The Manufactured Housing Forums

We bought a Kabco doublewide August of 2010 and are now seeing the stick on tiles coming up. This started rather suddenly about 3 weeks ago and some of these areas also have lumps or dips under them. We have contacted the manufacturer and the dealer and are waiting on a call to tell us when they will be out. In the meantime I am concerned we are dealing with a more serious problem than just inferior tiles. Any ideas what this could be. We are 2 months away from our anniversary date and you know what that means.

It would be unusual for the sticky stuff on multiple tiles to just fail simultaneously. The changes you report to the floor sheeting is most times indicative of a plumbing problem.

Start by going under the home and looking for evidence of one or more leaks.

Don't wait for the factory to arrive. If you have an active leak it could be effecting more of your home every minute it continues.

I'll certainly do that, although the areas of concern are not in areas with plumbing, except for the latest area. And the floor doesn't feel wet or look moldy.

The plumbing lines in most homes run the entire length or width of the home, unless all the wet areas are in the same corner of the home. Even if there are no water outlets in a room there could still be plumbing below the floor.

The dips and bumps you talked about are characteristic of some types of floor sheeting when exposed to moisture. If exposure is on the bottom side of the floor, you might not notice any wetness inside.

It is easy to go under the home and look for wet spots on the ground or underside of the home. If you live in a location where you have a water meter go out and read the meter before you leave the house for a few hours. Be sure all water taps are off and your toilets are not running. Then read the meter again when you return. If any water has run through the meter you know you have a leak.

My best advice is to get whatever the problem is corrected ASAP. Running... even dripping water is very destructive in wood framed homes. If the factory can not come out quickly, it is in your best future interest to make, or pay for, the repairs yourself and fight for reimbursement later.

Thanks for the replies. My son and I looked underneath the home ( we have concerete runners and some sort of sheeting underneath) and the only area we found was under the "porch" which is inset and there are spaces between the boards. We don't feel any heaviness to the insulation underneath the home and there are no leaks when we poke a small hole and the little bit of insulation we removed was dry.

Could it be possible this is due to condensation between the tiles and the wood? We have also noticed in the last few weeks that we have a lot of condensation on the windows of our home. The temperature here is between 95 and 100 nearly every day--I live in southwestern Louisiana.

The Kabco service represenative did return my call today to set up a tentative appointment for this coming week depending on the time it takes him to complete the appointment before me.

I really appreciate all the advice. I'm going to do the water meter test when I leave in a few minutes.

Thanks again!

I am no expert but I live in Northwest Louisiana so I know where you are coming from with the heat and humidity. You should not be having condensation on your windows either in the summer or winter. That could be an indication of to much humidity inside the home. Perhaps your air conditioner is not functioning properly and removing the humidity from the house. You are not running a humidifier inside the home are you? Are you turning on the fans in the bathroom whenever you are taking a shower or bath? Are you turning on the fan over the stove whenever you are cooking? Doing the fan thing will help lower the humidity inside the house. We had a stick built home in Oklahoma and would get condensation on the windows in the winter. Turned out the heating ducts had rotted out and had water in them. Not uncommon in stick built homes with floor vents instead of overhead vents.

Hi Celtlund. We do not run a humidifier in the home, but I was actually thinking about getting a dehumidifier to see if that would help. We do not always run the fans in the bathrooms when we take showers as they are extremely loud. The condensation on the windows is new to us and may have started at the same time. As for the air conditioning we have had trouble with certain rooms not staying as cool as others but can't seem to get any answers about that either. We were concerned from the beginning that the home was not sealed properly at the marriage line because there was a gap on one side that was bigger at the top than at the bottom. All in all it has been quite a circus for the last 10 months and I don't see any sign of it letting up. When we looked underneath yesterday we noticed the blocks nearest the edge had 2 pieces of wood between the beam and the blocks and one of them was cracked in half as if it was under pressure. I'm looking for a mobile home inspector in my area that can do a total inpspection of the foundation and to see if it is level. Can't seem to trust the dealer or their crews.

We are in Florida and also have high heat an humidity. The condensation your home is experiencing is not normal. The problem with the air not cooling evenly could also be why you have excessive condensation in the home.

Your plan to bring in an outside qualified professional to let you know what is wrong with the foundation is a great idea. I would also bring in a licensed air contractor who is competent to inspect not just the air unit but the supply ducts and return system to find out why there is so much moisture accumulation inside.

The condensation can be more than a nuisance. It can cause mold, wood rot and
attract termites.

Residents of Louisiana have specific legal remedies when it comes to buying defective products. You may have to hire a lawyer, but you can go a long way toward protecting yourself and perhaps resolving the less serious problems on your own. If it turns into a large problem, and you follow the pointers you will find at http://www.pharislaw.com/newhome.htm it will make it easier to win a lawsuit or force a settlement.


Document everything! Take no prisoners. Good luck

Thanks for the link. I've been documenting everything from Day 1 which is March 8, 2010 to the present day. It took us nearly 9 months to go from a good faith estimate from our lender to signing the closing papers and it's been 10 months since we moved in. All told, it has been a lot harder than I thought and I have a journal of every step of the way. I have learned a lot and I am not sure that we haven't made some mistakes along the way. I appreciate the link you provided and I have been doing a lot of research on what our rights are because we feel like it will come down to legal action since no one wants to accept blame. I have been unable to find anything on the internet criticizing Kabco builders or the dealer we bought the home from, but clearly someone is at fault. Maybe a combination of the two. What they may not understand is that when asked how we like our home we are unable to give an unqualified thumbs up to the either the dealer or the manufacturer at this point. We still feel like most, if not all of these problems are due to the installation of the home and the foundation of the home which was done by the dealer. I must admit that Kabco has responded to our problems 3 times now and the work they did was done well. But our dealer has done a lot of dodging phone calls and not returning calls. I now immediately notify the manufacturer by email so that I have a record of it.

I don't know what my rights are in terms of complaints, but I would like people in this area to know about the problems we have had and are still having. Like I said we checked the dealer out as much as possible through the BBB and word of mouth, but didn't really get anywhere with it.

Kabco is a relatively new company. They built their first home in 2003. So there may not a a huge amount of commentary about them online.

The problem you have getting action is the classic new manufactured home owners frustration. The home is under full warranty from the builder... except ... the dealer is responsible for the installation.

If the home is not installed correctly it simply wont perform correctly. While the federal code requires the builder to warranty the home and its components state and local installation codes do not always hold the dealers installation to the same standard.

Over the past decade every state has required mh installers to become licensed. Have you talked to the contractor that installed your home? While the dealer hired him, it is the licensed installer that is ultimately responsible for the installation standards.

Your plan to bring in a foundation expert is good... but be sure your expert is a state licensed mh installer. Get a full itemization of actions and costs necessary to make corrections and incorporate it into your complaint to the state office that issues installer licenses.