What are your thoughts about using Tilson for a build in the country?

My parents friend considered Tilson until they figured out all they do is sub the job to a local contractor/builder to do the work. All they really do is sell a plan and options. I would think you are better interviewing a local builder and actually go talk to his past clients. This was in Freestone Co.

[This message has been edited by FIDO 96 (edited 8/26/2014 9:00p).]

I just closed on my Tilson home recently. I will try not to be too specific because I know that there is at least one person that posts on here who has contacted me because of things that I have posted when asked about Tilson in the past.

I am not really in the country as we built in a semi-rural area outside of Houston.

Building my home was a miserable experience. I constantly felt like I had to push them to keep things moving and they were always too busy to properly attend to my construction to ensure that things were done correctly and the process was kept on schedule. The guy building my house was literally building 19 houses between galveston county and matagorda county.

The staff was nice enough, but I had to get very angry several times to get them to take care of things and make things happen. This is on top of me generally being pissed off that I didn't feel like they were doing their job.

They took forever to get my plans ready for construction. It literaly took them as long to get the plans ready as it did to build the house. Granted my house is in a windstorm area so it had to be engineered.

Part of the problem is that the construction market around houston is crazy so I don't think they can get qaulity superintendents. However they seemed to have qaulity subs and the subs were available to work if the Tilson rep was around taking care of things to get them scheduled.

They have built several houses for my immediate family members which is why I chose them.

I am considering building a house in Lee county and will consider using them again because it will not be my primary residence and I will not need it completed at a specific time.

I think they can offer a qaulity build and a volume value. They supposedly get a great price on material from McCoys so they have an edge over smaller builders.

I would ask them things like where their superintendent is based out of to see how far he will have to drive to get to my jobsite, how many houses is he currently building, how long has he been with them, and where his boss is located in case you need to go up the chain of command and get someone on site.

They're an Aggie family.

You generally get what you pay for. When you get down to it. They are not cheaper than most small town builders. They just start cheap and add with extras. There are a couple of aggie builders in lee county you should look into when you look to build there

I am a custom builder in the Hill Country so I would prefer you use me. However since I am not in your area I will let you know I am friends with one of the owners of Tilson who is involved with day to day operations. Fido is wrong in that they do not sub the project to a local builder. They have superintendents and sub contractors that travel the state to build there jobs. Every builder of course will have issues but please know they are a great family owned company and yes, they are good Ags. Good luck.

The best residential builders are the ones who don't advertise.

Full disclosure, I work for the engineering firm that designs all of Tilson's foundations and handles about half of their energy efficiency ratings.

Tilson is a rare bird, a weird mix of a rural custom builder and volume builder. They can use the purchasing power of a large builder because they build nearly 1000 homes a year but have to contend with the headaches of a custom builder in that they build all over and are not just filling a subdivision. I have been on their slabs from Victoria to Orange to Nacogdoches to Mexia and everywhere in between.

I can echo what an earlier poster said that it takes a while to get the ball rolling. I think they estimate 90 days to get started from when you sign the paperwork. 3-5 weeks of that time is my company sending a drilling rig out to take borings and do soils testing(You want this done on any home if you want a proper foundation designed!) Once the foundation is done they seem to go up fairly quickly though.

I have seen everything from 1500 sqft 3/1 homes in Navasota to 4500 sqft homes with detached garages in Montgomery and a 2-story home with a library in Madisonville. They will build whatever you want if you have the money to get it done.

They don't skimp on materials such as studs. In the building industry finger-jointed studs have become very common but Tilson still uses single board studs and from what I've seen their framers do great work. All their homes will be either Energystar or Environments for Living certified. Both of these programs factor in insulation, windows, appliances, and many other factors to make sure the home is designed and will operate energy efficiently and are verified by third party inspectors. All of their foundations will have engineered plans that I think highly of and can personally testify to the quality of. We inspect every one before we allow concrete to be placed and I don't hesitate to tell them no-go if a sub has done a poor job on the makeup. They will have a proper soils report done and the design will be based on how good/bad the soil on your site is. The energy efficiency will be verified by my company if you are anywhere but around the Houston area, another firm handles that market.

