Submitted
by Martha Crockett on 03/23/2024
3 Star Review by Martha Crockett
A year and a half before moving in, my husband and I toured KBS. We wanted to go local because we heard the craftsmanship and customer service in Maine, as opposed to PA or Canada, would be superior. We expected and understood that this comes with a higher cost.
I do not have experience with PA or Canada, but I will say OVERALL, I was not happy with the contractor that worked with me and KBS, Dave’s North Country Homes.
Several little problems that just leave you feeling like you got bad materials and sloppy work, not the attention to detail and quality I believe I paid for and asked for and UPGRADED to get.
One MAJOR example is the interior paint.
If you want anything other than the standard white paint- it is extra- during our tour the guide let us in on the why it is very very extra- it’s a pain to reload and clean the sprayer with each color change.
I didn’t want to overpay when I wanted 90% white anyway, and hearing they hate it so much, i didn’t want to make them deal with that. * update, KBS response to this is that they only prime- they do not paint- I was clearly offered paint color option and chose factory standard. *
I am more the bring you all cookies type than the complaining demanding type.
“That will cost extra” was a familiar phrase with some other options which I approved. I don’t believe I ever gave KBS the impression I couldn’t afford or didn’t expect a quality home.
We paid for $300 of our $400k construction costs in cash and had a loan in process for the final amount.
We reported our problems before our 1 year was up, KBS fixed 1 of them (builder did end up talking to kbs, and they said our broken closet issue was something different they did on their end and they would come out and fix it. As soon as they could, some guys did come and repair the closets to satisfaction.)*KBS has responded to my concerns after reading my review and getting more information from me, KBS is sending technicians out to repair my list of issues that are in their wheelhouse.
MOST of our issues were with the builders DNCH that worked with KBS on our behalf.
My wife and I have been living in our newly built KBS home for almost 6 years now. We are satisfied with how well the home has been holding up. We are only still dealing with the two minor issues listed below.
1.) Shortly after moving into our new home, we woke up one morning after a rainstorm and found a pool of water at the bottom right corner of our front door. Upon further inspection, we discovered that the front door lacked a significant amount of insulation/weatherstripping around it. We brought this to the attention of our GC, Hallmark Homes, and they told us we needed to talk with KBS to get it fixed. We contacted the KBS program manager, and they immediately sent a worker over to fix it. This worker only partially fixed it, so we contacted the KBS program manager again, and he immediately sent over another worker who then completely fixed it (or so we thought). Later on, on a particularly cold day, we noticed a draft of cold air blowing on our feet when we stood by the front door. We contacted the KBS program manager again. By this third time, KBS had a new program manager (Eric Goding). Eric said it was the responsibility of our GC, Hallmark Homes, to address the insulation/weatherstripping around the front door and not the responsibility of KBS. When I told him that the previous KBS program manager sent over workers twice to fix this issue, he said he didn’t know why that happened and that I needed to contact Hallmark Homes. By this time, Hallmark Homes had become unresponsive to addressing any of our issues/concerns even though we were still under our one year warranty with them (see our Google review for Hallmark Homes). So Eric at least had a worker come take a look at our door and give us some advice on what we should do to try to fix it ourselves. We took the worker’s advice, and we now just have a very small draft that comes through the bottom right corner of the front door that we only feel if we put our hand or barefoot right next to it on a cold and/or windy day.
2.) Shortly after moving in, it appeared like our electric baseboard heater was not working in the master bedroom. Through some troubleshooting, we discovered that the thermostat in that room was off by 5° Fahrenheit. For example, if we wanted the baseboard heater to heat the room to 68°, we needed to set the thermostat to 73°. KBS sent over a worker right away to fix it. However, when this specific worker got to our house, he advised us to not have him fix it and to just remember to set the temperature to 5° more than what we wanted it at. We took his advice, but find ourselves now and then wishing that we had him fix it.
Overall, we are thankful that we chose to get our modular home through a local company like KBS who could come out to fix issues/concerns that came up during the one year warranty. We only deeply regret that we chose to work with Hallmark Homes as our GC.
Submitted by Paul Elisha on 04/05/2024
Locked in on price with our disposit then 2 mouths latter was told there price went up. Two moths after they said house would be done still not! then was told they put othere homes in front of ours. Dont by from them! Go to seacoast Modulars!!
Submitted by Tom Hill on 12/06/2021
We had a project handled through BrightBuilt Homes, started designs in 2020 and locked in on 2020 pricing when approached by KBS to do so by putting down a deposit. We were just informed that KBS would not honor their word and told us the fees had increased at least 13%. We paid to lock in on their terms but apparently integrity is not important for KBS and they'll no longer stick to their own agreement. Very disappointed and would not recommend to anyone.
Submitted by Jamie Jackson on 03/22/2021
We have lived in our KBS home for over 2 years now and are very happy with the product over the past 2 years. Few minor issues with the KBS portion but nothing that couldn't be fixed very easily and quickly.
Submitted by Jay Morneault on 02/22/2019
