Our IndieDwell Home, Part 4, or, We Hope The New Guys Know What They Are Doing
The people at IndieDwell had been great up to this point. Super nice, very accommodating of our needs, especially since they were 8 hours away in Boise. They drove up in August of 2020 to make some punch list repairs on our new home. The most difficult were some places where the floating vinyl plank floor was flexing and coming apart at the seems in high-traffic areas. When they came up they used a combination of self-leveling floor leveler and a mixture of shims and scraps of flooring to create a lever surface for the flooring to sit on above the OSB subfloor. Unfortunately this did not ultimately solve the problem.
I reconnected with IndieDwell and heard from Scott Flynn, one of the founders of IndieDwell (who it doesn’t look like is with the company any longer) that:
We discovered the incorrect underlayment was used in the manufacturing of your home, relative to the flooring manufacturer's installation guidelines.
We are therefore going to remove and replace all of the underlayment with the required product plus replace your entire finished floor. We plan to be there the first week of April to complete the job. We expect it to take 5 days and will need your help in coordinating the efforts of moving furniture.
My understand was that Shaw would not warranty their product if it was installed over OSB, only plywood. That didn’t make sense to me, but IndieDwell’s solution was that they would tear out our entire finished floor and subfloor and replace all of it in the space of 5 days. Which week of 2021? Easter week!
Our church was holding a big joint Easter service with 3 other local churches for our first Easter since we missed the celebration during COVID. I was slated to preach to over 400 people that day, and we would be staying in an AirBNB all that week because our home would be a construction zone.
Oh well. It is what it is, right? The work needed done, and IndieDwell was doing the right thing to honor the warranty and take care of the work.
IndieDwell paid for our AirBnB, but in an attempt to save money they decided that they could do the work one room at a time, and in conjunction with storage space in our 10x16’ shed, they would just tetris our furniture around. A little more work for them, but it saved them money, so we were ok with it. We did what we could to load as much of our furniture into the shed before we left for the AirBnB and gave them a spare key.
Joanna and I came back to the house on the evening of the Monday that they began working to pick up a couple of things that we forgot for the week - once again, the team at IndieDwell was just really great. Super nice guys. They were hard at work on the project. We went back to the house a few times during the week, to pick up things and make sure packages got put inside. They 3 guys on the team really exemplified the kindheartedness that I had come to expect from the company.
When we returned to the house that Sunday night (with plans to pick up a new puppy the next morning by the way - different story) we were immediately disappointed. I was able to touch base with Zach, the foreman, before they left to share some of my concerns. One of his comments was telling. He said the guys they sent him up with were brand new and hadn’t really done construction before. I sent the following email to Scott:
Hey Scott,
I'm writing to provide some feedback on the floor replacement that your team did for us last week. First off, again, your crew is great. Zach and the other guys were really courteous and professional. Joanna and I had to return to the house a couple times to get some things and they were really great to interact with. Joanna said they even offered to move some heavy packages that we received for her. I'm also really grateful that they gave up their Easter to finish their work. We were out of the AirBNB on Friday, but we had plans to stay with friends on Saturday anyway so it wasn't a problem finding lodging for that extra day. They are excellent representatives of the heart of your company.
After spending a few days at home though, I feel like there are a few things that I would like to share that I think could make the experience better the next time as well as a few areas that I think came up a little short.
1) I talked to Zach about him sending up some transitions and cabinet base that match our finishes. They did the best they could to find something locally, but as you can see in pictures 01, 20 and 17 they don't quite match. I can install the correct material as long as you can ship it up.
2) The crew left this very nice Dewalt multitool in our crawlspace (picture 15). Let me know how best to get that back to you. I'm assuming the intention was to cut out our floor register that provides return air for the ERV. Unfortunately they didn't do that. You can see the hallway in picture 09 where there should be a vent. I recut the hole (used the dewalt!) and it's all good now.
3) The decision to keep most of our furniture in the house and move it as the crew worked made sense to me. It saves money on renting a storage POD or something. However, the team also made the decision to bring their saw inside the house. You can see in pictures 03, 04 and 05 the construction dust. It was all over everything. Zach did offer to find a cleaning service to take care of this for us, but we were coming home Sunday night right as they were leaving and had no option but to move right back in. We worked late into the evening Sunday and most of Monday to clean up. I get that it's hard to be efficient and clean at the same time in construction. I would recommend arranging to have the furniture completely removed and budgeting time for a cleaning service in the future. You can also see the debri in our crawlspace in picture 06, the general state of the floor in 07 and the paint drips on our couch in 16. Joanna was able to get the drips out of the couch, so no harm there. It looked like maybe the brush had been washed but not really thoroughly...the drips were real watery and the paint came out of the upholstery just fine.
