We were very disappointed by the poor treatment we continuously received from Gregor Homes and their contractors. Here is a summary of some of the areas where we encountered issues.
HVAC: Problems with everything: gas dryer vent kept falling out of the wall, fireplace didn’t work because they neglected to wire (AC) it. Vents rattled, fans squeaked, HRV not working correctly, bathroom fans (part of HRV) not working, system called for AC in the winter. The contractor (North Simcoe Heating) attended several times to attempt to address the winter AC problems and was very rude the last couple of times. North Simcoe tampered with the wiring so that the AC wouldn’t function at all. Right about one year after closing, Gregor Homes provided us with a letter from North Simcoe heating stating that the warrantees for everything that this company installed in our home were null and void, accusing the home owner of tampering with the wiring. We hired a competent HVAC technician who was able to resolve the issue in less than 20 minutes, showing us what North Simcoe wired incorrectly. Our next door neighbour told us that his Gregor Homes HRV was also wired incorrectly and recently resolved by a 3rd party
Plumbing: Two bathrooms in our home, one toilet leaked and the other one ran continuously. There was no drain for our washing machine (drain pipe was capped inside the finished drywall). The laundry sink didn’t drain (not enough slope). The plumber installed a tube to wet the trap on the visible side of a toilet with a big ugly grommet on the floor. Our beautiful free standing bathtub was installed about a week after closing so we were there so see that the plumber ignored the instructions and did not properly put a gasket in place that supported the upper fiberglass piece. Not surprisingly, the tub cracked. That resulted in Gregor Homes very quickly sending us another “not covered by Tarion” email. (We got lots of those!) The plumber (so said Gregor Homes) insisted that all faucets and fixtures be purchased from a specific high end retailer. This store did not even carry Gregor Home’s “standard” faucets. There wasn’t a single toilet in the store that was within the Gregor Homes “allowance”. We spent several thousand in upgrades for our 2 bath home and received an itemized invoice from the store. About a month later, we received a revised invoice as they had raised their prices.
Foundation: Two of our basement windows were installed inside-out. A third had a broken frame. We can see that some of our next door neighbour’s are also inside out.
Cabinets: deficiencies are not covered because we supplied our own granite.
We provided Gregor Homes with a stainless steel stove hood that matches our gas range, delivering it to the site on the date they requested it. I was removed from its box and was laying around for a couple of weeks at the site. It was installed twice because the first time it was installed way too low. Not surprising, it has a large dent on the front. That is how it remains because it’s “not covered by Tarion”.
Windows: 17 months after closing, we are still missing a window screen.
Upgrades: Although Gregor Homes was very receptive to upgrades, we had to be very diligent about the pricing as many errors were made. Quotes from Melissa were generally lacking in details that would allow the home buyer to see the components of the costs. For example, when the house plans shrank because the lot size was too small for the promised plans, credit for the price we paid per square foot for nine foot ceilings was not included in the refund. When asked for pricing for cabinet trim, the outrageous price included unwanted electrical. When the un-itemized change order for tile upgrades was in the thousands, we had to attend the tile store and pull the tile from the display to prove that their price was hugely incorrect (more than a thousand too high). We had to physically count the pot lights with them as we were being charged for too many. While we tried to be diligent, we still wonder what mistakes we missed.
Gregor Homes was quick to blame their contractors instead of taking ownership of problems and even quicker at sending us “not covered by Tarion” emails. In our opinion, once our house closed they totally turned off all customer caring. As with any new home build, there were many minor things that required addressing. Unless they clearly were a Tarion insured issue, these were generally dismissed. It took a lot of repeating and wheel squeaking to get things done. For example, after months of waiting and repeated requests, we were provided with a single tube of caulking so we could apply the missing caulking ourselves. Having had several previous positive experiences, this was by far our worst experience of all our new home builds
