Why I don't work for Home Builders-what 99% of people don't know

alright frustration level 1000 I'm at I'm with JJ he just bought this home and they were coming in to sod weren't they put a stop to it because and this is where contractors home builders cheat cheat cheat people are going out there and buying their very first home and they think they're getting their dream home but what they don't realize they're getting is a probably a big problem in their front and backyards because home builders typically will cheat the system and we're going to actually take you out to a job site and show you firsthand what that looks like but let's back this story up a little bit I quit working for home builders about nine years ago back in 2006 seven eight nine and ten I worked for five different home builders simultaneously going out digging their basements back filling them setting the grades and then installing all of their landscaping all five home builders did the exact same thing and you're going to see what that is today in this video so without wasting any more time let's get into it oh and one last thing I get a little pissy today because this is the exact reason why I quit working for home builders in the first place so now let's get into the video all right frustration level 1000 I'm at I'm with JJ they just bought a new home and if you look across the street there sodding right on top of this stuff right on top of the clay and what's gonna happen is I every single homeowner that's in this development is gonna be watering like crazy so their sod does and it's not the sod company's fault it's the home builders fault GJ we've had this conversation guys meet JJ customer I've known him for a long time to leave he just bought this home and they were coming in to sod weren't they yes they were and I put a stop to it because mostly because of the backyard but yeah they're just they were gonna throw sod down on top of this and this is where contractors home builders cheat cheat cheat and it drives me crazy and frustrates me so much because they've saved a few dollars but left you with the lifetime of problems and I get so pissed off and then they're doing it right across the street and like I said it's not the side company's fault so we've got to come in and shave this down so that we can get organic material in here to do your sod job the right way but they left you an even bigger mess in the backyard and let's go check this out you know actually JJ I quit working for home builders really nobody even knows that I've never talked about that in any single video and it's because they cut so many corners because a home builder they look at it like they've got a $750,000 budget right and anything that they can do to build a home for the lowest price under $750,000 or whatever their budget is is money extra money in their pocket and they all seem to cut the corner this wall wasn't even here it was never in the plan and I had complained about the side yard and that slope and we showed up one day at home and so so all you got they just slap one in for you it's not even a retaining wall I mean it doesn't look bad but it's not a retaining wall it's it's the single stack of bones slapped up there okay okay so this backyard wasn't what you were expecting either was it no the slope of this when we bought it we were looking at after the fact cuz we took pictures but when we bought a lot it was much more I mean I can kind of see the light up on top there and it was much more continuous than what we have now and so you're gonna be putting a deck in there and by the time the deck comes out roughly to about where my hand is you're gonna have nope yeah you're gonna have a sledding hill so the kids have nowhere to actually play and this all back here is not playable yard now here's the thing so not installing black dirt is actually really common for the big home builders to try to pull off because once they put that grass down it kind of covers up everything they did underneath it in fact I've seen a lot worse and what we looked at in JJ's yard all right guys this is where we need to clear up a few things because not all home builders are bad people in fact some of them are phenomenal but there's a clear difference between a mass home builder and a custom home builder a mass home builder is all about production they've got to turn out home after home after home and that means they may not have as much time as you would like to see to fix problems that occur around your own property like why you don't have black dirt or while the sudden there's a retaining wall slapped up in your in the side of your yard when it didn't show it on the plan before now a custom home builder you typically won't run into those problems because they work more one-on-one with their customer to actually build something that they both envisioned right from the beginning here's where it gets to be a little bit tough when you work with a mass home builder they have large infant they have a large infrastructure in place to protect them meaning lawyers attorneys contracts things like that hoops that you typically would have to jump through that you may not get a response like you would when you work with a more one-on-one with a custom home builder I was telling JJ off-camera that I want to tell these guys so we're all caught up on the same speed but they were looking for solutions and a couple options that were already presented to them was a retaining wall back here and what I warned everybody is anytime you put a retaining wall in you've now divided your yard into two spaces usable space and space that you think is usable but you will never go out and actually use and so what would happen is if we built a retaining wall we'd have to put a six footer in right about here we would be able to flatten out this yard but the entire rest of their property down here they go it goes back their way they won't visit in their mind they're gonna go there but in reality after the first couple times you're not gonna look out the window and see people lounging in the bushes back there they just they don't do it JJ's realistically it's an unrealistic concept and so a couple of the things that we've got to get beyond that is always a challenge is I know people buy these Lots because of trees they fall in love with that big stick right there and and that big stick stops them from creating a yard that they will actually spend time in and use and if we can get beyond the concept of this big stick being in the way and take that tree down we can now bring in enough soil that we can flatten out that yard all the way to the back property line and then create this unusable space to the back of the property and then you will now have a giant yard that you can play in toss balls in and then you also have the option to go out and grab a tree and your family can plant it together and you can name it Helen or whatever you want to do and have memories about putting in your own trees and now you've gotten the best of both worlds but you sacrifice on and this one wouldn't be wasted this would get burned in my fireplace so but you see what they did in that backyard there's a lot of