OK, I need advice fast. A while ago I posted a thread about a door I’m having installed. Anyway, I found the handyman guy (D) on the recommendation of a friend who is really handy himself so I trusted him. D was really, really busy so he recommended a collegue (J) he vouched for. I hired him and he got the job partially done but we discovered that door wouldn’t fit because of the weirdness of my ancient house.
So I special order the right size door but it takes 2 and half weeks to come in. By that time, J is already busy on another job. I totally understand this, these guys need a paycheck and have to keep themselves busy. D is also busy right now. So now J recommends a friend of his (S) who is light on work now. I talk to her, she came out this morning and started installing the door.
So I get home this evening and I see what she’s done and I’m not happy with the work. I specifically ordered a small door to fit in the location and she’s located it two inches behind my fridge when there is room to move it two inches out. She didn’t take out the bottom plate (she took out one bottom plate but there were two because the wall had been reframed) and the sill is sitting an inch above the floor. Actually, it’s not exactly and inch because the door isn’t level. It’s 1 1/4" at one end, sloping to under 1" at the other end. And it’s not the floor, I measured with a level as well. Plus, she used screws to put in the door frame so she left huge holes in the jamb and completely stripped the screws.
Hm, I was gonna ask if I should let her finish the job when she gets here tomorrow but after typing this out, I think I’m gonna tell her, thanks, but I’m going to find somebody else to finish this up. Although, it’s gonna be tough with big holes cut out of my siding that will need to be repaired. Argh. Anyway, does anyone have any opinions?
Uggh. Something similar happened to me, except it was a handyman that did a ton of work, poorly and slowly, and then eventually stopped responding to me. I guess he didn’t like “wasting his time” fixing the messes he made.
I’d drop her like a bad habit, and I’d consider complaining to both D and J to let them know that she did pretty crappy work. They shouldn’t be referring to her because it reflects poorly on them.
No idea how to fix what she did; sorry. Good luck, though.
You’re right but, urgh, I hate conflict. I was worried I was being too picky but I don’t think wanting a level door in unreasonable. D sis say he had some time in a week or so, I think I’ll give him a call tomorrow and have him come out and give me his opinion. Thanks.
I don’t like conflict when it’s about me, but I can totally do conflict for other people. Give me her number; I’ll call her tomorrow and chew her a new one for you.
Man, I wish I could. She’s supposed to be here at 9 with the purchase trim and stair materials (the door is about 2’ off the ground). I think I’m just gonna pay her for her time and the materials (even tho’ it’s gonna cost me more to get it fixed) and be done with it…
That’s what I ended up doing. I had a good friend who came in and repaired what the bad handyman had done. And even knowing how I felt like an idiot for trusting this guy, my friend never once said “I told you so” or “you shoulda.” Huge brownie points for that.
Are you sure there is room? I mean with the stud layout in the walls, not your room. If you hired her just to install a door, depending on the framing situation she may have put the door where it fits to avoid having to build a header/beam to support the door being moved over 2"
Make sure your level is level. It’s easy to do, check the level of your floor noting the location of the bubble, then flip the level around 180 deg and see if the bubble is the same as before. Sometimes those vials get out of whack.
Stripping the screws is not smart, but the holes will likely be plugged when she finishes.
Not knowing your situation, I can’t judge her competency, but this may still work out for you.
Went back and looked at things again last night and it’s worse than I thought. There’s plenty of room to move the door over two inches. Here is a photo of the wall opened up. She cut out more drywall about three inches behind the fridge and then toenailed in a header to the existing stud. On the other side, she put up two king studs and toenailed (with screws, everything was done with screws which are all stripped) a header into one. So instead of having jack studs with a header on top (so the jack studs act as columns), she’s got king studs with a header toenailed in so the only support for the header is the shear strength of the two screws on each side. Luckily, this wall doesn’t carry a ton of load but it’s still very poorly done. She also threw in a random extra cripple stud for no particular reason I can see.
so I told her I’d get everything finished myself this morning, paid her, and I’ve got D coming over to check things out this afternoon. If he thinks I’m being overly picky, I’ll just finisht he freaking door myself. It’ll take me three weekends but framing isn’t rocket science. I want it done right.
