Sabrina's Ideas

Reply to: I had Hunter Douglas cellular shades with wands professionally installed yesterday and had to call my salesman and installer twice shortly after he completed installation and later while trying to raise the blinds. This morning I texted him after trying to lower one kitchen shade that continued to raise whole the other lowered. I asked if there was a HD tutorial instead I received a call that the salesperson/installer would return to my home. in the past j have ordered my honeycomb shades from Select Blinds, installed them meself and had no problems. I am older now, knee surgery, tall windows and did not want to shop around, order and install so I was willing hmg to bite the bullet and pay the high price for this crap that is causing problems less than 24 hours after installation. also, I was saddened to see the gaps in my shades in my bedroom's where I need privacy. The installer moved them over, pushed and pulled on them and told me that's what I would have to do to try and close the gaps. what a joke! who wants to do all if that. Now I am stressed and font want to touch them, but need to raise and lower them at night and in the morning. I dont know what to do. if a Hunter Douglas rep is reading this, please advise.

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Reply to: Do not waste your money on Hunter Douglas. The motorized blinds are problematic - high failure rates for these motors and power supplies needing constant replacement. Do a web search and you will see the motors have a high failure rate and don't get promised warranty support. This was a tough lesson for me to learn after shelling out what I did. I spent hours upon hours trying to locate an HD certified tech to respond to the warranty repairs needed for my blinds. HD provides few if any 'certified techs' in any region that can support warranty issues - or even willing to provide warranty service at the rate these need attention/repair. Calling HD Customer Service gets you redirected to the same problematic dealers who don't support what they sell for HD. The parts needing replacement are hundreds of dollars to replace if you are forced to go outside HD to get them - which is likely why the dealer ignores customers needing warranted repairs. Even so, should you be able to find a competent, responsive tech, it is going to cost you over $125 to get in the door then hourly thereafter - yes, even if the failed part is under warranty. Your clause shows you are responsible for these ongoing, constant repairs. There are bad chips in the motors and power supplies and the cause for these repeated failures. Not to mention the inconvenience of losing a 1/2 day for every single repair that requires a tech to visit - I've lost a month of days due to issues just in 18mos and while under warranty that I owned these $15,000 Luminettes -- including 6 motors fail and 3 power supplies fail UNDER WARRANTY. These are SUPPOSED to be covered for 5YEARS and not even HD Customer Service will just send me the part(s) I need and let me do my own repairs since the dealers in my area won't respond to warranty calls since they didn't sell -and- the dealer who is obligated to support the warranty repairs refuses to respond. Believe me, I would have purchased something from Budget Blinds to do the job rather than blow this kind of money to be treated this way and have overpriced stationary sheers that don't cover the window properly and don't even work. I thought I was making an investment. Don't make the same mistake many other Hunter Douglas customers and I have. Be advised, these products also become obsolete in less than 10yrs, so one way or the other, you are on your own to manage the problematic window treatments with constant and high-costing failures.

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Reply to: Like someone said above, shop around and get quotes from a few of the local HD dealers. The two in my area had very different prices. The one that had "Budget" in their business name was around $8K more for the whole project! We went with the other company that has a large showroom and has been in business for a long time and saved ourselves $8K for the same order.

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Reply to: The other brands that above are mentioned to be made by HD are indeed…but…in their plant in Mexico Lesser quality fabrics, sloppy glues, plastic instead of metal for some parts etc but nonetheless cheaper if thats the priority

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Reply to: I have been selling Window Coverings for over 17 years. Since we support what we sell, I know what works and what doesn't. Hunter Douglas is most definitely worth the extra money. The least amount of problems, the best product support from the company, and the things last the best. Unless you have food fights in your house, your 20 year old shades will likely look as good as new ones in terms of wear and tear. And you should not be required to use a designer. As someone else mentioned, there should be free measuring which you should take advantage of, to get the perfect fit. Also, a sales person may help if the product you have fallen in love with may not accomplish what you want it to. No one wants a disappointed customer, so we try to make you aware of everything you might not have considered so you can make and informed choice.

