Kuna homeowners pay thousands to fix flooded crawl spaces in newly built homes

Homeowners in the Sterling Ranch subdivision are having to pay thousands of dollars in repair costs to fix flooded crawl spaces. Neighbors say that 25 homes in the newly built neighborhood, built by Toll Brothers, have water incursion issues.

• Neighbors say 10 of the 25 homes impacted had sump pumps installed by Toll Brothers under their 1-year warranty and 6 of those systems have already failed.
• Others, who weren't notified by Toll Brothers of the issue before their home warranty expired, say they have had to pay out of pocket to find solutions. That cost ranged from $7,000 to $30,000.
• Kuna City Planning and Zoning tells me they are looking into the issue to ensure a similar problem doesn't arise in other new developments.

( Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)

“As of right now we have a Band-Aid fix," says Ryan Penny, a first-time homeowner in Kuna. He bought his new house from Toll Brothers with a one-year warranty.

“I found a bunch of water underneath the vapor barrier, on top of it,” says Penny.

But after discovering his crawl space was filled with water, he went door to door asking his neighbors if they had the same issue.

“But I was actually breaking news to them that they might have water in their system," says Penny.

He found out that he wasn’t the only one— 25 of his neighbors had similar issues, some of which had already gone to Toll Brothers for a fix.

“Shamefully what Toll did not do was notify the other 15 homeowners that there was a known problem in the area," says Michael Rocco, a Sterling Ranch homeowner.

Penny reached out to the developer who installed sump pumps in his crawl space under his one-year warranty.

“It just wasn’t doing the job, so water is still coming in the crawlspace. It's still an issue that needs to be resolved of why water is coming in," says Penny.

He, like many of his neighbors, had to pay out of pocket to find a fix. That cost to homeowners ranged from $7,000 up to $30,000.

“We’d have to move," says Clyde Howe, a retired Sterling Ranch homeowner. "We are on a fixed budget and there’s no way we can afford any $10,000 remedy."

I reached out to Toll Brothers for an interview about the problems in Sterling Ranch, they declined an interview but did respond with a statement:

“Toll Brothers has a 57-year history of standing behind our homes, and we have an excellent record of working with our homeowners to ensure that all claims are reviewed and resolved under our warranty. We encourage our homeowners to reach out to us to directly with any concerns.”

“It’s kind of a bummer because you move into a new neighborhood with new homes assuming that everything was done correctly when something’s not right here," says Laura Smith, a retired Sterling Ranch homeowner.

“Some of us can’t afford ... out of pocket for some of this," added Penny. "So it does hurt your fellow man, your neighbor residents of Kuna. But yeah, I think it’s just a good way to look for the City of Kuna to really question and have maybe harder conversations with builders. Like, what protections do we have as citizens in Kuna to hold builders accountable?"