Cabinet Quality in Mobile Homes
Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2000 11:37 am
This is some feedback regarding shoddy quality of cabinets in mobile homes, from owners of a newer Fleetwood Festival. My wife and I purchased a 1998 Fleetwood Festival series home after getting the feeling that we could trust the product and reputation of the companyand get a home that looked really nice. Well, some of those expectations worked out but many others did not!
Our purchase from Fleetwood left us with some very rude surprises! Weeks later, after finding serious cosmetic problems with many of our cabinets, (not to mention other problems that we disovered) we found out all of our once beautiful cabinets were made with a cheap paper laminate layered on chincy MDF fiber board or a balsa wood style product. We did not know that this kind of thing was even being produced and installed like this.
Not only had no one advised us of what these materials were before our purchase, we began to seei them just fall apart and/or change color just weeks after our new home purchase! We are trying our best to negotiate a fair solution to this problem with the vendors now, but it has not been easy. Yes, the cabinets looked really great at purchase, but not for long. We thought the home would have been a good value. Many parts have already needed replaced at least once because the material is so easily damaged, impossible to protect or care for adequately if you live in the house, and cannot be cleaned once stained, or repaired like woods.
In comparison, none of the laminated furnishings we have purchased over the years have ever had these serious problems. And that is certainly not expensive furniture or wood either.
Fleetwood claims that ALL their homes are built using this paper-laminate material which is produced by a company known as Omnova. In our efforts to resolve these obvious quality of material problems with the vendors, we have run into many delays and obstacles. Omnova even admits their paper-laminate is used by many vendors but it is not designed to tolerate any amount of food oils, soaps, grease, stains, steam, body oils, or many of the other common materials used day to day in an average kitchen or bathroom, etc. Nonetheless, Mobile Home builders such as Fleetwood (and many other MH vendors) choose to supply these materials as a solution to build cabinets, cabinet doors and trim or decor parts. Much worse, the paper-laminates are applied to material that is not even durable wood, but MDF. MDF contains various kinds of particles and glue. This only makes matters worse because the paper laminates absorb the glue from the MDF underneath, plus any kind of natural moisture found in any typical home as listed above, as time goes on, turning the colors of the laminate into a ugly blue stained appearance. There is no way to clean out the stains that appear, and the materials are too chincy to fix as there is nothing really there to repair or work with but paper, glue, particles and fake colors, etc. These MDF - particle booard panels have no semblance of a natural wood grain or surface to stain, paint or treat with protective coatings.
All that said, at this point I would never buy a Fleetwood home again. And to top that off we would never consider buying any other manufactured home that uses any such materials in their construction. My wife and I see this as nothing less than a rip-off. This does nothing to speak of all the other problems we had to confront them about after we purchased our home. It was humiliating. At least many of those problems were repaired. So far, after almost two years of battling this issue regarding the paper laminates and MDF, they have done little or nothing. If anyone that knows the ropes on this kind of thing can help, that would be appreciated.
Kurt Jensen
Our purchase from Fleetwood left us with some very rude surprises! Weeks later, after finding serious cosmetic problems with many of our cabinets, (not to mention other problems that we disovered) we found out all of our once beautiful cabinets were made with a cheap paper laminate layered on chincy MDF fiber board or a balsa wood style product. We did not know that this kind of thing was even being produced and installed like this.
Not only had no one advised us of what these materials were before our purchase, we began to seei them just fall apart and/or change color just weeks after our new home purchase! We are trying our best to negotiate a fair solution to this problem with the vendors now, but it has not been easy. Yes, the cabinets looked really great at purchase, but not for long. We thought the home would have been a good value. Many parts have already needed replaced at least once because the material is so easily damaged, impossible to protect or care for adequately if you live in the house, and cannot be cleaned once stained, or repaired like woods.
In comparison, none of the laminated furnishings we have purchased over the years have ever had these serious problems. And that is certainly not expensive furniture or wood either.
Fleetwood claims that ALL their homes are built using this paper-laminate material which is produced by a company known as Omnova. In our efforts to resolve these obvious quality of material problems with the vendors, we have run into many delays and obstacles. Omnova even admits their paper-laminate is used by many vendors but it is not designed to tolerate any amount of food oils, soaps, grease, stains, steam, body oils, or many of the other common materials used day to day in an average kitchen or bathroom, etc. Nonetheless, Mobile Home builders such as Fleetwood (and many other MH vendors) choose to supply these materials as a solution to build cabinets, cabinet doors and trim or decor parts. Much worse, the paper-laminates are applied to material that is not even durable wood, but MDF. MDF contains various kinds of particles and glue. This only makes matters worse because the paper laminates absorb the glue from the MDF underneath, plus any kind of natural moisture found in any typical home as listed above, as time goes on, turning the colors of the laminate into a ugly blue stained appearance. There is no way to clean out the stains that appear, and the materials are too chincy to fix as there is nothing really there to repair or work with but paper, glue, particles and fake colors, etc. These MDF - particle booard panels have no semblance of a natural wood grain or surface to stain, paint or treat with protective coatings.
All that said, at this point I would never buy a Fleetwood home again. And to top that off we would never consider buying any other manufactured home that uses any such materials in their construction. My wife and I see this as nothing less than a rip-off. This does nothing to speak of all the other problems we had to confront them about after we purchased our home. It was humiliating. At least many of those problems were repaired. So far, after almost two years of battling this issue regarding the paper laminates and MDF, they have done little or nothing. If anyone that knows the ropes on this kind of thing can help, that would be appreciated.
Kurt Jensen