interpretation that can be left when it comes to the grading plan and that's where a lot of homeowners think what they're getting and what their end up with are not the same thing in fact I'm gonna ask you to do me a favor if you've experienced anything like or seen someone else experience something like this will you put your story in the comments down below these home builders need to know that hey they're being held accountable and they can't be pulling this stuff on homeowners because these little these little problems turned out to be a big long-term problems for these homeowners look at JJ's side yard how would you like to have that for a side yard that's not even a side yard they made it completely unusable and he wasn't expecting that at all I just want the guys watching to understand everything that we're looking at oh and here's something else that I thought was slightly interesting get back to our very first concept of the sod how they just sawed over everything I was just looking through JJ's backyard look at this that's a chunk of asphalt that's another chunk of asphalt so they were actually coming in to throw sod over this whole thing a lot of little things that I don't know I mean not sorry if I'm going off on you JJ so butt out we always like to present two concepts to solutions anytime I'm with a customer I don't leave them with just one option because I know you're gonna talk to your wife and you guys are going to want to kind of play through some different scenarios so scenario one that I want to do is bring soil in give you a flat yard no retaining walls I don't want retaining walls because they're just in this case you're not going to see it yes if you were seeing it if you could look out your window and enjoy it for sure make it a beautiful retaining wall then it's got multiple purposes but in this case let's not put the money into it you can save the money and put in a pool it's something that you guys can enjoy so no retaining wall just grade it down yes you'll lose some space back here but it's gonna be weight back there otherwise if we've got to save the stick then we've got to build a wall right along here to save that stick and just you just think about it every time you look at that stick it's a $15,000 stick tell tell your wife I said that so that's my concepts wall stick stays sticks gone we bring it all the way back now if we really want to get creative and she's in love with a stick but you'd need a yard then we could build a small wall around the stick we could try to flatten out the yard going that way on that side of it and taper this soil down but this is an oak tree and an oak tree means we literally cannot work out inside the drip line of this tree you can't do it you will kill it not the first year not the second year but the third year it will look just like that one back there they will die and so we've got to be hypersensitive and there will be no guarantee that your stick will live all right you guys we've got to actually dive a little bit deeper on that oak stick in the backyard I don't actually own any oak sticks I kind of wish I did on an oak stick but there's something that could happen to some of you guys that you just need to be aware of during the building process because oak trees are hypersensitive to having root damage but if they don't show it right away they show it within three years it'll still continue to barely hang on and two to three years later it may just do the crappie floppy and die Anja so the rule of thumb is anytime that you're going to work around an oak tree you have to look at the drip line the furthest point of the drip line now let's go out this trees leaning this way so you see this drip line is way out here because it's got an entire root structure wrapped around it that you don't want to compact the soil on and you even if you compact it and then you Erev ate the soil afterward you can still have permanent damage that that tree may not recover from so if during the construction process you saw a lot of equipment running around your oak trees put it on your radar screen to have an arborist come out to see if they can do anything to save it and if they can't document the heck out of it because well if you bought that lot because you're in love with oak sticks and your oak sticks die well you may now in then you may why hope that helped let's get back into the rest of this video okay JJ what is your story oh so our previous home personally bought it from ripped up the backyard and brought in a bunch of black dirt and receded it and it was awesome but the front yard never was done and it was you couldn't ever put any seed or anything get anything to grow on it because the ground was so hard and so dried that the seeds alright so let's say that you happen to be one of those unlucky people they got one of those houses that the contractor skimped out and put black dirt on and at this point you need to know how to correct it well there's two ways to fix that neither of them are actually very good so sit down for this next part my neighbors across the street from me had to do the first one and they had to strip out their entire yard remove all of the turf all the way down Plus then cut the subgrade down that's the dirt that's below the turf so that they could then import black dirt spread and grade that out and then recede and re-sod that's a lot of work and a lot of expense and for some of you guys that may not be in the budget or your topography of your land may not allow you to even bring in equipment to do the work if you don't if you can't do that or it's not on your radar screen right now there is a second option and that's to bring in black dirt and on and you got to actually play it down in micro-thin lifts and then recede it so in a case like this what you would do is you'd sprint a micro thin lift a black dirt over that reseated you would then wait for that seed to start to germinate and establish and then you do it again and then you do this same you wash rinse and repeat the same process over and over and over again up to four five different times until you get a good thick layer of black dirt laid down and that way you're never having just a bare yard and you always have green grass but there's a lot of work involved with that and a lot of hand labor - like I said neither a very good scenario so but we could then flatten out your yard this way but unfortunately this dead one here is not even on your property so we would be very limited to what we could do so a couple to creative solutions and now the decisions in your car all right you guys now it's your turn I wanna hear your stories put them in the comments down below your stories are the best hope you enjoyed today's video hope you pulled a few tips out of it hope you pulled some stuff that maybe could help you guys out I'm gonna get inside before it starts pouring rain on me I can hear the thunderstorms in the background god bless you guys go get them and I hope you have an awesome day do me a favor and check out the two videos I'm gonna put up here for you hit that subscribe button and do me one extra favor share this video see you in the next one you guys