DURA DOORS

Joel was very professional, prompt and hands on. His installers were comparatively young and wrestled a bit with the very heaving and seemingly complicated installation, but did manage to get the job done and a year later to date, no problems with either of the 3 panels. A few weeks after installation my 110 lb German Shepard, head down, plowed through the new screen after a squirrel, no doubt not realizing it wasn't the old screen. I called Joel and he came out immediately and replaced the screen himself, on the back of his truck, I am pleased. No more vertical blinds, no more dog looking between blinds and slats coming down, etc.!!!

I will start with the positive part of the experience. I originally went with this company on the strong recommendation of my next door neighbor, who was very pleased with his work. The owner (Joel) came out, measured the front door and recommended a particular fiberglass door with sidelight. He quoted me a price and an approximate date when it would be available. No problem so far. The door showed up at the approximate date that I expected it to. The door installer showed up promptly. The quality of the door was very good. We are happy with how the door looked once installed. The problem was with the installation. Unfortunately, I couldn't personally be at home when the door was installed. My wife was the only one at home and she knows nothing about what to look for when a job like this is finished. As it turned out, when the installer was finished, the door did not close properly without some difficulty. The installer told my wife that he hoped that the door would work its' way to proper operation after a bit of use. Well, when I got home, it was obvious I wasn't going to be able to close the door and lock it without some dremeling of both strike plates. This is on a brand new door installation. I also noted that there was an uneven gap at the top of the door with respect to the frame. I took photos and texted them to the owner. He came out a couple of days later and agreed that there was indeed a bit of an uneven gap with the door. As I inspected the door more, it was apparent that both strike plates were really too high for both locks as both locks were binding on the bottom of the strike plates. We made arrangements for the installer to come out again. The time agreed was 9AM. Unfortunately, he showed up at 830AM and we were not at home but close by. I finally arrived at the house just as the installer was finished. Since I expected him to be there for a bit of time I asked him what he did to fix the problem. He said he did something to the hinge. Well, in my mind, he just wasn't there that long to do much of anything. The door did work but it was still a bit stiff. Sure enough, later that day when the sun hit the door, the door failed to lock properly again. On top of that, we gave our dog walker a code to get into the house (electronic lock). She opened it once but never could close the lock as the mechanism again was binding on the strike plate. I eventually took the dremel tool again to it and I finally got it to work reliably. For what I paid for this door, this should never happen. The other issue was that the installer did such a poor job of staining the outside frame around the door. He left noticeable splotches all around the door. I had to order a can of stain from Home Depot and redo it myself. I finally texted the owner after all of this to share my displeasure with the installer's workmanship. To this date, not a reply from the owner. The owner knew I was seriously thinking of replacing a sliding patio door with french doors. I will be doing that but with someone else. If you're in business and you have a somewhat dissatisfied customer, you try to find out how to make it right. Not totally ignore the customer.

unknown

The owner (Joel) took payment before the work was finished, after the installer left we noticed the staining on the outside was streaky and there was glue all around the window. This had been replaced by them as they had said it had been cracked when the door was delivered to them. That evening the wind was howling through a large gap where daylight could be seen. Joel did come back on several occasions and tried quick fixes, but in the process he broke our door hardware. He did fix things like caulking and staining, but did not sort out the excess glue or the major problem, the door not fitting correctly. All along we had asked him to take the door off and re-shim the frame, as there was no way the door could ever fit properly because the frame was not straight and plumb. His workmanship was appalling, he tried to stick a patch on the frame to fill in the gap, then shimmed out the bottom hinge to reduce the same gap. This only resulted in the door sticking so much, it couldn't be opened from the outside. On his last visit to rectify this, he put back the hinge to where it was and then took off without even telling us he was going. We thought he had gone to Home Depot or similar as he had done previously, but after about an hour we contacted him and he was extremely rude to my wife. He told her in no uncertain terms, there was nothing he could do to make her happy as she wasn't a "nice person!"

unknown

unknown