How the Homebuilder Cheated Me OR Could I Do Without a Commode in the Primary Bath????

Today's installment describes how moving a hole two whole inches cost me $2500.

The victim: me

The perpetrator: The home builder

The screw: The builder did not meet code and it cost me $2500 to fix it or there would be no commode in the primary bath!

My history with this house

The history: In 2001 I bought a ranch home off Las Vegas Boulevard not far from the Las Vegas Strip on Haviland Road. I was the second owner; it was completed in 1999. This house launched my Las Vegas real estate fempire.

I lived in it for three years before I made enough money to buy a bigger home in an more exclusive neighborhood. It became a prosperous rental for 20 years.

Last month I won a short-term rental permit in the Clark County lottery for the house I was living in. (The only one that qualified with their impossibly restrictive rules.) I had to move somewhere. So I chose the cute house on Haviland Road.

I had never replaced the commodes after 24 years, so that was one of the first things on the replacement list. Besides, we had to remove them to put in the new luxury vinyl plank flooring.

The commode in the second bath fit just fine.

However, I knew something was wrong when the plumbers gathered around the toilet flange (the hole leading to the sewer line) in the primary both. They told me to sit down to describe the problem.

I knew this was going to be bad.

It turns out the national building code requires the toilet flange to be 12 inches from the finished wall. This flange was 10 inches from the wall.

It turns out both old commodes were 10 inch commodes. I didn't notice they were undersized because I weighed 30 pounds less when I lived here originally. (yeah, I know.)

The builder must have gotten a good deal on 10 inch commodes back then.

For some reason the builder's plumbers did not install the primary bath's flange properly.

The Building Inspector Scandal

So how could this happen? Why didn't the Clark County building inspector catch this?

Because in 1998-1999 there was the Clark County Building Inspector Scandal (my moniker.)

Las Vegas was growing exponentially back then. The home builders got into cahoots with some of the building inspectors. The builders paid off the inspectors handsomely.

Here's how it worked:

The builders built one house in the subdivision to code. The building inspector inspected this one house. Then they looked the other way at all the other homes in the subdivision and signed off on all without ever setting foot inside.

My Fallout

Today it is nearly impossible to find a 10 inch commode.

Soooo, I had to pay the plumbers to move the flange two inches. The other choice was to have no commode in the primary bathroom. Probably not a good selling feature.

Nevada law allows homeowners to sue builders for defects for 10 years. This house is now 24 years old. The builder assumed no one would replace the toilets in the first 10 years. They got away with violating code to save lots of money.

I bought myself a bidet toilet which sits 12 inches from the wall atop my new toilet flange. All y'all, this is the most amazing invention. But it still chaps me the builder cheated me out of $2500 and got away with it!

Question: Do you have a builder cheated you story? Please share!