Mold Lawsuits Against Home Builders: D.R. Horton, Lennar and Why Mold Is the New Asbestos

Foreign.

The House with Eric G. Your go to source for everything home improvement.

Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric.

G is here to guide you through.

The latest tips, tricks and trends.

So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap and let's get to work right here on around the House with Eric G. Welcome to the Punch List.

Hey guys, welcome to the around the House show.

I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining me today.

This is our Punch List episode.

This is the one we put the middle of the week that doesn't make it into the week of last weekend's show.

But this is a new topic or next weekend show and I got a busy one today.

I tell you what, I am going to be out at Rock the Locks Music Festival tomorrow.

So come on out.

And if you're in the Pacific Northwest and you want to see all those bands, I will be your mc.

Come on out, say hello.

This is going to be a lot of fun.

I can't wait.

And keep an eye on things.

It's going to get interesting out there at this show.

Watch our social media and you'll know what I'm talking about.

And that's the only hint I'm going to give you.

There's a big story out there and something I've been talking about for a long time.

We are seeing mold become the new lead paint asbestos of your home.

And new home builders are going to be paying the price for this.

Most of these large home builders are not paying one bit of attention to humidity and mold inside the building envelope.

How do I know this?

Been watching it for my whole career of about 35 years.

And now that we're making houses so much tighter and so much more efficient, they're not breathing as well and that mold is going everywhere.

So here's the bigger story, Louis.

In Louisiana there is a suit against Dr. Horton.

In Florida, the Seminole Tribe's lawsuit against Lennar Homes are being cited nationally as a leading example of this broader trend.

Mold claims against home builders are piling up and insurers are increasingly the ones footing the bill.

So Dr. Horton's legal reserves, this is where they self insure and put money away for lawsuits is $1.1 billion.

That's huge.

So what's the story of the Dixon case in Dr. Horton in Louisiana.

Mold, water intrusion, unlivable.

Per their attorney.

Louisiana appeals court just upheld keeping the case in state court instead of forcing it to arbitration.

Which is interesting.

Separately, in Slidell, homeowners in one of the Dr. Horton subdivisions have been finding mold and closets, laundry rooms, even garages, and organizing a ton of community forums.

Now, Lennar and the Seminole tribe in Florida, they've got about 450 homes that are tied up in litigation.

Across six reservations have defective roof and mold contaminated walls.

Over a thousand tribal members are affected, many relocated with property damages and estimates topping $200 million.

The builder's defense warranties and contracts should shield them.

Some blame homeowner maintenance or the Louisiana humidity itself.

A defense attorney for them has called the claims targeted at best.

Now, here's the issue that I've got, and girlfriend's kid just bought a home who did buy it from Lennar.

And I'll tell you what, I learned some good lessons watching this go down.

Lennar had done some pretty horrible framing on the second floor.

I called it out in the inspection and they had to go in and rip the siding off the second floor on the two long sides of this single family home and fix it so it didn't look like the ocean up there.

I was surprised they took care of it because it was a big deal.

They had people up there for a week working on that.

Now here's the thing.

The problem was, is towards the end, all the little stuff that should have gotten taken care of, the H Vac system, some of the other stuff on the punch list, including painting touchups, and that stuff was supposed to be done before closing.

They acknowledged it.

Did they do it?

Heck, no.

They kept telling us it was done.

They went into the closing, and guess what?

All this stuff wasn't done when they got their keys.

So here's what happened.

Lennar pushed it over into the home warranty.

It's been about three weeks since they've moved in.

They're still trying to get the H Vac people out there all under the warranty, all under all this.

So there are some lessons that I've seen from this.

First off, if you're buying a new home right now, especially if you're getting it from Lennar, Horton's probably going to be the same way, or any one of these other builders.

Make sure that punch list is a hundred percent done before your clothes.

And if you got to push off the clothes, which is completely crazy, do it.

You got to hold these guys accountable.

Otherwise it could be months before somebody gets out there to fix it.

I don't buy this.

Oh, it's not maintenance.

If you're undersizing the H VAC system or incorrectly installed windows, doors, poorly ventilated active attics trapping moisture, all that classic building science stuff we talk about on this show every week, I just call that a failure.

That's not bad luck weather.

That is a failure.

So these builders need to be building for that environment.

Every one of those homes should have had a dehumidifier in it.

Simple.

Every one of those homes, they should have been checking for moisture before they start putting in the insulation and drywall.

But do they?

No.

There is absolutely no standard for testing on that before.

Now, on the builder stage that I ran for the national association of Home Builders, I told guys like this in my seminars that they should be doing mold testing, they should be doing air quality testing.

They should be testing for moisture in the lumber before they get it in there.

No one's doing it.

And if they are, you'll see it in their ads because they're going to be promoting that.

So mold spore counts can vary wildly by testing method.

And the bad part is there's no accepted threshold for too much.

You can get two dueling experts and have remediation costs from 500,000 to 50,000 to a million for the same house, which is crazy.

And health claims get contested in court as well.

Mold is medically linked to worsening asthma, respiratory issues.

But some online wellness claims attribute much broader symptoms with a little scientific backing, but not much.

