New doors, crap fitting

[10monty]

Looking for some advice re the following please...
We bought 8 new oak doors from Howdens (Dordogne pre finished) plus door packs. Rang couple of chippys and got prices but then spoke to another who couldn't do it but said we need to make sure we get someone who is going to varnish the edges after trimming. Thought best to ring Howdens and they recommended a fitter who's done loads of these doors and is also apparently their showroom fitter. Rang him, he said he has the varnish and knows how to do them. He messaged later saying it would be £600 to fit the doors. Bit more expensive than the other 2 but they never mentioned the varnish so we booked him in.
The other chippys said they needed 2 days and the one we booked said 1 day for 2 of them.
So onto the day of fitting, I was out but missus wfh, he turns up alone around 9am and queries why there's 8 doors when he thought 6. Anyway he gets on with it and he's finished at 330pm.
I get home and we check the doors and can't believe how he's left them. I messaged him and sent a photo, he agreed it looked **** and will come back.
I get an invoice that evening for 600+vat which wasn't mentioned initially. I rang him and told him we're not happy with any if the doors and that they look like they've been rushed. He doesn't disagree and he is due to come back Tuesday to rectify but I don't see how he can. I queried the price and he said he thought it was only 6 doors so the vat was a wau of trying to get more money. So basically he wants snywhere from 80-100 per door for which I'd expect a perfect job. He also didn't fit the extra hinges we bought so each one has 2 not 3 as advised.
So basically what I want to know is how we stand if we're not satisfied after his return visit in regards to not paying him and having to potentially replace doors he's screwed up.
Photos attached, please comment if you think I'm complaining over nothing or if it really is as bad as I think

 

[foxhole]

Needs to sharpen his spoons , looks like he used a blunt one .

 

[opps]

I can see why you are annoyed. I wouldn't be happy.

Mind you, £600 for 8 doors sounds cheap. That said, it depends on how good the frames and door stops are.

Edit- the varnish issue is probably down to the type of varnish originally used. If you sand polyurethane back partially and try to varnish over the rest, you will get a distinct "step". Ideally, the whole edge would have been sanded back and then varnished. The price that you paid wouldn't have allowed for that- not a criticism of you- the chippie should have warned you if it is true that he has fitted loads of those doors.

 

[gonch69]

The price seems the only good thing you got don't pay they need replacing full stop

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The guy who fitted those, is not a genuine tradesman, he is a wood butcher. I'm certainly no joiner, but the 7 doors I fitted in a day here, my first attempt at fitting doors - are much better than that. It looks as if, if you want a proper job done, you may well need another set of doors. Howdens may be responsible and then need to supply the doors FoC..

 

[opps]

The guy who fitted those, is not a genuine tradesman, he is a wood butcher. I'm certainly no joiner, but the 7 doors I fitted in a day here, my first attempt at fitting doors - are much better than that. It looks as if, if you want a proper job done, you may well need another set of doors. Howdens may be responsible and then need to supply the doors FoC..

Howdens are "trade only"- consumer protection laws only cover retail purchases. And when it comes down to it, Howdens will (reasonably) argue that they recommended the guy in good faith. I hope that the OP his told his local branch, and that the said branch stops recommending the guy. It may well be the case that he is a mate of the member of staff that put his name forward.

Hopefully, someone like @JobAndKnock might be able to recommend slightly bigger locks that will negate the need to replace the doors. Personally, I do think the suggestion of new doors is a tad excessive.

 

[opps]

I get an invoice that evening for 600+vat which wasn't mentioned initially.

Legally, if he knows that he is quoting a residential job, he has to quote the price with the VAT included. I would refuse to pay the VAT surcharge because I wasn't told about it at the point of quoting.

I don't agree that you should ask for a full refund, including the cost of the doors but his work is pants. At a minimum, he should be given an opportunity to rectify things but I can see why you wouldn't want to let him.

If push comes to shove, you can use some Unkika coloured caulk to "mask" the gaps. yeah... you shouldn't need to but it is the path of least resistance.

 

[10monty]

Howdens are "trade only"- consumer protection laws only cover retail purchases. And when it comes down to it, Howdens will (reasonably) argue that they recommended the guy in good faith. I hope that the OP his told his local branch, and that the said branch stops recommending the guy. It may well be the case that he is a mate of the member of staff that put his name forward.

Hopefully, someone like @JobAndKnock might be able to recommend slightly bigger locks that will negate the need to replace the doors. Personally, I do think the suggestion of new doors is a tad excessive.

I will be visiting howdens to show them the standard of work they are recommending . I'm hoping it was a genuine recommendation and not a mate who needed the work. Obviously I don't hold howdens responsible but they need to know imo

Legally, if he knows that he is quoting a residential job, he has to quote the price with the VAT included. I would refuse to pay the VAT surcharge because I wasn't told about it at the point of quoting.

