The following entry is a letter sent to the CEO of Champion Enterprises regarding problems the customer experienced with the Champion Redman Home built in the Chandler, AZ plant.  I think you will agree the author(Allan) was very gracious and more than understanding in his assessment of the problems.  Allan posted a two part letter previously in the comment section.  This letter however, because of its length, is posted verbatim, as an entry.

Thank you Allan for sharing your experience with Champion.

August 8, 2007
 

Ref. Redman Home 762B

 

Mr. William C. Griffiths

President, CEO and Chairman

Champion Enterprises, Inc.

Suite 300

Auburn Hills, MI 48326

 

Dear Chairman Griffiths,

 

You may remember in my letter dated August 2, 2007, I reported the collapse of our cabinet (pantry) in the kitchen of our Redman Home, model 762B that we purchased in 2005.  I also said I would undoubtedly follow up with a more detailed letter regarding this house, so while all of our memories are still clear, this is that letter.  I have attempted to structure it in the most logical and meaningful way, hoping you will direct changes to your factory construction operations in various plants and thus benefit your future customers.

 

But before I launch into these issues, I should explain to you a few reasons why we purchased this home from Redman Homes, Inc. in Chandler, AZ.  You or someone in your organization might find this background valuable in future marketing efforts and improving the Champion product line. 

 

My wife and I are retired, so we decided to sell our house in the City of San Diego and move to property we bought more than fifteen years ago.  This was to be our retirement home located on our 8.5 acre parcel in the mountains about 80 miles east of San Diego.  The significant decisions we made after our retirement were serious life changing commitments and we made these decisions very studiously.  

 

We attempted to do our due diligence by researching every aspect of manufactured homes and their respective companies because we believed that on a square footage basis manufactured home costs were less than conventionally built homes.  We also, somewhat erroneously, believed a manufactured home could be delivered and made livable in a shorter period of time.  Once we settled on ‘manufactured type housing’ we began touring factories, reading literature and questioning persons involved in manufacturing these homes.  We spent at least a year researching this significant monetary outlay for our future and making some trips to manufactured homes factories.  Our house has been placed on a parcel of land in the very rural mountainous part of San Diego County.  Keeping in mind the horrible Cedar Fire of 4 years ago that destroyed 2000 houses and killed 15 people we were very conscious that we needed a house that would provide the best defense against a possible wildfire.  I will not bore you with all the details about our research because we could probably write a book about all the things we saw and responses we heard to our questions, but suffice it to say when we bought our Redman model 762B we felt comfortable we had made the right choice.  We still believe we made the right choice and we have lived in this house for seventeen months.  We ordered this home with certain options and upgrades that would best fit the site, weather, man-made and God-made situations at this location.

 

So, with that little preamble let us launch into issues we believe that you, as President, CEO and Chairman of Champion Enterprises, Inc. should know.

 

 

Redman 762B

1.    Structural

 

a.    Floors. One of the selling points made by a representative of your Chandler, AZ plant was that the sub floor structural members and the panels used beneath the finished flooring were such that there would be very minimal up and down floor movement.  We have not found this to be the case.  I would admit that it may have something to do with the way the house is supported by jack stands.  In our situation jack stands were placed by an on-site contractor and with factory diagrams and directives this work may not have been done correctly.  There are certain vertical movements of the floor that seem to us to be unnecessary.  It might behoove Champion Enterprises, Inc. and its various plants to provide jack placement service when a home is placed at a permanent location.

b.    Interior wall alignment. Although it is not technically ‘structural’, it is probably assumed by your customers that interior walls will line up when two halves of the house are connected.  One would assume that in a factory manufacturing controlled situation walls would align properly, but this has not been the case in our house.  Imagine similarities in building an aircraft or a boat and having the bulkheads from each half not align properly.  Our interior walls did not align properly and were not in the same plane by as much as three or more inches.  This seems to me to be entirely unacceptable and unnecessary for a “factory built” house.  Plant oversight and control can certainly cause the close alignment of vertical finished wall surfaces.

c.    Ceiling and floor horizontal alignment. (This item is closely related to item 1 b above.) At the centerline of both halves of the house, sometimes referred to as the “marriage line”, neither the ceiling nor the floor aligned properly in horizontal planes.  This might be caused by the inadequate support of the house on jack stands, but again, it could be that these units are not being built with a correct alignment connection.  I believe this could be corrected with a “knuckle connection” design so that when the two halves are bolted together the ceiling and floor are ‘forced’ to align themselves together.  Your company might be well advised to obtain some type of patent on this “knuckle” connection method for manufactured houses.  