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Reply to: Hi. What is your goal besides aesthetics? Total privacy, light filtering, something else? I would not choose Vignette. Rather, I would choose Pirouette or my favorite, Silhouette. Did she discuss Silhouette with you? Of the 3, it offers the lightest "look". It looks like you have enough room for an inside mount. You could do that and add faux Roman shades (decorative only) with an outside mount (although in my opinion, I would hate to hide the beautiful architecture of the top of the windows.

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Reply to: I sell blinds and you are correct, Hunter Douglas blinds are expensive. Comfortex is also a Hunter Douglas Company, Levelor stay away from. The tilters break. Bali is about as low end as you can get, very low quality. Graber and Bali are the same. Call a local window covering dealer. Many times they will have access to off brand vendors and most measure and install for free. In our area we can usually do all this for less than you going to Home Depot and doing it yourself. Here is a link that might be useful: decovan blinds and shutters

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Reply to: I just went thru a mess with Bali and Graber both owned by Spring Window. They use cheapo Fedex whose Troutdale hub is a black hole for anything shipped. Endless threads on this on Reddit. Lowes staff is sick of the complaints regarding Fedex too but execs at Lowes still support these brands. I canceled the order since they could never get it to arrive in full. I waited over and over again for delivery based on Fedex lies. Just done. The Graber brand charges way more than the Bali brand but they use the same parts! The quality control is not great since Spring Window has them made in Mexico and shipped across the border and then uses Fedex zonal shipping which is the cheapest worst black hole shipping method. The beads get sucked into the clutches way too easily. On my testing blackout and solar shades I found the blackout had glue on it which made a tearing sound with closing them. I cleaned off the glue but the glue ruined the finish on the vinyl. They sent a replacement and realized they cut the first one wrong and was narrower! Dealing with Lowes escalation department is a joke and they bully consumers when those customers have had it with all the games. They requested that I either donate the only two blinds and want me to drive around and take care of that or they wanted me to cut them up and send a picture and then put in my garbage. I told them have Fedex come pick them up since they caused most of the problems with all this. I also had to say I will then submit a claim with my credit card if they won't give me a refund. Since they want to play hardball with all this. Lowes and Spring Window do not allow you to pick the shipper either. Also with zonal cheap delivery with Fedex neither Fedex or Spring window scan the packages but load them up on pallets and ship them to regional hubs and then they are scanned and then take the slowest method to the destination. I watched how the tracking stopped at three CA cities that were not far from each other before they headed north to Oregon. Talk about your pony express. Then thru all that they lose them. Won't do that gain and won't use any online retailer that uses Fedex. I don't mind if things take longer but I really do mind being lied to over and over. That was the worst of it. I don't like the fact that Lowes knows there is a problem with Fedex and still puts their customers thru that meat grinder shipper. I am kind of rethinking what to do with this but right now this past year with the pandemic and so many retailers lying and not being honest about availability etc I am just tabling anymore buying until things improve. Also Fedex lost the Amazon contract this past year. I know Fedex likes to say they dumped Amazon but in realty Amazon waited till they were able to deliver 50% of everything before they made their insulting offer to Fedex. The offer was so bad Fedex had to turn it down. So I get the frustration Amazon had with Fedex and made their point that way. But I see their stock dropping and top executives cashing out more stock which they tend to cash out when the stock is doing better. So it wouldn't surprise me if Fedex finally files bankruptcy since it has had financially problems for decades. If Fedex can't be valued more during a pandemic when folks are stuck with using shippers that says a lot about the lack of confidence investors have with this company overall. Fedex saves money subbing out workers and trucks and still they can't get things done right. Whereas UPS hires their own workers, owns their own trucks and pay benefits and the staff have a vested interest to getting things done. Plus they make sure the fleet is has regular maintenance done to keep the trucks in operation. I bet they have less stealing too.

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