From working in the industry I can tell you that Tilson does as good of a job building 100's of homes as anyone out there. They build quality homes because they know that they aren't building "starter" homes for their customers. Most of their customers are building the home for the rest of their life and not for the next 5-10 years and Tilson builds homes to meet the needs of a long term homeowner.

tl;dr version, Tilson builds quality homes. They may not be as custom as some local builders doing 5 homes a year but they also aren't building cookie cutters like many other builders their size. If I were in the position to build on acreage today Tilson would be my only call.

TXAggie72. I too work for a homebuilder...one the largest in the nation and DFW. I can tell you definatively the guy who was "Tilson's Project Manager" for that area also had his own building company. He did an end-around on Tilson and under-cut them as he told the buyers he could build a better house for less as he was cutting out the middleman. Maybe he was a Tilson employee and had no problem with conflict of interest. That's my only experience with them. They do not show up on the radar in DFW.

Agree with Colt 100%. Disclaimer, his family as well as mine are two local families that own construction companies in Lee Co. But, both families have good track records and about the only advertisements you see are signs in front of current projects. The small guys that have been in business for decades vs a corporation that racks up as many projects as they can and could care less about the quality as long as they make a profit... well, have fun with that.

Rillo

I know who you work for and the simple fact is that Tilson does not follow your specs. They did not vibrate my slab and they did not post tension it according to specs. Within 24 hours I had a crack from front to back through both of my porches. I had to call and yell at a Vice President with Tilson to get my slab post tensioned over 24 hours out of spec.

I talked to a director at your company who told me that your specs are basically meaningless and it didn't matter when it was post tentioned.

What a joke but I guess it was better than nothing

Also I understand if they want to be lazy, but atleast use some crack control as is called for in the specs!

Friends of ours have been dealing with Tilson for a while now. Their house was supposed to be finished in May.
They had to go to one of the top people to show then the mistakes that were being made.
They have had a miserable experience. We almost went that route, but glad we went with a local custom hole builder.
On a side note, our friend has a couple aunts use them and had a good experience.

Colt and Giddings,
Where are y'all located in Lee Co. My family lives in Dime Box.

Where are people using finger jointed studs?

Giddings, I'd love to hear more about these business models that don't require new projects or profits and allow you to stay in business. Kinda thought profit was part of the American dream but what do I know

Tilson has been in business for 80 years I believe so they must be doing something right. There are plenty of builders who put short term profits ahead of quality and end up going under.

Crossbow, this will turn into a he said she said quickly if I try to argue with you about whether or not they follow our specs. All I can be certain of is that we inspect and document the placing of reinforcing in all slabs before concrete placement. We inherit 10 years of liability on every slab we design so we really have no logical reason to allow builders to cut corners. We've been in business since 1964 and I can assure you that we would be out of business if our slabs weren't up to snuff. I think we need to do a better job on the education and customer service side and talking with homeowners about what to expect from their slabs. If you spoke with the person I suspect I apologize, his personality is less than charming!

AGSMNN, We are in Giddings next to Ace Hardware.

Jatzlau construction... We would be happy to meet with you.

Jt2, they are used by nearly every large builder in the Houston market. They are only approved for vertical studs and while they've been shown to be effective many people view them as the mark of cheap materials.

Glad to know they are a good Aggie family. Tilson appeals to the market segment that does not know any better. Homeowners who respond to the advertising and billboards. They certainly do not get business based on the quality of the product.

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Rillo

I know who you work for and the simple fact is that Tilson does not follow your specs. They did not vibrate my slab and they did not post tension it according to specs. Within 24 hours I had a crack from front to back through both of my porches. I had to call and yell at a Vice President with Tilson to get my slab post tensioned over 24 hours out of spec.

I talked to a director at your company who told me that your specs are basically meaningless and it didn't matter when it was post tentioned.

