Raising Cane
By Rob Perez
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Ray Fortuno knew something wasn't right when he heard his 10-year-old daughter screaming hysterically one night while using their downstairs bathroom. Mililani families
face plumbing plagueFortuno ran to her aid and was stunned by what he found: A big crack had opened in the ceiling and water was gushing to the floor.
"It looked like a waterfall," Fortuno recalled of the January discovery.
A few weeks before that, Darby Collado got a surprise of his own.
He discovered water pooling on his kitchen and living room floor. The leak, as it turned out, was from piping under his house. It was the second underground leak at his home since the mid-1990s.
The Fortunos and the Collados don't know each other, but they have a few things in common.
The two families live in the same Mililani subdivision, The Ridge, which has roughly 240 houses built in the late 1980s.
The two families also were both told by Castle & Cooke, developer of the subdivision, that the leaks were not the company's responsibility because the home warranties expired long ago.
The families are among more than 30 Ridge homeowners -- at a minimum -- who have had problems over the years because of leaking or ruptured pipes in the walls or beneath their $300,000-plus houses.
Some have had multiple leaks years apart. Some had problems within months of moving into their new homes in 1989. Several are dealing with current problems.
"This is truly a nightmare," said Phyllis Nakasone, whose downstairs bathroom ceiling recently gave way because of leaking water from an upstairs bathroom.
If the homes were built properly, the homeowners say, they shouldn't be having such problems. The subdivision is only 13 years old, not old enough to explain why copper piping underground or inside the walls has leaked or ruptured at dozens of houses, the homeowners say.
Castle & Cooke, however, said the problems brought to its attention have been isolated to a small number of homes, didn't seem to have a common link and appeared not to be the result of defective construction.
Still, the company has gone substantially beyond its legal responsibilities to the homeowners, even making repairs well after their one-year new-home warranties expired, according to Harry Saunders III, president of Castle & Cooke Homes Hawaii. Some fixes the company paid for into the mid-1990s.
More recently, the builder told homeowners the responsibility of fixing such problems was the homeowner's, though Castle & Cooke has offered to help financially in a couple of current cases.
"We try to be overly considerate of our customers and not just walk away," Saunders said. "We give the benefit of the doubt to the customer."
That's not how some customers see it.
When they complained to Castle & Cooke about leaks the past several years, the company told them it wasn't aware of other Ridge homeowners having similar problems, the homeowners said.
"We thought we were the only house that had this," said Shanon Cook, whose home has had three major leaks since 1997, soaking carpets, cabinets and walls in the master bedroom, living room, dining room, bathroom and kitchen. "Castle & Cooke was betting that people wouldn't talk to each other about this problem."
Cook and other neighbors still might be in the dark if it weren't for Colleen Sagon, who has had to contend with two major leaks since 1992, the most recent just last month.
Sagon was so angered by how Castle & Cooke representatives responded to her latest water crisis -- insisting it was not legally the company's responsibility and saying they were unaware of similar problems in the subdivision -- that she typed up a flier asking other homeowners to contact her if they had had underground pipe ruptures. She then walked the neighborhoods delivering the fliers.
Sagon suspected she would get responses because her husband, Adam, is a plumber who has done repairs at several neighborhood homes.
Nearly 35 homeowners have responded thus far, with many sharing their water-damage stories. Some still have holes in the walls or warped cabinets as reminders.
Sagon believes other homeowners have had pipe problems but just haven't responded.
"I don't think (Castle & Cooke officials) in their wildest dreams would've thought that somebody would walk to 240 homes to deliver these fliers," Sagon said. "But I was furious."
Like other homeowners, Sagon said Castle & Cooke should be responsible for fixing the problem.
Saunders said his company tried to work with the Sagons to come up with a compromise solution as a gesture of good faith, just as it has done in other cases despite expired warranties.
But the company can only do so much, he said.
"We can't in good faith take on the responsibility of a lifetime warranty on all of these systems," he said.
Saunders couldn't say how many Ridge homeowners have reported leak problems to the company over the years, though he insisted the number was small given the size of the subdivision and the amount of time since the homes were built.
But during the first few years, enough problems were reported that the company did an investigation to determine if there was a common link.
"Nothing was really conclusive," Saunders said.
Castle & Cooke consulted the plumbing contractor, TNH Plumbing, and the Board of Water Supply, but no common cause was found, he added.
TNH declined comment, and a board spokeswoman late last week couldn't reach anyone familiar with the issue.
Despite the testing Castle & Cooke did, no evidence was uncovered to indicate that the plumbing problems were due to faulty workmanship, materials or design, according to Saunders.
After the first few years, the number of reported problems subsided, leading the company to believe that it was no longer an issue, he said.
Asked why Castle & Cooke didn't notify homeowners when it was investigating the issue, Saunders agreed that in hindsight that may have been prudent to do.
While the company's investigation didn't pinpoint a common cause, plumbers doing repairs have told homeowners either defective materials or improper assembly were factors, the homeowners said.
Fortuno was told the wrong kind of fitting was used on a pipe joint that came apart, triggering the deluge into his downstairs bathroom.
He said his daughter was traumatized by the incident. "She wanted to stay at her grandma's house where she said things like that don't happen," Fortuno said.
One homeowner, Glenn Miura, was given a chunk of the underground pipe that was the source of one of his leaks and he could see tiny pinholes in it.
Clyde Minamishin, an instructor for the Plumbers & Pipefitters UA Local 675, said Central and Leeward Oahu tract housing that went up during the construction boom of the 1980s has had occasional problems with underground leaks.
While many factors can be cited, one of the main ones was developers shaving costs and using cheaper materials to help keep the homes affordable, Minamishin said.
"Everyone wants to put in something faster, cheaper, lighter," he said. "Naturally, it doesn't last as long."
Developers have since switched to an above-ground plumbing system -- the pipes aren't buried under the homes' concrete foundation -- that is more reliable, Minamishin said.
Saunders, however, said Castle & Cooke in the 1980s built more than 700 homes a year using the same kind of plumbing system as that used in The Ridge, and the company didn't have leakage problems at its other projects.
At The Ridge, doing repairs in some cases has meant digging up the concrete floor slab or cutting into walls to find leaks. Numerous cuts were made in the Collados' walls, and they ended up paying about $2,000 for the repairs.
"We were just so frustrated, we wanted to get it done," Collado said.
Homeowner insurance can cover some costs, the homeowners say, but not nearly the full tab, especially if the concrete slab must be pierced.
In the cases of the Sagons and the Cooks, Castle & Cooke offered to pitch in up to $1,000 only after they kept insisting the company was responsible, the families said. But they don't believe that will be nearly enough to fix the problem permanently. The Sagons rejected the offer.
Since news of the problem has spread through the subdivision, some families who have been spared thus far are worried that could change.
One family recently was told by the Board of Water Supply that their home's water consumption increased dramatically -- despite having one less user because a family member moved away for college.
Even homeowners who already have endured leaks wonder if another crisis is around the corner.
"There's just way too many homes in one area with this problem," said Adam Sagon, the plumber. "I know eventually there are going to be more leaks."
Star-Bulletin columnist Rob Perez writes on issues
and events affecting Hawaii. Fax 529-4750, or write to
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. He can also be reached
by e-mail at: rperez@starbulletin.com.