I don't agree that you should ask for a full refund, including the cost of the doors but his work is pants. At a minimum, he should be given an opportunity to rectify things but I can see why you wouldn't want to let him.

If push comes to shove, you can use some Unkika coloured caulk to "mask" the gaps. yeah... you shouldn't need to but it is the path of least resistance.

I haven't paid anything yet. We bought the doors ourselves on our builders account as we were having an extension and kitchen done with him
He's coming back Tuesday to rectify. I don't want him here and I don't know how he's going to try sorting it but I feel its better for us if things go further that we've given him a chance

If he was rushing, which I suspect I'd sooner he'd just done 2 or 3 doors and arranged to come back for the rest but he was here from 9 til 330 so hardly any need to rush it.

I am so annoyed. I hate having people round to do jobs I can't anyway and mostly it's ok but this just puts less trust in tradesmen for me

 

[10monty]

The guy who fitted those, is not a genuine tradesman, he is a wood butcher. I'm certainly no joiner, but the 7 doors I fitted in a day here, my first attempt at fitting doors - are much better than that. It looks as if, if you want a proper job done, you may well need another set of doors. Howdens may be responsible and then need to supply the doors FoC..

I don't think I have a leg to stand on with howdens. Tbf to them they only supplied them and a member of staff made the recommendation. I checked the guy out first aswell. His fb page is pretty impressive and all his reviews are decent but now I just don't know.

I'm annoyed more that he's happy to walk away and think we'd be happy with it and maybe expected we wouldn't kick off

 

[Diver Fred]

8 doors in six hours when replacing definitely sounds rushed to me.
Working in a lived-in house I reckon the timings would be around 2 hours per door including the finish touch up. £75 per door to fit is about right where all materials are supplied. He should have told you that VAT is additional. Did you supply 12pair of hinges or just 4 pair? Really you should supply all-new when adding an extra hinge to doors to make sure hinges are all the same size so they don't bind.

 

[johnny2007]

You should've realised he wasn't a real chippy when he showed up with a badger in his bag rather than a router.
Jokes apart, those doors need skipping now.
To be honest, £600 for 8 doors is WAAAAY too cheap.
And to do them in less than a day is just impossible, unless anyone thinks that chewed doors with pencil marks all over them are acceptable.
Your last problem is that he didn't seal the bottom.
Many chippies don't do that for internal doors, especially hardwood, and the doors are fine.
Your only solution now is to get to howdens and see if you can manage to get all of those doors replaced.
The standard of that fitting is not even diy.

 

[10monty]

8 doors in six hours when replacing definitely sounds rushed to me.
Working in a lived-in house I reckon the timings would be around 2 hours per door including the finish touch up. £75 per door to fit is about right where all materials are supplied. He should have told you that VAT is additional. Did you supply 12pair of hinges or just 4 pair? Really you should supply all-new when adding an extra hinge to doors to make sure hinges are all the same size so they don't bind.

I bought 8 door packs that obv had 2 hinges in then got an extra 4 pairs of hinges which he didn't fit for whatever reason, I'm assuming he couldn't be arsed

 

[10monty]

You should've realised he wasn't a real chippy when he showed up with a badger in his bag rather than a router.
Jokes apart, those doors need skipping now.
To be honest, £600 for 8 doors is WAAAAY too cheap.
And to do them in less than a day is just impossible, unless anyone thinks that chewed doors with pencil marks all over them are acceptable.
Your last problem is that he didn't seal the bottom.
Many chippies don't do that for internal doors, especially hardwood, and the doors are fine.
Your only solution now is to get to howdens and see if you can manage to get all of those doors replaced.
The standard of that fitting is not even diy.

I agree, obv I can't check the bottoms without taking them off but I'd be surprised if he's done them.
I don't know how I stand legally if he refuses to replace them tho, never been in this situation before

 

[Deleted member 174758]

If push comes to shove, you can use some Unkika coloured caulk to "mask" the gaps. yeah... you shouldn't need to but it is the path of least resistance.

TBH even that's a bit of a bodge - the carpenter should get it right in the first place. The issue is that therere are uneven gaps around the faceplates, so any repair work will be pretty obvious.

OP, I was amazed at the fact that he got the first one wrong then proceeded to make even more mistakes all the way through!

- He marks everything out (inaccurately) with a (seemingly) blunt pencil which he can't be arsed to clean-off afterwards (ALL).