What a joke but I guess it was better than nothing

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Hy hell!

There would have been a cease and desist order from me and my lawyer before the last load of mud was on site if they didnt vibrate it while they were placing it.

Homebuders are horrible enough when it comes to civil and foundation work, but this would be beyond unacceptable. Your slab was compromised before it even set without proper consolodation.

I hope you locked them into a warranty that will pay for foundation repairs, because you will be living that dream before you know it.

Texas A and M,

I originally wrote a long thesis to throw in my two cents, but will shorten it to this:

Talk to Tilson, not just their sales person, but a construction rep to see if they will let you walk a frame with them. Ask them all the questions you can think of!

Then find a small custom builder and do the same thing.

Every builder in existence has folks that hate them and folks that love them. This is because building a home is very personal to one party and a business for the other. You have to go find a builder that takes it almost as personally as you do. Most of the time that is the smaller guy, but you may get lucky with the bigger fella. If the bigger fella is an Ag, you probably have a better shot...

Finally, remember that home construction is far from perfect. Its like making sausage; its an ugly process, but if everyone pitches in, it will be great in the end.

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Colt and Giddings,
Where are y'all located in Lee Co. My family lives in Dime Box.

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Gaeke (construction) side of my family is in Giddings and Brown side is in Lexington, so I'm all over.


Rillo, my point is the huge corporations typically have horrible customer service and will neglect and cut corners if it can increase their profits. And to your point about them being in business for 80 years, my grandpa has been in business for 60 and has no problem going to a house he built 40 years ago to fix any little issue at no cost. I'm sure Jatzlau would do the same. A corporation that can't even satisfy their customer DURING the build? Lol, I'm sure...

I am very curious about this myself. My wife and I are looking at possibly having a home built in/around Brenham.

Do you Giddings fellas work in Brenham or could you recommend some folks I can begin reviewing?

And I guess I have an overarching question about a custom home.

I was very keen to do this for a long while, but the more folks I asked about it the more I was told horror stories and that I should just buy an existing home etc.

Is it really that bad buying land and then having a home built? (This is more to the owners instead of the builders) When all was said and done, would you recommend it?

Yes, Gaeke could work with you in the Brenham area or hell, anywhere in the state for that matter. I'm sure Jatzlau is the same way.

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Is it really that bad buying land and then having a home built? (This is more to the owners instead of the builders) When all was said and done, would you recommend it?

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If you really want the home to be what you want it to be, and not making something you buy work, then yes.

The key is understanding that you ultimately become the project manager for a custom home build, and that it takes a lot of time on your part, that you will need to learn a lot about things you didn't know, and that getting 2nd opinions on what you are unsure about is a good thing. Not every homebuilder is a schiester, but not every one is honest Abe either - and a good one won't have much of an issue with you getting somebody else to look and verify on your behalf.

We've been in our house about two months. I absolutely dreaded building but it really wasn't all that bad. Part of that was our builder. We considered Tilson especially because of how much we dreaded the process. Their "custom production" model seemed easier than a full blown custom build. In the end we didn't click with the rep and we felt really limited by their 10'x10' design center that did not match what we had envisioned. For us that was the best decision we could have possibly made. We ended up working with an architect and designing the home from scratch. The result is a home that really works for us and the way we live. We never would have gotten that with Tilson simply because we were impressed with their floorplans with our slight modifications to them so we thought we had something great. Turns out that plan pales in comparison to what we built. It's just not even close. That's not really Tilson's fault but it's something I don't think people will ever know unless they go through a full blown design process. I'm sure if we had used them and the plan we had come up with we would be happy with it because we never would have known how much more we could have gotten out of the house in terms of layout and functioning for us.

Bottom line, Tilson or not, my recommendation to everyone building a custom home is to work with an architect.

HomebuildingAg nailed it. Pretty much EOT.

