Wrong sized doors!

7 years ago

We made the mistake of working with a very inexperienced sales rep at a local window vendor. We had to correct numerous mistakes she made and just learned the doors that were delivered and installed are the wrong size! Our plans called for standard 6’8” and she ordered 6’4” that fits in a 6’8” rough opening!! Both us and our contractor did not catch this until now.

Thoughts about how to make this right? Who’s responsibility? Planning to see a lawyer...

Featured Answer

tatts

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

You don't plan to see a lawyer from the get go. You call the company first and get them to deal with it without threatening them with a lawyer.

Whose responsibility? Did you sign off on the final order that said 6'4"? A 6'4" door would be a special order, I would think, since it's non-standard, and I'd think there would have been an additional charge that somebody should have noticed. You need to get all the documents in order and make a trail of who said what when.

Nobody online can tell you whose responsibility it ultimately is. It may be shared.

And whoever installed 6'4" doors in a 6'8" rough opening is an idiot. It doesn't sound as though your contractor has much on the ball either.

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Comments (7)

User
7 years ago
Ugh I had the exact thing thing happen to me. My order was only for 4 doors though. The store where i ordered them from took them back at their cost.
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PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
7 years ago
I agree with tatts this should have been a red flag with the special order stamp.
Lance
Original Author
7 years ago
Update: spoke to the door vendor (reselling for Anderson). He claims they read the 6’8” in the door schedule as the RO so they ordered a door for that RO rather than 6’8” unit. Every contractor I’ve talked to said that is not a reasonable explanation. Any thoughts/evidence of what is standard?

Thanks
tiggerlgh
7 years ago
What does your contractor say? And as asked above who signed off on the order?
PRO
Pearl Remodeling
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
It boils down to what was told to the rep. was he going by the rough openings the GC made or by a plan. If he was given a plan than clearly everything that deviates from it is his fault no questions asked, if he was going by the existing rough opening than the GC has to take the blame for it. But it sounds like you have several issues there. If it's not black and white on who's fault it is, The best course of action is to have a good sit down with everybody, explain the situation and in most cases, everybody should take part to rectify the situation and finish this in a timely manner. In litigation the only people who win are the lawyers and mediators.....
Lance
Original Author
7 years ago
Thanks for the feedback. I better understand what happened. The architect’s schedule says “door size” 6’8” for these exterior French doors. The vendor interpreted this as 80” rough opening, not unit size and did not ask if this was correct. My understanding is 80” is a very common exterior unit size but not rough opening size so this seems a very bad assumption on the vendors part. Both my contractor and I signed off on the doors - neither of us noticed (not that I’d know but it seems he should). He also installed the doors in the 82.5” rough without mentioning it to us!

My plan is to sit down with the vendor and my contractor to see what we can do make this right.