Urbandale Construction Limited

I am an investor. The kind of experience I had with this company took my sleeps away. From the communication to the delivery of home. It was a nightmare. I can not believe that you can run the operations being so unprofessional. When they gave me the keys dust all over, missing paint jobs. Paint, cement and tar stains all over the windows and doors. After so many requests they came to clean as they were doing favour.

House is not straight, things are not done. Built as quick as possible for profit not for providing nice homes for families.

Come to fix things, leave in the middle of it and you never know when it’s gonna get done until you email again.

My suggestion: Just don’t.

Urbandale does not deliver finished homes! Purchased 2 homes from Urbandale a townhouse and single family home. From the intial walkthrough to getting the keys, this whole process has been a nightmare and I would never recommend Urbandale Construction to anyone. I have dealt with several builders in Ottawa Richcraft, Minto and I have never had such a poor level of customer service as well as finishing quality.
Urbandale should not be in business if this is how they are going to deliver homes to customers. Totally unacceptable.

Urbandale does not live up to its reputation and so called "high standards".

A month after moving into our new home (after having our closing date pushed back 3 times), we experienced a sewer backup determined to be the result of negligent construction. As a result, items stored in the basement were damaged as well as trims, baseboards, drywall, carpet etc...

Its been over a month and we still haven't been able to use our own basement! To top it off, we are out of pocket because Urbandale has refused to cover our contents damaged and increased hydro bill (heavy machinery was running 24/7 for a week). No apology was conveyed or compensation offered for the inconvenience of being displaced from our home and the stress caused on our family.

Had high hopes for this builder but overall experience has been terrible! On top of the sewer backup, we paid for upgrades and have since discovered that some were not installed, but have not been offered any compensation for the errors. All Urbandale cares about is getting paid. There is no incentive to rectify issues or to deliver on a quality home that they can stand behind.

I will not refer anyone to buy URBANDALE. I especially cannot believe the quality or lack thereof the windows. We have to have pretty much have to replace all the windows, after one year may I add, due to water condensation etc.
As we were living here for a year, we covered our windows and paid to have our blinds installed. Now that Urbandale requires to replace the windows, we have been told that WE are responsible to pay our installer again to take down the blinds and then put them back up once the windows are replaced. I understand that this is not a major problem, but I cannot justify why we should be responsible to pay again, when it was URBANDALE's issue of poor windows being installed to begin with.
PEOPLE BEWARE....obviously their slogan of "There is comfort in higher standards" is not true.

Our experience with Urbandale has been outstanding. Everyone we dealt with from day 1 has been professional, very friendly and super responsive to our needs. Questions were answered in a timely manner. Everyone is raving about our home.

The floor plans are nice and the construction is "okay". Things were going well until we encountered an issue which WARRANTY tried to get out of fixing or compensating for in a very unprofessional and disrespectful way!! We spent 600K on this property and expected better customer service! Here's what happened:

There was no return-air flow in our master bedroom. We reported this to the warranty service. After inspection, they said that they do not know what is causing this issue, but a booster fan should fix it. I was not happy with the proposed solution as I believed before implementing a band-aid fix, they need to get to the bottom of the reason for the lack of airflow. I was told that I can hire a licensed inspector to see if they figure anything out, and that Urbandale will cover the costs. I did hire an inspector, but he couldn't identify the issue. Here's where things got very unprofessional from Urbandale's side:
- Urbandale, despite initially telling me that they would cover the costs, said they will not cover the costs!
- I sent an angry email to the manager
- They said, okay we will send you a cheque
- They sent me a cheque, but in a very cheeky way, in the letter accompanying the cheque, it says that the home owner will have no further claims
- My feeling/understanding is that they are trying to not let me ask for further repairs for the actual airflow problem with this statement!
- I have not yet cashed the cheque, waiting to see if the airflow issue will be fixed!

As for the actual airflow problem:
- Urbandale said the only solution they can come up with is to install a booster fan!!
- My issue is that the fan will be an extra appliance that will be ALWAYS ON, which will add to my hydro bill. Also, it will need repairs and maintenance. Since this issue is clearly due to either a design flaw or a construction flaw, I believe Urbandale should cover those costs. Urbandale says that it won't!!! In one email, they said that their homes are based on code with respect to airflow, even without the return airflow in the master bedroom!!! You can imagine my frustration and the flaw with this logic.

The booster fan has since been installed, but the problem persists - still no airflow!!

Since moving into our home a year ago we have had nothing but issues. The first of which were poorly installed hardwood throughout. After months of battling with the warranty office, the floors were finally replaced. Now we are battling them for things such as poor cabinet paint (which is chipping off after only one year) that was an upgrade btw... as well as recurring cracks in the drywall, and a massive one in our tile work in the washroom. PS we had bought the model home expecting it to be better quality...we were wrong. Urbandale post statements about customer service excellence, but I beg to differ. We had previously purchased homes from Tamarak, Olympia and Monarch all who had not only superior quality and finishes, but exceptional post sales and warranty service. We will never buy from Urbandale again.

7 years later after move in we are still finding problems with the original work. Problems that aren't immediately apparent but now well outside the warranty. Like my ensuite bathtub shower nozzle is leaking. Which we barely use so did not become apparent until I was washing something in the bathtub and using the nozzle for an extended period of time. Now I have a puddle in the downstairs. And of course there was no access panel put in the side of the tiled bathtub.

Honestly they are trying to do a good job, but I just can't believe the quality at the final delivery. My most three concerns had never heard back from them. This is my first new build house, my wife and I will never purchase another new build house.
1. There is a broken windows and the staff still had no idea when they could fix it.
2. My venting is completed useless. One of the equipment had missing a power cord.
3. The cabinet is not built at the right angle, it completely ruined the kitchen after we place our fridge in.