Daily Home Renovation Tips

However, everything is not perfect and we identify these so you can be aware of them for yourself should you be having your own front door replaced.

First, we already showed one of them to you. Let’s show you the picture again of the inside for the second door.

Notice that all of the wood used for the second door is totally bare. It has not had even one coat of white primer paint applied. This results in more work for us, the home owner. We now have to prime all of the bare wood before we can paint it.

This includes the bare wood of the door frame surrounding the actual door as shown above. Yes, with the first door, all of this wood had a coat of primer applied at the factory.

More work for me. Don’t be fooled by the flash of the camera; the inside of the door itself (on the left) is actually black) while the inside of the door frame (the area with the right part of the hing) is actually bare wood. If you look closely you can see it. Yes, very nice black door hinges. Thanks very much, Mike for those.

Second look at the pictures below of the nice and wide crown molding. If you look carefully you will see lots and lots of finishing nails. Finishing nails are the type without any head so they can be sunk into the wood. Well, if you can see them in this picture it means that the finishing nails were not properly sunk into the molding.

So, now I have even more work compared to the first installed door. I have to now sink most of the finishing nails to have them beneath the surface of the molding. This is not hard to do; it is, however, very time consuming. You have to do this slowly so you don’t damage the wood of the molding itself.

And, them more time again will be required by me to apply wood filler into all of the holes caused by the finishing nails. And, once the wood filler has dried, I will then have to sand the excess filler so it is smooth and not distinguishable from the wood and lines of the crown molding itself.

Again, not hard to do; it is just more and more and more time that I need to invest in finishing the interior door frame. I don’t recall having to do this with the frame for door #1. All I have to do is to prime and paint the molding.

Speaking of the crown molding at the top, the installations of both doors saw the installers forget to apply caulking on the inside. What you are seeing below is the extent of the gap between the wall and the top inside area of the upper crown molding.

Leaving this gap would be a situation of possible air leakage. Air leakage from a home causes cooled air in the summer to leave and heated warm air in the winter to also leave the house. In both cases the result is a greater consumption of non-renewable resources (electricity to run the air conditioner longer in the summer and natural gas for us to run the heater longer in the winter).

So, I now need to go out and purchase another tub of interior caulking for my caulking gun and get to it. Again, more time and effort for me.

Lastly, the installers for door #2 removed the glass insert from door #1 but let it lying on our front lawn most of the afternoon on a very sunny and hot day. Yes, you know the result. Here is what I found the morning after the installation of door #2. More work for me now….perhaps the grass will come back or perhaps I need to now buy some grass seed and plant to replace the grass that was burned by the sun through the glass insert. Time will tell.

Remember, when you order a replacement door do not expect the installer to do everything for you. You will still have your share of finishing work on your hands. How much time and effort you will have to undertake to me is a direct result of the installer. Watch out for this when you have your own replacement door.

In our next article in this series, we will reveal what occurred when we notified Amy, the retailier’s customer service representative at head office about our ‘dis-satisfaction’ with certain aspects of the replacement door.

To continue with the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 31.