Palm Harbor Homes (poor service)

[jgn]

Dennis, Murray is a dealer but he shoots straight and doesn't deserve bashing. If your tiles are coming up than the floor needs o be reset. The main reason for a backer board or wonder board is the thin set holds better but I have put ceramic over plywood and it has lasted 7 years without a problem. If it is a wet area or there is a lot of flex than wonder board is needed but it raises the floor 3/8-1/2" and cost more to do. You might want to consider if they will re-set the ceramic you will set the wonder board, not that tough a project. I doubt they will redo the job with cement board.

[Lynne]

Whyever would you urge people to visit a website with a few paragraphs and no facts to back up such harsh words such as PH sucks? There is nothing on te site of value?? And, it's not a new site, it's been there for, what a year?? And when it had a firum, it was filled with even more vague, without any facts, inflamatory statements. Hardly a place one should be urged to go...

[Dennis R Haggett]

I have a letter from Weyerhaeuser and one from Interceramic that states backer board should be used for tile installation. Interceramic says that the tile should be installed with thinset morter as to ANSI and TCA standards they did neither.

[Dennis R Haggett]

.info sites were not available a year ago there is no way it existed. I also beleive that the site says it is under construction.

[Lynne]

The site was around under just palmharborsucks.com (minus the info) when I first started reading the boards last year. It used to be that page that's up there now and then a forum/board. Nothing else..no details to back up claims, just complaints. I gave up going to see how it would turn out when it became obviouls there was not going to be any facts to back it up. I don't see this new site as anyting different beyond the .info...
Don't get me wrong, I am all for standing up for what's right with your home, no matter what. I'm not for baseless claims and since that's what this site was about, I'd hate to see someone wasting their time clicking through to it....

[Dennis R Haggett]

RMurray,
I have sent an E-mail to Larry Keener the CEO of Palm Harbor Homes. I explained in detail the situation. I believe in a nice way. I will let you know one way or another what he says. And of course if it is positive you will see that I paraise his company for doing the right thing (on this site). Appreciate the help. I was not bashing you, I apoligize if you took it that way.

[Jeremy and Amber Botkin]

I am a "very happy" owner of a Palm Harbor home for almost six years now. I have never had any trouble with our home. You say that all of their homes are shottily put together and all of your other claims. I'm here to tell you that our experience with Palm Harbor has been nothing but great. We had a problem with a cabinet and they fixed it promptly. The manager at the time was very willing to work with us at buying our home. Just thought you would like to know that not all Palm Harbor owners are having problems with their homes.

[service]

I don't believe I said all of their homes are shottily built. Maybe it is just a few of ther factories I have however, contacted the CEO of Palm Harbor Homes. As I told Mr. Murry whatever response I get from him will be posted here. I have had several people contact me via E-mail more with problems than not. I hope we can work things out with them and become one of those without problems. I will give Larry Keener the benifit of doubt until then.The ball is in his court.

[Dennis R Haggett]

Larry Keener had the Siler City factory get in touch with me. I will let you know how things go.

[beach builder]

Murray is right about the tile installation. I am a general contractor that builds spec home, custom homes, and has done a LOT of tile work. Some of our tile work has been featured in articles.

For years it was standard to install ceramic tile over plywood. Even today many contractors and installers install directly over plywood for couters and floors. Many tile manufacturers do reccomend installation over a concret backer board. The board can be purchased as thin as 1/4", but most use 1/2" on floor installations. There is a better bond using backerboard. Some installations, whether on backer board are not will still experience problems. It can happen using modified thinset mortar or with mastic.

Just because a manufacturer reccomends a certain instalation doesn't mean that you can somehow get PH to re-do the installation to your desired specifications. If the subfloor is scraped and clean, and there is full coverage of thinset or mastic to the back of the tiles you shouldn't experience further problems, at least with THOSE tiles. If the entire job was shoddy, which it probably wasn't, you could continue to have some tiles come loose. Often it is due to an environmental problem that caused poor curing qualities for the adhesive used during installation.

PH didn't violate any codes, and you can't force them to use backerboard. Try being decent in your dealings with them and you'll probably get the repair work done properly and have no more problems.