We bought our home in June 2017. We loved the layout and location and that is ultimately what sold us on the home. It was a spec home so we weren't able to choose much, but we were happy with 75% of what they had chosen. As one of the first five homes that was built in my community, we were the guinea pigs. We put in our fence and backyard landscaping within three months of moving in. Our home was graded "by the eye of the superintendent", because, come to find out months later, they didn't have some sort of laser tool for the first five homes. Ok, well, my home was graded a certain way, but then the two homes next to me were graded entirely different because they were built later in the process. One of the homes is a few feet higher than mine and they placed a rock wall right on top of my fence. It's been encroaching ever since. Our backyard was fine until they started doing the third phase of the community. The homes behind mine are considerably higher than mine and as soon as they started construction, several of my neighbors and I dealt with water issues. One neighbor had several inches of standing water in her entire backyard at one point during a flash flood storm. We came to find out that the "plan" was for four different homes to be the drainage for the three homes behind us. How this makes any sense at all is beyond me. Ever since then we've had issues. Their plan is to create "swales" along property lines, which by the way totally mess with how your yard looks. (but my house never received any swales, because I was one of the first five and they didn't do that) The swales and birms placed on these properties do not work at all. Everytime it rains or snows there is an insane amount of water between 6-7 homes. One home is taking on a large amount of the water in their backyard. But that backyard backs up to my backyard and that water is now making it's way into my yard. It never did this before, but the way they've built these homes behind me, it's created a nightmare water situation. There is nowhere for the water to go but sit. And then freeze and then sit again when it thaws. All while this property gets very little sunlight so that water isn't going anywhere ever. I'm sick and tired of Fieldstones "plans" that do nothing. They want to "fix" the issues with the least amount of money being spent. They get irritated when you bring the issue to them again and again. Well, guess what? You guys created the problem in the first place and you need to understand that homeowners want to protect their investment, so yeah, we're going to bug you as long as we want, until it's actually fixed. But, in my honest opinion, for this particular issue, I don't believe there is a fix. I think they're patching it and hoping for the best. They refuse to put drains in and say it won't work. It very well may not work, but neither does their plan.
We love our home and the layout is awesome. We have found some finishes to be less than awesome and we had a few things fixed during our warranty time. The subfloor on our second level sucks. We had it fixed and looked at several times and it's still not right. I do like that they come in and fix all popped drywall screws after a year and paint as well. Most warranty issues were easy enough to deal with. But the landscaping and water issues are a complete joke. The landscaping company they use is the worst and I don't recommend them at all. Our front yard feels like a minefield, it's so insanely choppy and uneven. The landscapers also stole from us one day when our garage was open and we walked inside for a few minutes. Our hvac set up is not great. We barely get any air flow through our main floor, or in our recently finished basement. Our upstairs however is flowing like crazy. It makes no sense and when they came to check it out they said they couldn't really do anything about it. It has been a common issue in our community, with the main floor being a lot colder than the upstairs.
Like I said, love my home, it's pretty good quality, although we'll see as time goes on. But I would honestly be wary buying in communities that have homes close to each other. They don't take into consideration things that they should. It's all about how many homes can we possibly smash into this area. Do your research and read reviews. Heck, even talk to neighbors if you can. read more