Reviews

Review Details

• Review fromMarc Z

  Date: 01/21/2025

  2 stars
  This home was not what was advertised. In less than 6 months we have cracking across walls, stairs, floors are coming up - home was moved into in July and it’s January. The heat/HVAC does not work throughout the house and the company Schell contracts with has already been here twice. Best builder in the US - what US? The quality has started to be the quality of Ryan Homes and that is damn sad for the amount the home cost. Schell does not allow you to contact them directly but through a website called “Heartbeats” and you wait to see if your issue will be fixed, declined or just ignored. Schell is no better than Insurance companies - they’ve got your money now let’s see how long you’ll complain. DO NOT BUY A HOME FROM SCHELL BROTHERS right now until these issues are fixed. Concrete coming apart in your porch and they’re answer was to send two people and try to “explain” it - This is not the company it portrays itself to be, the quality is no where near what they advertise and its leadership should look into it immediately or find themselves in court.

• Review fromAnthony B

  Date: 10/29/2024

  2 stars
  Schell Brothers built our home in 2016 using PLYGEM windows which we are having issues with (broken seals) which cause a cloudiness in the window. Several of our neighbors that are Schell owners are having the exact same issues. We have to pay out of pocket to have several windows replaced and installed. Schell sold us and inferior product.

• Review fromal t

  Date: 10/04/2024

  2 stars
  i purchased a Schell Brothers Marlin Chase in spring 2023. Immediately the grout in the master bath began to fail. its has been 18 months of pain trying to get Schell to correct the grout. The installer has finallly recommended a complete gut job and now Schell is looking for other remedies !!! So much for 20 years of putting happiness over profits !!!

• Review fromRichard L

  Date: 04/01/2024

  4 stars
  We bought a home in Richmond, VA. Generally, the experience was positive. Schell has great floor plans with great curb appeal. Definitely not cookie-cutter. Their sales and decorating teams do a great job. And we were able to customize quite a bit. However, the warranty service manager was less than helpful. He frequently marked warranty items as “completed” when they weren’t. He explained they were duplicate when they weren’t. His logic was the same contractor would be addressing multiple items so he marked the “duplicate” items as completed. Their system requires you to categorize items and there is no way to group by contractor. So, when they marked items completed, you lost track of what was really done. They also took FOREVER to address items and they showed up at random times. We eventually got frustrated and fixed many items ourselves. They ran drains from the foundation to the middle of the yard and just stopped right in the dirt. As a result, we had very marshy conditions and spent over $10k to mitigate. They used engineered wood I-beam joists and “over-spanned” them (larger than 15’). As a result, we have considerable bounce in our floors. Dishes rattle and lamps shake. You feel like you’re on a trampoline when someone walks by. I brought this up to the Richmond division president and she apologized but basically said “that’s our product.” To fix this, we are going to spend more than $23k to add additional steel beams to support the floor. This is not at all what I expected when I paid $755k for my house 4 years ago. To be fair, I had two different structural engineers look at the floor bounce problem and they both said this was a well-constructed house. But they said Schell built to the code requirement, which is the bare minimum. Would I buy from Schell again? Maybe, but I would do things a lot differently and would not have assumed their commitment to happiness meant I was going to get exceptional value in my house.

• Review fromJay W

  Date: 03/01/2024

  5 stars
  I've built two homes with Schell Brothers and both experiences were by far more superior to the other production builders. I have bought a Ryan home in the past so I have personal experience from two different builders. Schell gave me weekly updates on the build (which doesn't happen with other builders) and had a very seamless step by step process from beginning to end. There were definitely things wrong when I moved into the home but anyone familiar with construction knows that no home is built perfectly, no matter how good the builder is. The main thing is that they come back to correct it. And Schell 100% stood by this and made every correction. I have neighbors that have complained about warranty but usually it stems from not being able to talk with someone on the phone or the timeliness of getting it fixed. They have a customer portal called heartbeat where you just submit a warranty claim and then you can watch it go through the process. You have a dedicated specialist and you can chat with them through a messenger but can't contact them via phone. Personally I prefer this because with the messenger it gives them time to research the answer and respond versus having multiple phone calls. Regarding timeliness, somethings take a little longer to get finished but it's not urgent issues. We had a leak in the first house and they were out immediately. It seems like major issues are addressed asap and minor stuff takes a bit longer.

• Review fromSherryl A

  Date: 01/12/2024

  1 star
  Awful customer service and below average work performance by builder.

• Review fromConnie T

  Date: 09/30/2023

  1 star
  Schell Brothers has lovely house plans in beautiful neighborhoods, but their failure to supervise their contractors and frankly to care (as much as their ads profess they care) about customer service is lacking, to say the very least. They tend to fix warranty issues only after much stressful back and forth. For homeowners looking forward to a relaxing retirement, be forewarned. Dealing with Schell can be a full-time job.

• Review fromRobert B.

  Date: 03/14/2023

  2 stars

  Robert B.

  Date: 03/14/2023

  I'll keep you posted as the home in Arbor Lyn is still under construction !
  

  Schell Brothers LLC

  Date: 03/23/2023

  Hello Robert, We hope you enjoy your new home journey with us and take advantage of our Heartbeat Portal, where you can communicate very quickly with all of our team! You will find photos and milestones about your build there as well. Welcome to the family!

• Review fromClaire K

  Date: 02/10/2023

  1 star
  DO NOT GET A SCHELL BROTHERS HOME! If I could give 0 stars, I would. I spent large amounts of money on a home that has terrible grading, so the water is pulled toward the home instead. Spent money on a home that is HORRENDOUSLY misaligned (cabinets splitting from the walls, bursting and leaking pipes for months on end, flooring not leveled, steps at weird angles, walls not straight, etc etc etc.) They spend too much time trying to make homes one after another and not enough time for high quality checks throughout the process of building it. DO NOT GET A SCHELL BROTHERS HOME