But you don’t install doors with screws, you should nail in the jamb and sink the heads so they’re not noticable. The way she used screws for everything makes me thing she’d put on the trim with screws.
Even if that were the case, the handym…er, handywoman should have checked with tremorviolet before proceding. I can’t open the photo link at work, but from her description is sounds like a pretty substandard job all the way around.
It’s hard to prejudge how good a job someone is going to do until you’ve seen them in action, and the typical “handyman” (as opposed to a professional, bonded contractor) is itinerant anyway, and thus hard to track down. Part of the reason, I think, for the explosion in DIY over the last couple of decades (Bob Vela aside) is that at least when you do it yourself you know what mistakes you’re making and you’re willing to put in the time to redo it until you get it, if not right, right enough. And beyond that, there is a serious paucity of experienced, qualified carpenters, even moreso than electricians and plumbers. Most that are any good at all will work for a construction contractor, supervising gangs of semi-skilled workers, as the pay and benefits are much better than working on your own. The complex skills of complicated joinery and finish carpentry as professions are rapidly disapperaing because the labor costs are just too high.
The best bet is probably to do just what tremorviolet plans to do; pay for the work done, take the materials, and either do it herself or find someone else to take a stab at it. As much as confronting the person responsible for the poor work might be satisfying, the likelyhood of getting any money back or a better quality of work done is low and probably not worth the effort involved.
I just installed a door. It was a prehung door package. It came with a bag of screws and instructions that included, among other things, where to place the screws to install the door. I don’t know if that is just my door / manufacturer or what, though, ymmv.
You really should get the header fixed. It is not right from your description. Screws do not provide a lot of shear strength which is what is happening if I understand your description correctly. And it needs some jack studs for crying out loud.
I would bet you also need a building permit for this. I would recommend getting one. The building inspector can make sure the structural changes are all being done correctly. They can pretty much tell you exactly what you need to do - it’s like professional advice for a fairly small fee.
She sounds like a fan of Holmes on Homes. Don’t worry about the use of screws, providing she is using the correct kind (galvanized, or even the more expensive decking screws) they will hold more and hold longer than an equivalent sized nail. With preexisting drywall all around, screws are a better option to avoid banging and missed swings.
It would seem that she is either too weak to push hard enough on the drill or too lazy to predrill into older hard wood, or too cheap to replace the bit based on how many screws were stripped. FWIW, I use big finish nails on doors myself where visible, but I will use one long deck screw for each hinge in an exterior door. They just take the beating better.
The fact that she left the bottom sill in place is the most telling. My impression now is that your initial thoughts are correct. That is substandard work.
Well, I had D come out and look at what she did yesterday and he did say that she was using screws that have a squarish bit so they’re not nearly as stripped as they first appear. But he agreed with me on the rest of the stuff and is probably gonna come by next week and fix it.
BTW, here are a couple of photos for anyone who’s midly interested. I tried to take the first straight on so you can see how much the fridge overlaps the door. There’s no exterior reason for this placement, there’s probably about four inches of clearance outside. You might have to shorten soem trim to move it over but at least the already small door wouldn’t be blocked by the fridge.
In the second, you can see the “header” arrangement. Here’s a good graphic of how door framing should look. Note how the header doesn’t sit atop a jack stud, it’s just screwed in. On the other side, the header (which is not a true double header but just tow seperate 2x4s) is screwed directly into the existing stud. I think this gal had a rough idea of how door framing should look but didn’t really understand it.
BTW, all the foam you see, D applied yesterday when he dropped by. S left it open around the frame overnight and my house is now infested with flies.
I see now how much room there was. Yikes. The “good” news though is that based on the roof line I would assume that that wall is not load-bearing. Which means as unorthodox as that “header” is it’s not holding up any real weight.
“Squarish bits” huh, I guess Robert’s fasteners have made it down to Texas Good to hear.
Good to hear.