As I started to write this, yet another "Champion modular home nightmare," a Twilight Zone episode kept playing in my mind. For those of you who do not recognize the Twilight Zone name, it was a series on TV several years ago. In this particular episode, the main character kept having the same nightmare night after night and was soon unable to sleep. The nightmare was a plane's wing crashing through the ceiling of the bedroom where he was sleeping. Finally, after several sleepless nights he checked himself into a motel in hopes of breaking the nightmarish pattern. You probably have already guessed the outcome...he was awakened when the plane in his nightmare actually came crashing through the ceiling of the motel. Clearly he would have been better off staying home.
Clearly, we would have been better off never buying a Champion Enterprises modular product.
We should have stayed away from Champion Genesis modular homes and we could have avoided the never ending nightmare. When I see this ad, I am reminded just how risky it is to buy from Champion modular homes. That's pretty much how potential buyers should look at Champion Modular homes. Case in point. Most all of the problems we have had with our Champion Jefferson II have been discussed in this blog or so we thought.
Since the completion of the Jefferson II was delayed by the poor workmanship, missing parts and lack of response by Champion Enterprises even after they acknowledged the problems were their fault, we missed the market and had to lease out the house instead of selling it. We thought that after spending tens of thousands of dollars rebuilding and repairing our Jefferson II that our nightmare and days of surprises were over.
The first tenants were Marine couple and great people. They basically lived on the first floor and used one of the upstairs bedrooms as an office. Consequently, they did not use the upstairs tub/shower. Unfortunately, at the sixth month mark, one of them was transferred so we terminated the lease.
We were very fortunate to find a wonderful family of six. Four great boys ranging is ages 4-12. Obviously, this family needs to use all of the house. On the first night in the house, they noticed that just after the boys had used the upstairs tub/shower, water was dripping from the ceiling in the downstairs master bedroom closet.
NIGHTMARE BEGINS all over again!!
Once the plumber arrived, it was determined that the problem was the center drain in the tub. The only access to the drain was of course to cut through both sides of the wall in the upstairs bedroom closet. Once that was done, the cause of the leak became clear.
During the course of construction in the Champion modular home factory, someone did not assemble the drain using a "locking or jam nut." (See diagram below) Instead, Champion used the soil pipe trap connection to hold the drain flange tight against the tub floor. This must be another cost saving tactic to increase the bottom line. Now please keep in mind, once the tub/shower is installed, you can not see this connection without tearing the walls apart. They did not use silicon to install the flange, but some black substance applied from under the tub floor.
Removing and reinstalling the tub drain with a locking nut fixed the problem. A problem that need not have occurred if Champion Enterprises built homes correctly and took just a smidgen of pride in their product.
I truly believe that we have done as much as possible to remedy all the problems with our Jefferson II. However, at this point in time, nothing would surprise me. The problems started when we selected Champion Genesis modular homes and it has turned into a continuing NIGHTMARE.
