Shit Work…
We recently hired a company to install a new door in our utility room, receiving a quote of $2,700—$1,400 for the door itself, $1,000 for labor (accounting for two people over two days), and an additional $300 for miscellaneous parts and to lift our washer to install a pedestal beneath it.
The door, priced at $1,400, arrived in a disappointing state: it was unfinished, marred, and barely coated with primer. Far from the custom quality promised, it was lightweight, flimsy, and full of imperfections, including bare wood where the hinges were to be mounted. A superior, fully finished door was available at Home Depot for $300 less.
The installation was equally unsatisfactory. The door didn’t sit flush within the frame, leaving visible gaps on all sides through which daylight and, potentially, water could enter. Notably, there was a significant one-and-a-half-inch gap at the bottom. The door also improperly aligned at the lock area, requiring excessive force to close, and it remained insecure within the frame, easily jostled by a slight push.
The workmanship was poor throughout, with both sides of the door scuffed and the lock assembly incorrectly installed. I had requested the use of our existing lock to match the rest of the house, but the installation was botched—misaligned and so loosely fitted that the entire assembly threatened to come apart. Despite bringing this to the installer’s attention, the makeshift solution left the lock barely functional.
To our further dismay, we discovered that only one screw had been used in each of the two upper hinges. For the price of $2,700, the omission of such basic installation steps was astounding. That evening, with rain forecasted, we were forced to cover the door with a tarp to protect the poorly installed, and yet-to-be-finished, $1,400 door from water damage until we could undertake the task of sanding and painting it ourselves.
Regarding the labor cost of $1,000, the workers were present for merely an hour and a half, arriving just after 9:30 and departing before 11:00. Choosing this company was out of necessity, given the difficulty of finding a handyman in our area, but the experience has left us not wanting to deal with anything like this again. Just terrible.