I have had doors on order since October, from Simpson Door Co. They are a 2 leaf set, glass on top, panel on the bottom, to be built to the architects specs. They have come in wrong, twice. On the third try, they were to be shipped air freight, and I was to have them this week. They are on a truck, and I won’t have them until later next week, if I am lucky. Not even an apology from Simpson, or Reeb Millwork, the distributor. It has been a case unreturned phone calls, empty promises, and no customer service of any type.
I am starting two houses, with a total of 70 doors, and I don’t know who to use. The specs call for stile and rail construction, paint grade. MDF is acceptable, or a combination of wood and MDF.
Any suggestions?
Replies
Greetings Dave,
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again which will increase it's viewing.
Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
Parolee # 53804
Looking for an designer that can do shop drawing for different woodworking projet
Looking for an designer that can do shop drawing for different woodworking projet
Your profile is blank - what part of the country?
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
He's getting them through Reeb Millwork, which distributes from east central up through lower northeast. Reeb's main location is in Bethlehem, PA, not far up from Philly.
The problem I always saw in dealing with custom designs for millwork through distribution houses like Reeb, is that the customer (a builder) is often as clueless as both the lumberyard salesman and distributor salesman about how to properly handle stuff like this. That is, unless he did the design himself (the builder).
In this case, the builder is telling us the archy designed the doors.
It's like the game you play around the campfire when you are a teenager. Whisper a story around, one set of lips to one ear at a time, and by the time it gets around, it's a different story.
Items like this, IMHO, require that the manufacturer make submittal (shop) drawings, and that those drawings transmit back to the architect, and that fabrication cannot proceed without the shop drawings being approved.
Having spent a lot of time in places like Reeb, Harvey, many branches of Huttig from coast to coast, and others, I can tell you that this process is often ignored or shortcutted.
And what happens is what has been explained and bemoaned here.
If you want truly custom doors, it is best to deal direct with one of the outfits that specialize in this and do it right. Craftsmen in Wood, Phoenix, AZ, is a good choice.
"Items like this, IMHO, require that the manufacturer make submittal (shop) drawings, and that those drawings transmit back to the architect, and that fabrication cannot proceed without the shop drawings being approved."" You got it. I have dealt with Simpson for a long time ( they are just up the road from me!) Any more it is a simple PDF file that can be sent out to everyone concerned, for smaller jobs, bigger ones get PDF for preliminary and hard copies for final.
I am located in Orange County, NY. As far as ordering doors, shop drawings were submitted, their drawings returned and approved, and two times the doors came in wrong.
Most recent problem concerning a Trustile cored, 45 minute Fir fire door, the panels weren't built according to the drawing. I even had the sales rep from the distibutor come on site, inspect the doors that were to be duplicated, and confirm the specs. Wrong!
I have been doing this for about 35 to 40 years, and am seeing a real decline in our industry, both in the quality of the labor force, and the quality of the suppliers. I am glad I only have a few more years of this, because a see a continued decline.
We are seiously considering making all our own doors. I just did four for this same house, with radiused heads, and they came out quite nice, certainly rivaling the doors from Simpson. The cost was about the same as a custom shop would charge, with out the 12 week lead time.
http://www.aesampsonandson.com/
is who I use for the best stuff. Might be far for you but at least it's in this corner of the country.
Sometimes we build our own interior doors too.Know what you mean. Too many think of the Walmart and HD of building supplies
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I was also going to suggest making your own. We had some Simpson Doors spec'd for the house we just finished. My door vendor said he would place the order but he would not guarantee any delivery. His associate had an order that was six month's backlogged. We ended up building the doors ourselves. Turned out great and took only one week. Once your figure out the first one, the next thirty are straightforward.
If you don't do it yourself, surely there must be several good shops that can build them for you. My uncle did some work with a big shop in Portchester and surely Jerrald Hayes would know of a decent shop (maybe his own) that could build them for your.
Bruce
Edited 4/8/2007 7:12 pm by Hiker
Been Going through the same type of stuff with Simpson for months so I feel for you......Have told Architect to NOT ever spec Simpson again. It would have been less costly to have doors custom built locally with all the hold ups and bs from that manufacturer.
Must be pretty big houses. :-)
I would think your decision would be largely dependant on what your local lumber yard sells or can get. Needing 70 doors you can't be playing these games... Further, needing that many, at least a few are going to come in damaged, handed wrong, or whatever so you are gonna have at least 1 or 2 order-backs with an ASAP time frame.
Re your current order - since October - you have WAY more patients than I.
How about if you tell us what specific area you live in. Maybe there will be someone here that lives near you and knows of a good yard to deal with.
Little story - I was doing a group of houses and needed 85 prehung doors. I ordered them all at the same time. Order came all messed up. Handed wrong, doors in wrong in wrong houses, etc, etc, the worst of which was I was missing 6 they said they shipped. I got on salesmen's case - he said "Some of the doors must of been stolen". My response "Yea, how come I got 4 extra 2-8s?" His response "You shouldn't order so many doors at once. It mixes us up". I had to laugh at him. A salesmen telling me not to buy so much stuff. :-) Next time I ordered I ordered 1 house a day for 5 days in a row - or whatever. Delivery guys had to make a separate trip for each house. Guess what though? They all came in correctly. :-)
I use all stock door styles and sizes of doors though. Usually prehung.
BTW - when you said >> to be built to the architects specs. << exactly what does that mean? Non standard sizes and weird layouts? Prehung or not? This would make a big difference in someone's answer.
We have Rogue valley doors in doug fir (tung oil finish) on our first floor and Masonite MDF doors (painted) on the second. The doug fir complements the doug fir on our Loewen windows.
http://www.roguevalleydoor.com/products.asp
Good luck
Not the cheapest, but reasonably fast and 100% reliable:
http://walzcraft.com/index.html
I've been happy with rogue valley doors.
"it aint the work I mind,
It's the feeling of falling further behind."
Bozini Latini
http://www.doorsandtrim.com/
I got all my doors and most all my trim from them. Great stuff. Really ggod quality and dependability but if you do use them be sure to get "everything" all at once.
You know, not to generalize, but the 29% of people who still support President Bush are the ones who love to pronounce themselves more patriotic than the rest of us. But just saying you're patriotic is like saying you have a big one. If you have to say it, chances are it's not true.
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