I’ve been in my home for almost 1yr now and figured it was now appropriate to write a review of the complete Trico experience. We took possession of our house in Nov 2015, pretty much right around the time they estimated it would be done. I felt it should have been done sooner, but that’s another story. We are very happy with our home, I’m not as happy with Trico, but I’m sure I would have had issues with other builders as well. Given that lots are assigned to builders, if you want a specific lot, you’re stuck with that builder. Would I build with Trico again, at first I would have said NO, but now if it came to it, I might, I’d just approach it way different. We found the lot we wanted, then spent a good deal of time trying to find a Trico house model that we liked. I’ll try to break this out, into major phases of the process to make it easier.
The sales team was everything you would expect their sales team to be. They were very accommodating, promised the world and were always happy to see you stop in for a chat. From the first time we visited the show home until we gave final sign off on our drawings and design center choices they were always very responsive to communication. Unfortunately, once you were done with the sales process, there seemed to be a significant gap in communication. Take a lot of time looking at your drawings, structural and electrical layouts, once you sign off, changes are expensive. I spent a lot of time looking at electrical switches and lighting, requested some changes at mechanical and ran into a lot of resistance.
The design center is a pretty significant step in building with Trico. My one complaint with this process is you have already signed and agreed to purchase your house from Trico, based on their specs and drawing review. Once you go to the design center and see what’s included in what you’ve already committed to and what you’d like, you’ll notice there could be another big bill waiting for you. We we’re prepared for this, but have heard from others who weren’t. Just think of all the selections you have to make when building a new house, there aren’t many items that we didn’t ‘upgrade’. This would also apply to the appliances for your new house, just be aware of what is included and what you’d like, the sticker shock can hurt.
Construction is probably by biggest complaint with the entire process. Maybe this is because I’m a hands-on kind of guy, and like to be involved? Once construction started, the sales team send very basic construction updates that were often way off base or completely irrelevant. I could see more from driving by the house under construction than the updates provided me. As per the purchase contract, you are entitled to see your house 2 times before you take possession (mechanical and pre possession), sales told us we could go whenever, just call them and they would make a time for us, always seemed to be an inconvenience to them. The mechanical walk through was the first time we met the construction manager and to be completely honest I’m pretty sure it was the first time he’d seen our house or the drawings of our house, I was not impressed. There were items that the sales team had told me we would address at the mechanical walkthrough that construction was quite put off that I wanted to address. I wanted to ensure I had backing for TV mounts and light fixtures anchored properly for ceiling fans, this was an inconvenience to them.
As the pre possession walkthrough will be your last time to catch major problems before you take possession, take your time. Don’t be happy because of how beautiful your new house is, critique it, because this day is a big line in the sand. We had some touch up issues and flooring issues, but basically everything was as it should have been. If there’s one area I have a complaint about it would be the painting. It looks pretty good at first and you notice some issues here and there at your walk through, but after being in the house for a while, the painting effort really becomes obvious, I wish I would have paid more attention to this.
I didn’t have a lot of warranty items to take care of at the 3 month or 1 year appointments, but I will say that the warranty group has been very reasonable to deal with. Their trades days are setup well to deal with repairs and for the most part all items you identify will get taken care of on those days. We had a problem with some trades not showing up for scheduled appointments, or showing up at times other than scheduled appointments, but I can’t completely blame Trico for this, contractors are responsible for appointments too. The bottom line with warranty items is what the Alberta New Home Warranty says, it may not be what you want, but it’s what will happen if you have warranty issues, end of story. I had a couple concrete related warranty items, my garage floor was replaced, what I wanted and my driveway was sandblasted, definitely not what I wanted. So understand that document, it’s the be all and end all.