- He has drilled the holes for the latch body slightly off centre and it can be seen (Pictures 2 RH, 4 LH, 6 RH, 7 RH and 10 RH). The easy way to mark a centre line is to use a marking gauge - they teach you that at school - and you should size the drill correctly to be a snug fit around the body of the latch, and slightly smaller diameter than the face plate. It is not rocket science

- He has made wonky cuts all over the place (Pictures 1 RH/LH, 2 RH, 4, 5, 6 RH, 7, 10 RH top) which has resulted in broken/split grain (Picture 1 LH side - attempted to fill?, 2 LH top, 5 RH top and bottom, 6 LH bottom, 7 RH bottom, 10 LH bottom)

- The recesses are oversize/not square/poorly sized (Picture 1 top, 4 - twisted?, 5, 7 top, 10)

- A number of the face plates do not seem to be centred in the door and in some cases are twisted (e.g. Pictures 4, 5 and 7). If the keep body is twisted the handles might end up stiff whilst twist and/or non-centred latches can lead to doors which when closed rattle, because the keeps don't align properly

- Chisel cuts extend past the recess (Picture 2 LH top and bottom, 5 RH, 10 RH top)

- Handle grub screws not driven flush (Picture 2). That might result in a handle pulling off

- Keep badly installed and/or damage to door lining/casing? (Picture 3)

- Door edges planed off, but no attempt made to sand-in then relacquer (Pictures 8, 9)

This is not a comprehensive list, but it seems to me that he doesn't understand how to set-out lock face plates on the edge of a hardwood door - it's not that difficult with the correct tools - a mortise and marking gauge, a square and a knife. As said above, the way he works is just plain slipshod. It should, however, be possible to hide most of the damage by glueing and cramping the cracks, and by fitting new sprung latches of a design with a larger face plate, although a bit of filler might still be required here and there. At this stage correcting these errors by hand might be a tad awkward, so I'd probably make-up a little router jig and use a small router to recut the face plate recesses in the door edge (which will be a lot more consistent), and I'd then use a sharp chisel to clean-out the corners (TBH for 8 doors I'd have considered that in the first place). So all is not lost, but I wouldn't let the guy near your doors again as I doubt that he's capable of effecting the rework to a high enough standard

 

[10monty]

TBH even that's a bit of a bodge - the carpenter should get it right in the first place. The issue is that therere are uneven gaps around the faceplates, so any repair work will be pretty obvious.

OP, I was amazed at the fact that he got the first one wrong then proceeded to make even more mistakes all the way through!

- He marks everything out (inaccurately) with a (seemingly) blunt pencil which he can't be arsed to clean-off afterwards (ALL).

- He has drilled the holes for the latch body slightly off centre and it can be seen (Pictures 2 RH, 4 LH, 6 RH, 7 RH and 10 RH). The easy way to mark a centre line is to use a marking gauge - they teach you that at school - and you should size the drill correctly to be a snug fit around the body of the latch, and slightly smaller diameter than the face plate. It is not rocket science

- He has made wonky cuts all over the place (Pictures 1 RH/LH, 2 RH, 4, 5, 6 RH, 7, 10 RH top) which has resulted in broken/split grain (Picture 1 LH side - attempted to fill?, 2 LH top, 5 RH top and bottom, 6 LH bottom, 7 RH bottom, 10 LH bottom)

- The recesses are oversize/not square/poorly sized (Picture 1 top, 4 - twisted?, 5, 7 top, 10)

- A number of the face plates do not seem to be centred in the door and in some cases are twisted (e.g. Pictures 4, 5 and 7). If the keep body is twisted the handles might end up stiff whilst twist and/or non-centred latches can lead to doors which when closed rattle, because the keeps don't align properly

- Chisel cuts extend past the recess (Picture 2 LH top and bottom, 5 RH, 10 RH top)

- Handle grub screws not driven flush (Picture 2). That might result in a handle pulling off

- Keep badly installed and/or damage to door lining/casing? (Picture 3)

- Door edges planed off, but no attempt made to sand-in then relacquer (Pictures 8, 9)

This is not a comprehensive list, but it seems to me that he doesn't understand how to set-out lock face plates on the edge of a hardwood door - it's not that difficult with the correct tools - a mortise and marking gauge, a square and a knife. As said above, the way he works is just plain slipshod. It should, however, be possible to hide most of the damage by glueing and cramping the cracks, and by fitting new sprung latches of a design with a larger face plate, although a bit of filler might still be required here and there. At this stage correcting these errors by hand might be a tad awkward, so I'd probably make-up a little router jig and use a small router to recut the face plate recesses in the door edge (which will be a lot more consistent), and I'd then use a sharp chisel to clean-out the corners (TBH for 8 doors I'd have considered that in the first place). So all is not lost, but I wouldn't let the guy near your doors again as I doubt that he's capable of effecting the rework to a high enough standard

Thanks for the detailed reply. I don't want him back at all but I think if we are going down the route of not paying him and asking for door replacements then it'd better from our point of view that we give him the chance to rectify.
If he can't get it right first time and is happy to walk away and leave it like that then I have zero confidence in him to repair it.
These aren't even all the pics, the work he's done on the frames isn't much better tbh