Windows

“Among the many thousands of things that I have never been able to understand, one in particular stands out. That is the question of who was the first person who stood by a pile of sand and said, "You know, I bet if we took some of this and mixed it with a little potash and heated it, we could make a material that would be solid and yet transparent. We could call it glass." Call me obtuse, but you could stand me on a beach till the end of time and never would it occur to me to try to make it into windows.” - Bill Bryson

The window saga lives on at our house.

Last spring we got three quotes to replace the windows and doors on the house. None of them was cheap but we ended up going with the most expensive of the quotes based on a recommendation from our friends and the reputation of the company. We paid half the money as a deposit in May. The balance was due on installation scheduled for June.

As with most house renovations, the June installation date got pushed out to the middle of July. Finally installation day arrived. It was supposed to be a three-day process. Two of the windows came in at the wrong size and had to be reordered. The glass for the front doors was also the wrong size so it also had to be reordered. That was supposed to take two weeks. There was a great deal of damage to the walls of the house. We were left with gouges, holes and badly chipped plaster. The windows at the side of the house that were supposed to be frosted, were installed with plain glass. Some crank handles were missing. The foot lock on the basement patio door was not installed. The installers deeply gouged my kitchen cabinetry with a nail. The windows that were installed were left filthy and on, and on, and on. The company promised to make everything right - they would send someone to repair the walls, provide the missing handles, send in a window cleaning company, repair the kitchen cabinet and get the wrong sized windows and the front door installed within two weeks. None of that happened. Four weeks went by before the windows and doors were installed. The morning of that installation, the installers informed me we had to provide our own hardware - something they neglected to tell us when we signed the contract.

I continued to be in contact regularly about all the other items that went undone. It wasn't until I got a little nasty that we finally received the missing handles, the windows were finally cleaned and the holes patched (though he made a huge mess that gave us a large re-painting job in almost every room). The frosted glass issue was dismissed by the company as our problem. Turns out they had neglected to put the cost in the final estimate (though it appeared earlier versions) so if we wanted the frosted glass we would be required to pony up another $500. We were already in for $30K and I told them to forget it. They didn't care that it was their mistake. An expert came in to look at the kitchen cabinet to decide on how to repair it. The cabinet cannot be replaced as the manufacturer declared bankruptcy a couple of years ago and the cabinets have a custom stain. He said he would be back the following week to do the repair. The foot lock was still not installed so a senior staffer came to do that. It would seem, however, that it was not installed because the door frame in that sliding glass door had been improperly drilled. When trying to redrill the door, he accidentally touched the glass which caused the glass to shatter. It would take a week to get new glass. A week later I was advised that the door panel would have to be replaced. It would take four to six weeks. No one came that week to fix the cabinet.

Nine weeks later, today was the day the cabinet was to be fixed and the patio door panel replaced. It was arranged late last week when I called them once again and implored them to finish the job. They were to be no later than 9:00 A.M. and would be done no later than 10:00 A.M. as I had an appointment scheduled downtown at 11:00. They came at 9:25. The cabinet repair person told me he didn't know if he could do the job as I hadn't given him enough time. Then he told me he didn't know how to do the repair. He wasn't prepared for the extent of the damage that had been done. He couldn't get the right stain. He didn't know how he would get behind the wood valance to do the sanding. He was afraid he would do more harm than good. I told him not to do it if he wasn't sure, suggesting he get on the phone with a more experienced repairman. About ten minutes later he told me he knew what to do. God help me. My dark wood cabinet now has a wide, white swath across it. He said he didn't know if it would work. He will come back tomorrow and try to fix it. I wanted to cry.

Then the window installer came upstairs. The new window panel was the wrong size. It would have to be reordered. I wanted to cry.

I sat down to write a terse email to my company contact. The phone rang. It was a senior manager at the company calling to apologize for the latest screw up. He would have to call the manufacturer and find out when we could get a new patio door panel. He would call me back right away. I lost it. I yelled, not something I like to do. I cursed, not behavior that made me proud. I threatened to bring in a lawyer. Ultimately I gave him my cell phone number so he could call me right back as I needed to leave for my appointment.

When I returned home at 4:00, he had not called, not on my cell or the land line. I beefed up the message I was working on in the morning and sent it out. Less than five minutes later, he called. He wasn't going to leave work today without taking care of it, without a plan, without some answers. The manufacturer did not return his call. Could I just give him 24 hours to make it right? More dialogue, more imploring, more anger, more resignation. He got his 24 hours. The clock is ticking.