 

2.    Exterior

 

a.    Exterior wall stucco. After the two halves of the house were connected the Redman factory sent out a crew to stucco each end of the house where the marriage line occurs and patch and make repairs around the exterior as necessary.  I will save you the gory details and grief of what happened over several months, but this factory crew or crews made at least four trips from Chandler, AZ to our location in Boulevard, CA, a drive of at least five hours one way.  Unfortunately, they never did a decent job of matching the stucco texture and pattern at various places on the house.  Also, they were very sloppy and splattered stucco over the front porch and now it is left to me to correct this situation.  Please note that this particular type of stucco cannot easily be removed from wood and wood products without damage.  I don’t know if this stucco situation was caused by worker incompetence, if the workers were influenced by some outside medicine, if the workmen were weary after the long drive or some other factor; but the stucco repair job remains, in my humble opinion, unacceptable and a poor representation of the Champion Enterprises, Inc., Redman product.

b.    Exterior wall cracks. We chose to locate our Redman House, 762B up here in the mountains where the weather might be as cold as 15 degrees F. with snow in the winter and as hot as 115 degrees F. in the summer.  For obvious reasons we chose the Redman 762B option of six inch thick exterior walls with extra insulation.  Likewise we opted for extra insulation above the ceiling and beneath the floor.  We believe this was a prudent energy conservation measure although as with all options and upgrades, it did cost us more money at time of purchase.  Along with this ‘beefed up’ insulation measure we chose a stucco treatment for the exterior walls for protection from the weather and to provide some measure of fire deterrent.  We now observe after spending a winter and a summer in this home, that there are numerous vertical and horizontal cracks in the external walls around the perimeter of the house.  These cracks seem to follow the edges of paneling placed beneath the stucco exterior finish.  I will not pretend to be an expert at this, but it certainly looks to me that there should have been some sort of nylon taping or some other treatment of these edges/cracks where two panels abut.  A few cracks at corners of doors and occasionally windows that run at a 45 degree angle to the door/window opening are usually expected due to movement of the walls of the house.  These cracks of which I write are not the type of cracks created by flexing of the walls or torquing of the structure.  It seems to me that a simple nylon mesh taping of the panel joints, similar to that used with drywall finishing, at the factory before application of stucco would solve or minimize this problem.

c.    Exterior roof sealing.  The Redman model 762B is a “Santa Fe” design utilizing parapet walls and thus no roof overhang.  This is an excellent architectural design for this fire prone area, but it demands a thoroughly sealed roof so rain and snow runoff will properly exit scuppers in the perimeter walls.  In March 2006 after we obtained an occupancy permit from the County of San Diego we moved into the house and within twenty-four hours a 12 inch snowfall greeted us.  Within another day the drywall in the master bedroom ceiling began to sag and water dripped onto the floor.  Again, I will spare you with all the details, but within a short time a large chunk of the ceiling drywall fell onto the floor, ruining the carpeting in the process.  At about the same time we also noticed bubbles, approximately 10 inches square in at least two locations on the inside of exterior walls.  We quickly found out that these bubbles were filled with water.  Water was accumulating behind the parapet walls.  It was seeping down from the roof into the walls and accumulating inside the house behind latex paint which sagged and bubbled much like a balloon filled with water.  After repairs were made we were told that the roofing and or roof drain area behind the parapet wall had not been properly sealed.  We believe this to be a serious manufacturing mistake. 

