Some Wellington at Seven Hills residents blame the workmanship for water damage, but the builder rejects that notion.
By JENNIFER LIBERTO
Published October 6, 2004
SPRING HILL - Wet and angry Wellington at Seven Hills homeowners have yet to dry out from the last spate of hurricanes. Now they're facing an onslaught of black mold fast creeping up walls and window sills.
Although the private streets in the gated community east of Mariner Boulevard and north of County Line Road didn't flood, the winds of Frances and Jeanne blew horizontal rain through dozens of stucco, cement block homes for hours.
Water poured into homes through doors and windows. But the rain also rose up from foundations, sliced through garage walls and spilled from light fixtures, drenching carpets, buckling wood floors and rotting baseboards.
Water leaked through Eileen and Don Grady's baseboards and shorted telephone wires, which were wet and rusty several days after the storms. A professional engineer measured her stucco finish at about an eighth of an inch; although Florida building codes call for at least half an inch.
Water poured in through Steve Dudyshyn's block garage, stripping paint from the walls, which had no windows.
Water poured in through the walls of Geri Tonkin's south-facing den, where black mold spores now multiply daily. When her family pulled back baseboards, crumbling wet sheet rock appeared to give way to soaked cement block.
At least 80 homeowners reported similar water leakage problems during and after the hurricanes, and nearly all are blaming the home builder, Ryland Homes.
One of the largest home builders in the country, the Ryland Group Inc. is publicly traded with headquarters in Calabasas, Calif. So far, its subsidiary Ryland Homes has built about 600 homes at the Wellington at Seven Hills, a gated, deed-restricted community for adults 55 years and older, according to the county's Planning Department.
The upscale homes, which now run from $140,000 to $225,000, started going up in 1997. The development will eventually have 1,100 homes.
Homeowners are not sure how or why their homes went wrong, but they're alleging shoddy workmanship and want Ryland Homes to offer a solution. More than 100 homeowners gathered last Thursday at the Wellington clubhouse and agreed to work with a Tampa attorney who is drafting an letter demanding Ryland Homes make amends.
"What I've heard is absolute horror, and unfortunately I'm not surprised," said David Eaton of Eaton & Powell law firm in Tampa to homeowners at the private meeting. "There's no question about it: There are houses that don't meet codes."
Ryland Homes disagrees. Company officials say they stand behind their work and called the hurricanes and any leaks caused by them "unprecedented."
They acknowledge they've also received similar complaints from an Orlando subdivision but blames all the leaks on Mother Nature, especially since homeowners hadn't complained about leaks until the hurricanes came through.
"The bottom line is all Ryland homes are built to local industry standards, which were made more stringent after Hurricane Andrew," said Marya Jones, company spokeswoman. "But even with current building practices, a hurricane - let alone, two three or four - can force water into a home."
By Monday, Ryland Homes had received about 30 calls of water damage from Wellington homeowners, Jones said. The company plans to investigate the complaints case by case.
Dozens of Wellington homeowners who spoke to Ryland employees say they've been told Ryland will do nothing and they've been ordered to contact their insurers. They say they've been told by Ryland employees they need to caulk their windows and that leaks aren't covered by the 10-year warranty on structural defects. Essentially, homeowners who have been in their homes more than a year are on their own.
"My tiles are popping up, and my carpet is soaked in a large water spot 2 feet from the wall," said Charles Wolff, whose Billingham Boulevard home had weathered every major storm, prior to the hurricanes, with no leaks. "But Ryland says I'm not maintaining my house properly."
While neither the Attorney General's Office nor the Department of Business and Professional Regulation could confirm or deny any complaints about Ryland Homes, county Building Department officials say they've fielded a number of complaints about the home builder.
County contractor licensing investigator Ron Aliff said he also received a few similar water damage complaints about houses built by Maronda Homes. But the commonality was that nearly all the water-damaged homes were constructed of cement blocks and stucco.
The problem is that neither cement block nor the "cementitious finish" that passes for stucco is fully waterproof by itself, stucco contractors say. A protective sealant or paint coated over the stucco keeps water out. Even when applied adequately and liberally, the sealant wears off after a few years.
"Homeowners were not told by Maronda or Ryland how to maintain their block homes, and what we call stucco, from the force of rain," Aliff said. "These homes need an acrylic coating to seal them."
Aliff suggested that homeowners get private engineers to look at their homes to see whether construction defects exist. Otherwise, homeowners will have no recourse against the companies.
Jennifer Liberto can be reached at 352 848-1434 or liberto@sptimes.com Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