4) Our dishwasher would not close because the clip was reattached over the top of the old screw (picture 08). After I fixed this my wife also ran the dishwasher 3 times before we realized that the water hadn't been turned back on. I should have thought to check that sooner.
5) What I am most concerned with at this point is the floor itself. There are still areas where it flexes when we walk on it and there is an area in our bedroom where it squeaks now. Neither of these things are a problem for us as long as it doesn't fail again, but I thought you should know. I am disappointed though by the places where someone clearly mismeasured a cut and either didn't fix it or tried to hide it with brown caulk. I've installed a floating floor 3 or 4 times and I feel like this result is pretty unfortunate. See pictures 10, 11, 12, and 13 for examples of this.
Overall I again want to stress how thankful I am that you have committed to taking care of this problem for us. When we told our friends that you were replacing our whole floor and putting us up for the week they couldn't believe it. I can't say I'm not frustrated though that my new house feels so worn out in its finishes already. Thanks for taking the time to read my feedback. I hope it's read in the spirit that it is offered as helpful and not overly critical or petty. Let me know if you have any questions for me, when to expect that replacement material and also how best to get the multitool back to you.
It’s always my intention to be gracious, and I hope that was communicated in the email, but we were very underwhelmed by the quality of the work that was done to fix the floor in our home. The main reason I felt compelled to write this series of blog posts is because I still see these things every day in my nearly brand new house and am often frustrated by them. Some pictures:
This is where things start to go downhill with IndieDwell. Scott responded the next time thanking me for the email on April 9th. He was going to get back to me ASAP. He did not. I reached out again on April 26th letting him know that I had received a reimbursement check for the AirBnB (thanks for that!) and I asked him how he would like me to get their Dewalt multitool back to them.
Scott emailed back suggesting that I mail the tool back to their office and thanked me for being such an awesome client. It was at this point I began to regret being such an awesome client. I paid to have the tool shipped down to Boise and waited for those appropriate trim pieces I was promised. I asked about them on May 10th with no response. Again on June 3rd. At that time I was told that
unfortunately we are temporarily shut down and will not be able to fulfil our obligation of supplying you with the transition strips.
You can purchase them at Home Depot or Lowes.
I would later realize that they were in the process of completely changing their business model. They would no longer be selling to homeowners, only developers, and they would no longer be building with containers - they would build their houses from fabricated steel (I think). Scott was the “Chief Impact Officer” for the company at the time. His decision to just stop trying to help us with our home definitely made an impact.
IndieDwell had a new CEO, Christina Ortiz Bluth, who is no longer listed as an officer. I didn’t have her contact information, so I reached out on LinkedIn. I copied and pasted my correspondence with Scott and sent a Dropbox link to all the pictures. I ended my message with this:
I recognize that a single homeowner is not your company’s target market at this point in your corporate life and that my concerns are probably a very small thing for you. I do feel like you need to know though that we were really excited about getting our home. Everything from the sustainability of containers, to the fact that you were an Idaho business, your B-Corp status and the modern design aesthetic. At this point however, I regret purchasing this home from you. Our home is only a year old and the poor workmanship in our floor reminds me of how frustrated I have been with this whole process.
I truly hope that the restructure and redesign of your manufacturing process is fruitful. Affordable housing is something our state and our country desperately need and my wife and I will be glad to see your future growth if you can provide it in a way that honors the people that will live in your houses. I hope IndieDwell is able to be more committed to excellence in serving future customers than you have shown yourselves to be to us.
Christina responded 5 days later that she had just run across the message on her phone. She wanted to acknowledge it and told me that it deserved a more thorough response which she would give later that week. She never responded.
So, in June of 2021, a year after we moved in to our home, it seemed like our relationship with IndieDwell was over - and I was questioning whether or not my determination to be gracious was the right move. I think it probably was, but I was definitely feel taken advantage of. At least our flooring issue was fixed. Right? That would be incorrect.