 

3.    Editorial comment.     

 

a.    Quality control. I think at this point I need to inject into this letter a couple of editorial comments that apply to problems we have encountered outside and inside the house.  Some issues have previously been mentioned and some are yet to be mentioned.  We believe these issues are faults mostly caused by the factory.  In my opinion these problems are the result of questionable cost saving measures (low cost materials), poor initial design of elements of the unit or substandard factory construction methods.  Whatever the reasons might be, these problems place a significant burden on the new homeowner, your customer.  I believe this occurs because of poor quality materials, inadequate design, lack of quality control at the factory or by factory employed workers sent out to make corrections on the jobsite are shifted to the shoulders of the new homeowner.  Do you believe this is fair?  I believe this is an unfair burden to place on a new home owner who may have had an outlay of $ 150,000 or much more for the house with numerous options and upgrades.  And of course, this shifts expense from the manufacturer to the customer.  It may be a profit maker for the manufacturer, but it results in a ‘hidden cost’ to the purchaser of your product. 

b.    As-built drawings. It also seems that there is no such thing as ‘as-built’ drawings available for the home owner.  That’s a shame, because when it comes to trouble shooting a problem in the house, it would make things much easier and less costly to have such drawings at a proper scale for the homeowner.  Early on I asked for as built drawings and did receive small drawings (11” X 18”).  These are not what I would consider ‘as-built’, they are of minimal value and do not show all critical features of the house such as electrical and plumbing.  We believe this type of information is so important to the homeowner/customer that we would have been willing to purchase these drawings if they were available.

 

4.    Interior ‘Fit and Finish’

 

a.    Alignment of interior walls. I previously mentioned in item 1 b above the misalignment of the two house halves and how this leads to problems.  These corrections are difficult to make away from the factory, after the house is placed on the site.  Most on-site contractors are ill prepared to do this type of work and the labor intensive nature of the work will cost the factory or the homeowner.  In our particular situation the misalignment of walls required an outside contractor to demolish large sections of drywall to expose the studs and re-plane wood surfaces in order to align the drywall.  Once patches are completed they are usually visible even when textured and painted.  This seems so unnecessary to me if the walls and ceiling were just located and aligned properly at the factory. 

b.    Wall finishing. Throughout the house, drywall placement, taping and texturing varies extremely and is generally poor.  I presume most of this was done at the factory.  It seems to us that quality control and craft consistency should be a higher order of business.

c.    Cabinet construction. My previous letter of August 2, 2007, was specifically directed to identify our kitchen cabinet failure.  I will not repeat this liturgy, but it would be worth mentioning to you that my wife has removed much of her crystal, china and other breakable items from several of the other shelves in the kitchen cabinets after observing that those shelves were sagging.  After this incident we are truly afraid to place much of anything in our cabinets.  It would seem to me that cabinet shelves should support a normal amount of weight.  This is another example of ‘cost saving’ by using a rather thin pressed wood material for shelves where something stronger should be used.  Possibly a thicker pressed wood shelf would work along with metal, not plastic, holders. 

d.    Garbage disposal location. This issue may seem odd to you, but to the woman of the house it is important.  It seems strange that when the Redman unit arrives on the site from the factory the garbage disposal unit is on the left side of the kitchen double drain sink while the dishwasher is located to the right of said sink.  For those of us who may from time to time clean dishes and place them in the dishwasher, the design would be much more functional if the garbage disposal was on the right side of the sink, thus permitting the ‘clean up person’ to clean off plates and other items and place them into the dishwasher without dripping dirty dishes across clean pots and pans that might have been left in a drain basket to dry.  In our opinion this is a fundamental design mistake.

e.    Exterior sliding doors and sliding screens. We ordered our home with two sliding glass doors, one for the family room and one for the living room.  These doors arrive with sliding screen doors.  We noticed from the very day we moved into this house that the sliding doors and screen doors were difficult to open and close.  Even after they were adjusted by a representative of the factory.  These ‘screen sliders’ remained difficult to operate and occasionally come completely out of their tracks and fall off.  We suspect that problem is the result of very low cost doors with plastic wheels.  To rectify this problem I bought two much more expensive sliding screen doors to replace the factory screen doors.  We believe the factory could provide sliding doors with metal wheels and this might alleviate this problem.  Plastic wheels and cheaper doors are an example of a so called “cost saving” on behalf of the factory and again it shifts this problem to the shoulders of the customer.

f.    Interior/exterior hinged doors and door openings.  We’ve had problems with nearly every interior and exterior hinged door.  There seems to be an inability to latch doors properly or they will not stay open when physically ordered to do so.  The fitting of these doors is so bad that one can see light between the doors and door jambs.  This is at least partly due to door openings not being constructed ‘square’ and thus doors are misaligned and do not open or close properly.  If this is easily seen by the human eye when light passes between the door and frame, it should be corrected.

