Leaky Windows Leave Drops of Discontent in Simi Valley
From a tract house on the flatlands below, Afzal Khan watched and waited as Centex Homes built a fashionable new neighborhood on the wind-swept hills overlooking Simi Valley.
Finally, he bought a Mediterranean-style, two-story house for about $500,000--neither the smallest nor the largest in the 180-house Silverthorne subdivision.
That was in 1999.
“It’s a beautiful home,” said Kahn, an electronics engineer for TRW. “Just what I wanted, a bigger house on the hill.”
Then the first big storm of the season blew through in early 2000.
The rains seeped under a French door on a second-floor deck. Kahn first noticed the puddles in his downstairs breakfast nook. Then he saw moisture on the ceiling. And a carpet was soaked.
“It was a new house,” Kahn said. “But the windows were leaking.”
The same thing happened at several other Silverthorne homes. Then last winter, as the subdivision neared completion, another blustery storm began to reveal the true scope of the problem.
So far, tests of about 100 houses--now valued at $600,000 to $1 million--have found that faulty window welds fail to hold out the water to varying degrees, from pinhole-sized leaks to severe ones.
Centex, one of the nation’s largest home builders, is buying back three houses for a total of more than $2 million after water leaks, plumbing defects and other problems prompted homeowners to ask for full financial relief, company officials said.
Centex has stripped the exterior of eight other homes to the wooden support studs, relocating families for three to four months while replacing wall lathing, insulation, stucco and about 35 windows per house. The cost has been hundreds of thousands per house including relocation expenses, according to Centex. Extensive repairs to a few more homes probably will be needed, officials said.
Dozens of other houses have also undergone minor repairs.
“The stars really lined up on this one,” said John Ochsner, Ventura-Los Angeles region president for Centex. “Just a number of things came together, but the real crux that caused us the most problems are these window failures. We do not have problems like this in any other subdivision in our region.”
After the extent of the problems became evident last year, Dallas-based Centex notified all 180 homeowners that it would test for leaks in every Silverthorne house if requested. The tests are expected to continue through this summer.
“As many as 100 homes were leaking, and we’ve had a few homes with significant problems,” Ochsner said. “But we’ve made the repairs, and we’ve put [owners] back in their homes. I think they’ll tell you they’re very happy they bought a home from Centex because we stand behind our work.”
What is unusual about the Silverthorne situation, in fact, is not only the number of problems but that complaints apparently have been resolved so far without the filing of any lawsuits.
A couple of homeowners have hired attorneys but have not sued, Ochsner said. Nor has Centex sued a subcontractor that provided what the builder considers faulty windows.
“If a neighborhood becomes stigmatized, that’s not the best solution for our homeowners,” Ochsner said. “Centex is taking the lead, because it’s not right to ask our homeowners to wait [for repairs].”
Kathryn Calafato, a member of the Silverthorne Homeowners Assn. governing board, gives Centex credit for responding to complaints, but says she’s surprised a class-action suit has not been filed.
“It is a nightmare,” Calafato said. “The poor guys have to move out for three or four months. The question is, did Centex have good quality control in place or not?”
Calafato’s home was tested for leaks last week, and workmen told her the windows are watertight. But she still wonders if the debilitating headaches and sinus problems she has suffered this winter are the result of leaks that spread mold in her walls.
“If there’s mold, I have some serious questions,” she said. “I’ve been very sick this winter. And they bought out one of the houses because two children got sick because of mold.”
Ochsner said that while two homeowners with sick children have complained of mold-related problems, an expert hired by Centex found mold levels inside their houses no higher than outside.
Still, Centex is buying back a Silverthorne home that sold for about $685,000. The owner hung a banner from the house last October, declaring it a “4,000 sq. ft. Centex home we can’t live in for health reasons!” He offered to sell the home for $975,000; the agreed sale price has not been disclosed. The banner has been removed.
The owner moved from the house last week. But Ochsner said tests found no evidence that the residence was a “sick house.”
“When somebody puts up a banner like that in the neighborhood, not only are the neighbors concerned, Centex is concerned,” Ochsner said. “And they may hold a lot of leverage over us even if we do not agree there is an underlying problem.”
Another former Silverthorne homeowner, Van Nuys architect Neil Ponsky, sold back his home to Centex last summer for $670,000, two years after buying it for about $200,000 less, according to property records.
Ponsky said he could not discuss the sale or problems he had with his house because of a confidentiality agreement with Centex.
“But they were more than cooperative; they were more than fair with me,” said Ponsky, who now lives in a new home in Northridge. “They were willing to do anything to fix the house, but we just decided to sell it back to them. It got to the point where it was just time that we moved on.”
Ochsner said Centex bought the homes for market value, the increased prices reflecting a rapid appreciation from a hot housing market and improvements the former owners made to their properties.
Centex is using the Ponsky house, now blocked from view by a green-tarped fence, to test methods to fix problems in other Silverthorne homes, said Gary Herschel, construction manager for the subdivision.
Standing next to a stack of new windows and a stripped stucco wall, Herschel said, “We’re coming up with procedures to rectify any future problems.”
Silverthorne’s windy ridgeline location has contributed to its problems, Ochsner said. That may be why Centex, which used the same window contractor on other projects, has experienced no significant leaking elsewhere, he said.
Indeed, Centex still buys windows from the same manufacturer because the quality is high and the machine calibration that caused the bad window welds at Silverthorne has been fixed, Ochsner said.
He also disputes claims that Centex failed to check the quality of construction at Silverthorne.
“Every time you have an event like this, you certainly look back to see where your quality control could have been better,” he said. “But historically, windows with faulty welds in the corners have not been a problem. We treat this as a learning experience.”
The problems have unsettled homeowners, who wonder what will come next.
Two-year resident Candy Laufer said she heard about the problems in December and called Centex for a window inspection. Tests found 12 leaky windows. Centex is proposing simple replacement, not extreme measures requiring relocation.
“We’re definitely not going to take this lightly,” Laufer said. “We’re going to talk to the people we need to and find out what our rights are. Especially since our home is so new.”
While Laufer is at the beginning of her repairs, Kahn is at the end. The engineer and his wife moved back into their five-bedroom, 3,700-square-foot home in November after living for three months in a new Centex house in Moorpark.
“Believe me, my house is a much better house today,” Kahn said. “John Ochsner came in to my living room and he promised to do everything to make it right, and he did everything he promised.
“I cannot predict any problem tomorrow,” Kahn added. “But today, everything is OK.”
