S. Gerald Musser Builder

We used Musser to build what will be our retirement home. When we began the process we discuss our needs with many builders and found that Musser was the easiest to work with to get everything we wanted. For them nothing was an issue. Our home was built with no steps coming into the home and 36" doors throughout.
There were many other things we wanted that his suppliers were also very happy to help with. The kitchen is equipped with all under counter drawers so that we do not need to get down and craw into the cabinet to find what we need. These were built into the cabinets and not cheap add-on racks that some builders wanted to use.
The plumber and electrician were also very helpful in making sure everything we wanted and needed happened. We did the flooring in hardwood and vinyl and the installers made sure there were no thresholds at the transitions that we might trip over or might cause problems if we had walkers or wheelchairs in the future.
When we would visit the site during construction any of the contractors that were working there were always interested in what we thought. They always wanted to know if there was anything we were concerned about.
Not to say that there were no issues during the build, but everyone was addressed and resolved before the home was completed. At final walk through the builder found minor issues that we had not seen and made sure everything was corrected. Everything was address and corrected within two weeks of our taking over the home.
Needless to say we were very pleased and enjoy living in this home. We would suggest Musser to anyone looking to build a quality home.

Musser builds a good house. But..... some of the subcontracting leaves a little bit to be desired. Problems we encountered, the concrete patio has black swirls all over it and we were told to use vinegar to scrub it and see if that helped. Mussers people left a black cover on it for it too long so it could not cure, is what we were told. The front porch and step to the front door had concrete chipping off in less than 4 months after move in. The basement concrete has several areas of water stains and black spots. The water stains came from Mussers people leaving the sliding door open during a heavy rain storm. We found this on one of our many visits to the site. When discussing this issues with the concrete man, he had no solutions and drug out the issues to after one year now its our problem. Our front door would not open after about 1 month. You could not get it open at all. They fixed it by cutting off the top edge and then air blew thru the open gap all winter, now we are putting a screen door on to slow the winter winds coming thru. Our man door in the garage has leaked every time we have a hard east rain. The repair man came to look at it and told us to contact the company that Musser purchases his supplies. So again we have to fix this! The front of our garage facing the street looks like the siding people didn't finish the job. The siding stops about a foot up from the asphalt. If we would have known this we would have asked for stone to be put there. Floor plans did not show this to look like that or this would have been fixed. This was not told to us and when discussed with the realtor, we were told apparently the siding man wasn't finished, but when talking with the siding people this is what they were told to do by Mussers plans. We didn't want many steps, we have 3 steps going into the house from the garage. Actually they put in 2 1/2. One of Mussers people told us that if 3 steps were put in they would have had to put a railing up. So when exiting the house you felt like you could fall over that half step. My husband took out their steps, made a 3 step for safety matters and added a railing. A window in our sunroom was never able to be locked without super strength and then you have to push on the window and casing a certain way to try and lock it. One of Mussers people broke it at one point, the lock got replaced but the new one works the same. This issue was brought up to Mussers people many times. We don't ever open that window because you cannot close it without breaking the lock. The whole window unit should have been replaced, but no one listened. We asked for a separate electrical outlet for our freezer that was located in the garage. After finding our freezer not running several times, my husband found that the freezer outlet was connected to the ground fault breaker. So when this breaker tripped for what ever reason, the freezer was now off. We have areas outside where if you go to plant something you find very little topsoil, many loads of topsoil get removed during the whole building process. Not real sure you get 6 inches as promised. So when you are ready to build your house you must be ready to pick out ALL our supplies within a short period of time. This is very difficult to try and come up with an entire layout of your house before you see walls. If you go with the wider doorways to make it senior friendly, make sure you ask about the archways if building a Dogwood, these are an inch smaller. Not a big deal but if you end up in a wheelchair as you age, it just may be. If you have to go thru a smaller opening to get through a wider door, it just makes sense to make them both the same width. And if you need a construction loan, that is a whole other nightmare. We went with the suggestion of our realtor, very bad choice. He DID NOT do as he promised! I had many many discussions trying to reach him about concerns to the point where he would not return my calls, nor would he return calls to other people trying to reach him. So if you do not want to escrow your property taxes as we did not want to do this, you need to really check out who your realtor is giving you as a suggestion to contact. Building a house is never easy. We have built 5 houses in our past. We are not new to this process but this was the MOST difficult house to get built and try to get things made right that should never have even been a issue in the first place. We spoke to many people we know who used this company before we dicided to go with Musser and they didn't have issues like we did. Maybe we were just very unlucky or maybe we just expect a lot when you are paying a lot!