchase agreement. Six month walk thru issues still outstanding after one year. One year walk thru done but no response or follow up by excell. All in all the worst company I have dealt with regarding warranty of it product and service.