So there's a lot of myth versus fact.

Now here's the big deal.

Your resale impact, one Texas homeowners property assessment reportedly dropped from 318,700 to 117,000 once mold was disclosed.

That is a major loss.

So here's the thing.

If you're going to be buying a brand new home, this is where your inspector needs to go through and do some serious research as well as you.

You need to look and see, did they undersize the H Vac?

Do they have poor attic ventilation?

What's going on there?

So you need to do a load calculation for this.

Did they do the vapor barrier?

Was the house wrap done?

Right.

Here's the thing.

If I today was going to be buying a newly built home from one of these major house builders.

I would be having.

I'd be paying somebody thousands of bucks to come out and do all the framing inspection, the pre drywall inspection, the plumbing inspection, all of those things.

And that way you've got somebody managing that.

If we would have done that with the kids place, we would have caught a lot of things early.

And the bad part in this neighborhood, every single one of the homes that we walked around that we could see, especially ones that were still being framed, had that same wavy wall.

And it wasn't just a little wave.

It had half inch, almost three quarters of an inch of wave.

If you put a four foot level on the wall.

So that's a big deal.

And if you watch a lot of the building inspector social media stuff, you can see the broken trusses, the lack of insulation, all this stuff that's going on.

Especially if you watch the side channel down there and what he's doing down in the Phoenix area, the builders are trying to sue him because he's calling him out on it and they've tried to pull his license.

It gets pretty crazy.

But this is where if you're out there working, make sure that you get that house inspected all along the way.

So you know what you're getting.

This one here, it was fairly interesting with Lennar because they told us, oh, it didn't see it.

Oh, there's a big blocking over the fireplace for the tv.

We do that on every home.

No, they don't.

There was no blocking.

When I got the stud finder out, started looking in the wall and taking a peek.

No, it was just framed.

There was no blocking there.

Nice try, guys.

No blocking at all.

But that's what the project manager told us when we were walking through the house.

So these are things you've got to trust but verify they might be true, it might not be.

But they could also just be telling you a BS story to get you through it.

So be careful.

Now, what would I do if I was concerned about mold in my newer home?

I would get a hold of someone like Caroline Blazowski, America's healthy home expert.

Do some air quality testing in your home and see what you have.

She's got a kit that she can send out and do that testing.

That way you know what you got and then you can deal with it correctly.

That way you can find the mold and see where it is.

So take a peek around.

If you think you might have mold issues, then that's what I would do.

I would get a hold of her, get some air testing and you'll be good to go.

All right, let's get into our recalls of the week.

Let's see.

JK Max recalls heated blankets and heating pads due to fire burn hazard.

There's about 195,000 of those.

A lot of kids toys again out there.

Sauna 360 expands its recall of the Tylo, Helmstead and Karuna hybrid saunas due to fall hazard.

There's about 6, 000 of those out there.

Saunas contain a bench that can collapse, posing a fall hazard to consumers.

Reg Fear recalls bed pink mattresses due to serious risk of injury or death from fire, does not meet the mandatory flammability standards for mattresses.

We're seeing this more and more online from these online mattress retailers.

There's about only 818 of those.

Let's see more of the infrared saunas.

So fire and burn hazard.

The infrared panels and the saunas can short circuit.

This is sauna360.

That's a big one there.

There's about 41,000 of those.

Another pressure washer recall lanches.

Pressure washers recalled due to serious risk of injury or death from shock.

Electrocution hazards.

Again, no gfci.

Another one of those online retailers.

Char Broil recalls Bistro Pro electric grills due to risk of electric shock.

The grounding wire for the grill's heating element.

So this is an electric one you'd put on your patio.

Great for apartments.

Can disconnect and lose fault protection.

There's about 10,605 of those.

These are these little tiny Charboil electric ones.

And Hayward Industries recalls universal pool heaters due to risk of serious injury or death from carbon monoxide poisoning.

So about 4,600 of those.

And then Frederick Air Conditioning recalls the cool window air conditioners due to risk of serious injury or death from fire.

The control board inside the motor of the recalled air conditioners can fail.

There's about 2,000 of those out there.

And that's the main ones.

Those are the main ones.

Tons of toys.

And again, there's still the AGA range 1 2.

There's about 3,992 of those.

They're dual fuel ranges with a missing cap from the gas test port.

Can cause a gas leak.

So take a look there.

Any of the questions on that stuff, just head to CP Recalls.

All right, guys, we got a great show coming up this weekend.

I've got Wendy Glaser on the show.

We'll talk more about that with our show.

Tees Eric I'm Eric G. Thanks for tuning into around the House.

Make sure you follow us at aroundthe house online.com and we'll see you this weekend.

Have a great rest of the week.

Thanks for tuning into around the House.

Thanks for tuning in to the around the House show.

Make sure you subscribe on your favorite way to catch podcasts.

Also, be sure to subscribe to our new YouTube channel and you can find it at around the House HQ and ring that bell for updates.

Thanks for tuning in to around the House.

Knock one back, no buzz, no glory.

No one ever talks about the shots they didn't take.

Drinks.