Matteus - Yes we will build in the Brenham area. We are design build company, so bring your ideas, and we can go from there. We are pushing 40 years in the business and most of our past clients have become some of our closest friends. The building process should be a very enjoyable process. Sure there are snags from time to time. But in the end, the client is building their dream and we take much pride in providing an avenue to make that possible.

As for Tilson. Recently we have built a few homes where the owners originally looked into them. Originally the client questioned whether we could match up close to them on price. Apples to apples we were not far off. It basically boiled down to quality and service. I feel we provide some of the highest standards around our area. I know that are expertise in design are very cost effective compared to using an architect or draftsman, and our clients get exactly what they want. Many times we will have clients come in that have drawings and we end up changing them. We also use a web based project tacking software that our clients enjoy to use.

As for Tilson, they provide a service. I've heard they are great AG's. I'll leave it there. Homebuildingag was spot on.

Gaeke did an addition I my moms school in Houston and they LOVED them. Great service, caring family, quality work, deadlines met. Even did some above and beyond stuff for them for covered walkways, etc when in climate weather hit.

I was a BQ with one of their kids, they always made sure we had a hot meal on game day.

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All I can be certain of is that we inspect and document the placing of reinforcing in all slabs before concrete placement. We inherit 10 years of liability on every slab we design so we really have no logical reason to allow builders to cut corners. We've been in business since 1964 and I can assure you that we would be out of business if our slabs weren't up to snuff. I think we need to do a better job on the education and customer service side and talking with homeowners about what to expect from their slabs.

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I doubt seriously this was your intent, but the last sentence comes off as a cop out to me as a way of saying that poor installation is to be somewhat expected.

You may well be the world's best inspector for reinforcing steel, but the best reinforcing design doesn't mean much if the subgrade prep is not properly done (which, sadly, is rarely done properly with houses), if the batch plant QC is not ensuring that the mud meets design specs (which rarely is much of an issue for most batch plants because when they are selling to homebuilders, they typically don't put a lot of effort into the QC), if the QC isn't done properly at the project site (how many home slabs have a guy on site to check temp, batching time, slump, etc?) or if the installation is done in a very slipshod manner.

As a design engineer, I don't see how you can allow yourself into liability for a design when it's very possible that a contractor didn't even take the time to put a pencil vibrator on site during the pour. How can you guarantee that the slab will perform even close to design if you can't guarantee that the concrete was even consolidated properly? How many rock pockets, voids or other defects are present in a slab that was installed without the benefit of some fairly normal and easy to follow installation practices?

How do you know that the contractor ordered the 3000psi design that you specified, or did they save that $20 a yard and order a 2500psi design if you or an independent QC agent wasn't on site to verify and document?

Look, as a contractor I cuss design engineers and inspectors on a daily basis - but I also recognize that there is a very, very good reason why certain standards are designed around and why you need an independent inspector acting as an agent of the owner (or, basically not the contractor) to verify and document - and that is so corners are not cut without all parties having given their consent to do so.

And not vibrating a slab on grade is not cutting a corner - that's cutting half the square away. Not properly post tensioning (which is a crappy slab method, but I digress) is another MASSIVE red flag that something is not right with the installation, and as the DE I'd hope you are a lot more concerned about that than anybody - at a bare minimum because of the liability you own.

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Where are people using finger jointed studs?

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For interior, non load bearing walls they are just fine. And sometimes better than normal studs because the pieces are far less prone to warping because of their length.

A lot of folks don't like them though for the reasons stated above. When I framed houses in CS, we didn't use them. But the owner of the company was militant about us grading out the bundles of wood when they first got delivered, and if we had to cripple more than about 2 or 3 studs in any given wall to ensure a nice flat surface for the rockers, we were liable to be put on trash and water duty for the next build as punishment and to be taught a lesson on making sure the walls were straight and plumb.

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Gaeke did an addition I my moms school in Houston and they LOVED them. Great service, caring family, quality work, deadlines met. Even did some above and beyond stuff for them for covered walkways, etc when in climate weather hit.