g.    Quality of countertops in kitchen and bathrooms.  Again, this is a matter of poor quality materials in our estimation.  If something has dried on the countertop one cannot use a soft scrubber (designed for delicate pots and pans) because it scratches the surface.  Once scratched, the scratches are there forever.  And on a closely related matter we have had two counter tops replaced one adjacent to the kitchen sink and one on the kitchen island due to sand/grit located between the counter top and the laminate, which results in a raised bump.  These came from the factory this way.  And to our consternation one of the replaced counter tops shows evidence of a few raised bumps.  The blame for these issues is material control at the factory and poor repair work on the job site.

h.    Placement of light switches. We also noted that several light switches are located in poor locations and one in particular was located right at the marriage line in the living room.  When interior walls do not align, the light switches and covers/plates will be located strangely jutting away from the wall surface. The light switch in the utility/laundry room (washer, dryer and furnace) is located such that one has to walk through the darkened room in order to turn the light switch on because it is on the wrong side of the room near an exterior door.  Two ‘three way’ switches located on opposite walls would have been a good useable feature.

i.    Plastic holders for closet rods.  Shortly after moving into our new home, a closet rod came crashing down in the master closet.  This rod was not holding an unusual amount of weight, but because of a poor quality plastic device holding the wooden rods on each end we quickly found out that a normal amount of weight on any rod would cause the plastic fittings in all closets to break or crack.  Not just one, but several either broke or were detected to have cracks in the plastic and we replaced them.  We subsequently reconstructed every closet rod holder in the house by using self manufactured wood holders.  Metal hanging rods would be a nice touch also, but we understand this would be a significant cost increase.

 

5.    Electrical

 

a.    Incorrect gage of electrical wiring. You can imagine my shock when one day shortly after we moved into our new home my wife turned on her electric hair dryer in her bathroom and all the lights that were on in the house dimmed significantly.  This was the first evidence that we might have a problem with the electrical system in this house.  This, I might add, is a serious health and safety issue.  After discussing this problem several times with several paid electrical contractors we finally determined that at least some of the problem was electrical wires emanating from the internal circuit breaker box in the utility room.  They were of insufficient gage to carry a normal electrical load.  Another aspect of the problem might be the design layout of the electrical circuits within the house, although without ‘as-built’ drawings we don’t know.  This problem was especially irritating when we had paid additional monies for an upgrade to a 200 ampere circuit breaker panel in the house and realized this turned out to be a waste of money and unnecessary given other problems.  I am convinced that the gage of the electrical wiring in this house is too small, probably another cost saving measure and the circuits are not properly designed for load distribution throughout the house.

b.    Outside electrical receptacles. Shortly after moving in I decided I needed my portable air compressor for some small job outside the house.  I plugged the electrical powered air compressor into an outside receptacle and there was just enough power to barely turn over the motor.  Other attempts to place an electrical load on these receptacles/ground fault interrupters resulted in insufficient power.  I’m not an electrician, but I do know something is wrong with these circuits.

 

In conclusion, I would like to say a few positive things about the house we purchased.  For a couple of old retired people we think the floor plan for this house is ideal for our needs.  It’s open, airy and the nine foot ceiling (another option at additional cost) is certainly worth the money.  I think it’s fair to say we love our Model 762B house, but we also know it could be better with some design thought and care from the factory.  We think the vinyl doors and window trim are excellent for our location.  We visited a couple of factories before we bought this home and that was one deciding factor when we saw other manufactures with wood external doors and window trim.

 

When one looks at the construction of this house in a philosophic manner, there are several things the producer of this type of product should take into consideration.  If one wants to make the decision to reduce the cost of certain materials, this should be done very carefully.  Less costly items of hardware should be in places that are not used daily.  When one uses things daily and these items don’t work correctly or cause problems that does not bode well for Champion Enterprise, Inc. 

 

All the comments and suggestions I’ve made herein are intended to be constructive criticism in a positive manner.  Thank you for your time reading this rather long letter.  Again, I offer to respond to any questions or comments.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me at the various communication modes listed below.

 

Sincerely,

 

Allan

 

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