28. July 2009 by Dave Romesburg.

Not entirely sure at first who owned Heartland Homes when we bought our home. After our 1 year warranty was over and our water infiltration issues still existed, we sent a 4 page certified letter to Heartland Homes. We made the certified letter to the attention of Alan or Marty Gillespie. We find out that Alan Gillespie is the owner of Heartland Homes. At the time when Marty Gillespie visits our home after we file our BBB case, Marty is the VP or I believe the Vice President of Heartland Homes. At our trial in December 2008, we find out at that time Marty Gillespie is the President of Heartland Homes.

Instead of posting all 4 pages of the certified letter we sent, we decided to post only the signature page. Our intention is to show we made numerous, numerous  efforts to get our water infiltration issues resolved with our brand new Heartland Homes built home.     

After almost 3 weeks we never heard back from Heartland Homes. Our next step was to file a complaint with the Pittsburgh Better Business Bureau. Additional details will be posted shortly.

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27. July 2009 by Dave Romesburg.

We wanted to say thank you to everyone in West Virginia that we spent time with this weekend. We know a lot of you come from various parts of West Virginia and it was great seeing you again and meeting you while we were attending the Contemporary American Theater Festival.

 CATF   Dear Sara Jane was the most incredible play and Joey Parsons was truly the most incredible one-person performance we have ever seen!!! Joey thank you so much! You were stellar in Fifty Words as well.

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25. July 2009 by Dave Romesburg.

Folks,

Hi and sorry for the delay..I’ve added some additional photos to the main page of our site: aloveheartland.com.

We literally have close to 1,000 photos, 5 yr history that goes along with the 1,000+ hours we’ve spent trying to get our issues resolved and the thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees, BBB costs, etc. Which we will also post. During our 1 year warranty period, we sent Heartland Homes 17 or 18 emails. They require an email for any warranty work, per their instructions. During the 17 or 18 emails we sent, 3/4 of the emails had photos, if not more than 3/4 of the emails we sent. I know I keep posting this everywhere. I want to make sure no one doubts us.

We were told By HEARTLAND HOMES, they were working on our issues, yet after our 1 year is up, they are no longer around and we are never told anything.Read all of the emails here.

We wanted to make sure we did not push our water issues because we wanted to make sure our water issues were addressed. We didn’t log the calls, however we also made a few phone calls as well to follow up. All told I guess it really didn’t matter our approach, since our water infiltration issues were never resolved during our 1 year warranty or thereafter. We were never asked by Heartland Homes, at any time, if our water infiltration issues were resolved. Yet we were told they were working on our issues and after 1 year warranty was up, not a word from the builder even after we sent the certified letter to Alan Gillespie and/or Marty Gillespie of Heartland Homes.

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21. July 2009 by Dave Romesburg.

Google is a great tool to have available to anyone using the internet, web. I installed Google Analytics a little while back because I wanted to find out how people were finding out websites. Its amazing how many daily hits we get on both of our sites. The results are not edited, however I did remove the %’s and the actual numbers. All I can say is its very black and white folks are looking at all of our details on our websites.

Our Google Analytics search results shows what words, phrases, etc people search to find our site with.

We also added our Picasa Web Gallery that was actually online about 1 year ago.  our Heartland Homes experience Picasa Web Gallery - not all of our photos and this gallery is about 1/2 complete. Our actual Web Gallery - complete Web Gallery with all details in photo form, is in the works as I posted previously.

Folks - THANK YOU for your continued support!

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20. July 2009 by Dave Romesburg.

heartlandhomes.aloveheartland.com our Heartland Homes custom built home Web Gallery is currently available.

We still have quite a bit of work to do and should have quite a bit posted later this week. Please stay tuned and welcome to Our Custom Built Heartland Homes new home experience.

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16. July 2009 by Dave Romesburg.

Folks here is a web gallery (further below, over 230+ photos/ since the start of our water infiltration issues) we created quite some time ago. There are no recent photos in this gallery, however when we officially post the Web Gallery on our website, that gallery will include everything.. This gallery is basically everything up to during our Better Business Bureau case we filed and before we started our court trial.Just this gallery itself, truly paints a crystal clear picture of our Heartland Homes brand new home experience. You just can’t put into words the feeling of the past 5+ years. The thousands of hours we’ve had to put into everything, not to mention the thousands and thousands of dollars just trying to get the builder to resolve our water issues like they stated they would:July 22 2004 - “basement remedy to being in the next few weeks…” Sept 21 2004 - “Castleview is still a work in progress…” January 21 2005 (8 months after our water issues started) - “We will continue to work towards a solution, weather is a factor now…”   and nothing.. No issues resolved, however thousands of hours spent trying and over $25,000.00+ in legal fees, BBB costs for our hearing, replacing our electrical panel, etc.This does not include what it will actually cost us to repair our home.. You can watch this Picasa based Web Gallery from this blog OR if you click on the slideshow, you will be launched directly to our gallery. From there, click “VIEW ALL” to see all 230+ photos you can select whatever photos you want to look at individually

From Heartland Homes built custom home. Here is our Heartland Homes new home experience. Click on photo above to view larger image. Click on link above to go to our entire Heartland Homes gallery of our experience to see all of our photos.

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16. July 2009 by Dave Romesburg.

Morning Folks,

 Thank you once again for all of the supportive emails! Really means a lot to us.. As I’ve emailed back to a few of you, the following pages are currently being updated. There are a lot of updates and a lot more information to post.

I want to start to focus on the flashing and weep holes we discovered we couldn’t find on our home. There has to be a simple reason why water started infiltrating our home 3 months after our new home closing and continued. Builder told us they were working on our water infiltration issues, then after our 1 year warranty, we hear nothing further from the builder, until we file our BBB case.

We posted the 2003 International Building Code (IBC) about window flashing and weep holes (which we do not have weep holes installed anywhere, we removed brick from the front of our home and pulled siding from the side of our home) there is no window flashing in the areas where we removed brick or pulled siding installed). 

Andersen Windows documentation we received with our windows (posted on our sites) specifically states “UNIT must be properly flashed” (our photos where we removed brick and didn’t see flashing or pulled the siding) and our “Registered Professional Engineer” engineers report minimally stating “no weepholes or flashing were observed above the foundation.” Our Structural Engineers report was done before we removed brick from the front of our home and pulled back the siding around our dining room window. All of our windows are Andersen Windows.. If the window manufacturer states “UNIT must be properly flashed”, IBC 2003 states windows and doors are to be flashed, weep holes installed and our Structural Engineer reports flashing and weepholes…. Flashing and weepholes are installed for a reason.

important note: because of an email a supportive consumer sent to us; we want to honestly, specifically and clearly state: at NO time did Heartland Homes ever send a Structural Inspector to our home to look at our issues or make recommendations about resolving our issues. NOR did Heartland Homes ever asked to come inside of our home during our 1 year warranty to look at our water infiltration issues.

our detailed Heartland Homes experience

costs we’ve had to pay for legal fees, structural inspector, etc because of our water issues. Builder not resolving our water infiltration issues since three months after our new home closing. Even thought they stated they will “continue to work towards a solution…”

Structural Inspector report(s), building codes, details.

New home construction details about flashing and weep holes - specifically building code & our home

Court trial details: for now, posted the Judges verdict in our favor, Heartland Homes appeal for the monies portion, but not the verdict, our discontinuance we filed.

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