I was a BQ with one of their kids, they always made sure we had a hot meal on game day.

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Briarwood several years back?

schmellba99, It's not a cop out. I'll give you an example. I spent 2 hours last week with a homeowner on a job that had a few cracks in their foundation. From previous discussions I know you work with concrete. I know that you know that concrete cracks. It can crack from movement, shrinkage and a bevy of other causes. In this case the slab was poured on a hot ass day and had a few shrinkage cracks due to the top layer curing faster than the lower layers. This isn't a structural issue and I think you'd be hard pressed to find an engineer in the world who would say it is. This particular homeowner has a brother in law who built a house 20 years ago and told the homeowner that the slab was "crap before it was poured, not thick enough, post tension sucks etc." Had we spoken with the homeowner earlier we might have been able to explain the nature of concrete and avoid the PITA of dealing with a complaint over a non issue after the fact.

I am not saying anything in particular regarding crossbow's experience. I am not going to call someone a liar or claim that it didn't happen the way he said but that would be a serious detour from the way that I see other Tilson slabs being poured. Again, I am not saying it didn't happen or did, just commenting on the ones I have seen. They do document that they are ordering 3000 psi mix and while I guess they could work some shady deal for the concrete company to write 3000psi on a ticket and send less I'm not sure what the point would be. Looks like that would open both parties up for liability.

I've seen your feelings about post tension slabs on other threads and offered to show you the way we do things. There is nothing I can say to change their mind. We will put 15,000 slabs on the ground this year alone and 13,000 plus will be post tension. We have 50 years and 350,000 plus slabs on the ground and I don't lose sleep wondering if they will work. We don't own a cable company and have no stake in whether a customer chooses one system over another. If it didn't work I'd be begging people to use something else. The biggest problem post tension has is the "sister's-brother's-cousin's-co-woker" effect. Somebody knows somebody who had a pt slab fail. Not saying they don't but so do rebar and pier and beam, there are just a hell of a lot more pt slabs out their to take your sample from.

I know you work in commercial const. and I agree that commercial does things better than residential in many ways. I think many residential builders should try and do things better than they do but you know as well as I that there are folks out there that DGAF. The problem isn't only with the builder though. As a builder, if I tell a homeowner that they need to beef up their slab and it is going to cost an additional 10k they start thinking about how they have to cut out the pretty sink or tile they planned for. That is why builders try and go cheap, because for the vast majority of homebuyers the foundations is an afterthought and the interior finish is their number one priority. I am not defending it, just telling it like it is.

sorry for the derail everybody!

Yes, concrete cracks in almost every design. And yes, you probably could do some better PR on explaining why and how. No argument there. But at least showing long term costs of skimping on subgrade prep and foundation desing, adding in the cost of a typical after the fact leveling job, would shed significantly more realistic light to the prospective owner. In theory anyway.

(Although a good water cure would likely have mitigated the temp delta and subsequent cracks. Again, simple installation practices that are cut out of the equation and likely not included in your specs).

And i understand that the majority of homeowners freak out at spending money in the right places. Sometimes you cannot force people to accept logic. It happens.

And maybe Crossbow is embellishing the story, i really dont know. I just cannot imagine taking blanket liability that is dependent on and predicated by installation practices without having an agent of mine on site to verify that my design specs were met during installation.

No, i dont like post tensioned slabs for houses. But that is personal on my part. I realize that if done properly, they are about as good as any other type in terms of supporting walls and floors, it is the limitations and special considerations required for mods and warranties that make me hate them more than anything.

Our Tilson home is in its 15th month of construction. It will probably go to 16 months. Or more. Don't ask.

Regarding their foundation practices, I was stunned when they began wrecking out the forms the afternoon of the pour. It would have been questionable had the top of slab been only a foot or so above grade but at the back of the house the TOC is 41" above grade. I was very surprised that 41" of green concrete didn't buckle. Two cracks developed within a week but closed after the cables were tensioned. One of the two cracks has returned.

This has not been a pleasant experience.