Planet Home Living

Buying a new home is the most expensive thing most of us do, but it is difficult to find information about builders in advance. I just got into a new home constructed by this developer so I thought I would write a review.
I choose this builder for a few fairly typical reasons. It had a floor plan I liked more than most, it is reasonably close to the half way point between where I and my wife work, it was competitively priced.
Beyond that, it seemed like one of the few developments that did a reasonable job with environmental issues. Constructing a new home can never really be said to have a low environmental impact but the difference between good and bad developers is huge. The worst developers bulldoze over wildlife habitat at the edge of urban areas to create energy inefficient homes which are so far away from anything else that people are dependent on long car commutes to get anywhere.
This developer tore down an existing structure to build much higher density housing. The habitat destruction which happened at the site already happened fifty years ago. Not only that, and a reasonable case can be made that by fitting perhaps fifty people into the same space which maybe three people lived in before they prevented quite a bit of habitat destruction. These fifty people were going to live somewhere, and if this development had not been built at least some of those people would have moved into much less responsible developments.
Another mostly overlooked aspect of environmentally friendly design is building in areas where things are close enough together to be able to walk to them instead of needing a car or even public transportation. While this developer did not do all that great at this, they are at least well ahead of the typical development. There are a couple restaurants, liquor stores, markets, dentists, and so on which are within a mile.
As far as the stereotypical environmental factors people talk about in homes, they were hit and miss. They made a good choice for energy efficient windows, radiant energy barrier panels on the roof, and a few other things. Typically builders try and make flashy changes which they can easily advertise and miss some of the basics though. For example insulation is building code minimum, air conditioner efficiency was maybe one tiny step above building code minimum, lighting was mostly incandescent and so on. The state of California has pretty high building code minimums, but if you get in early enough I do strongly suggest upgrading insulation to meet the department of energy insulation recommendations for your region. I also suggest swapping all your incandescent bulbs with LED ones upon moving in. Both of those things will pay for themselves within a very short time.
I will now go and list a few things I didn’t like with the house:
Residential Design Services. I wrote a review about them explaining my issues. It was hard to tell how much of the problem was the choice of interior decorator and how much was the developer, but I had a lot of issues with the interior decorator. The big take home lesson; don’t accept very brief contracts on upgrades. Make them go and write out in more detail than you want to hear what they plan to do.
The light fixtures in the bathroom and laundry room are not very nice. The Laundry room one puts out an odd pinkish light. When I was switching out light bulbs with LEDs, I found out that it is some strange round fluorescent bulb. Why not use a standard light bulb in the fixture? The bathroom light fixture is a combined fan and light. The problem with this is that it is really a nightmare to replace the light bulb.
Low flow toilets are still as bad as I remembered them. If I ever have a need to replace them, I will replace them with a dual flush toilet.
I got a door installed between the master bedroom and bathroom. A shower/​bath in too large a room gets really cold. Unfortunately it looks better without the door so developers will continue to make this the trend.
A cul-​de-​sac model for roads really conflicts with the idea of making a walkable development. Cul-​de-​sacs are fine for cars, but compared to a grid they add quite a bit of walking distance for pedestrians. They block you from taking the shortest path to where you are trying to go. This development is so small that it kind of gets away with it, but still there should be at least a second pedestrian gate on the opposite side to the main gate.
Gated communities add quite a bit of hassle without providing any actual security. Any self respecting criminal can clear a six foot wall in about four seconds. I will be stuck telling people gate codes for ages though.
The HOA is awful. They didn’t give us any information before we bought the place about the sort of crazy rules we would have. Then when we bought it they had a single meeting held during work hours before they went and sent a long list of nit picky rules such as no clothes lines.