New front door problems

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Belle427

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Newport, S Wales.
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We had a new front door and frame fitted in February, it replaced a hardwood door and frame.
We used a local respected company to do it.
We are not at all happy with the product, the finish is poor close up and the structural rigidity of the frame doesn’t seem right, there is quite a lot of movement in it.
We had to have the inner panel of the door replaced last week, for some reason the first one had bowed out at the bottom corner near the letterbox.
The quality seems terrible for the cost of £3715.00 fitted.
We are struggling to decide how to proceed now, can anyone offer any advice on what we can do?
Can we get an independent inspection carried out on the fitted product?
Picture below of said door.
 

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£3700 is not too expensive for a quirky bespoke curved door frame like that. Try and get that in oak or something similar you’d pay over double. It’s a plastic door at the end of the day - it’s never going to feel as solid as your old hardwood door. (Although presumably it was not that solid anymore hence why you replaced it!)

Not quite sure what throwing money at an independent assessor is going to achieve. The person who pays the piper picks the tune.
 
Fair enough.
Quality still seems poor.
The colour on the frame welds is already coming off (been touched up once already) and finish appears patchy.
Door is white on the inside if that makes any difference.
 
a upvc door combo like that is never going to be as rigid as an old wooden set up, wooden uprights would be solid, probably around a 4x3 size ( just an approximation). Even with metal joiners within the frame joiners the upvc frame will still ' bounce ' a little on closing, ufortunately it is the nature of the frame couplings and PVC. The panel with the glass in , is an infill panel , and I hate to say it , they are notorious for splitting and warping, hence we wont't sell them any more, and unfortunately , being Anthracite Grey ( I think from picture ) then it will absorb the heat and expand , any void with just air in will eventually crack/split. I would hope the infll panel has at least a mdf inner ' reinforcing ' . Not sure why the weld colour is coming off, the Anthracite grey film is normally a film from a compnay called renolit ( most Upvc Profiles use Renolit ). If its being touched up witha proper Upvc touch up pen then there is no reason for the colour to be lifting on the welds.... unless there is a substance ( solvent/oil based ) not letting the touch up pen adhere to the pvc weld
 
Thank you.
Luckily we have not paid for it yet, the glass to the left has been replaced 3 times due to cracks or finger prints inside the unit.
We are waiting on the 4th piece now!
General manager claims he has not seen a door insert panel warp before so we will see what happens in the next few weeks when the heat is on it.
 
I'm.worried about cracks in the glass on either side...should be toughened or laminate glass. Laminate will crack , toughened will shatter
 
ronniecabers said:
I'm.worried about cracks in the glass on either side...should be toughened or laminate glass. Laminate will crack , toughened will shatter
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Sorry I should have clarified, the first piece cracked on the day, probably in the van, the others have either been scratched or had finger prints inside the glazing.
would be interested as well in how the inside should be finished, maybe it’s up to us to get the wall skimmed but we will probably forever see cracking.
 

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Regarding the frame rigidity then unfortunately its an inherant problem with that particular pvc extrusion/profile, its called Duraflex ironically and IMO is one of the worsed systems I've ever come across in 30 years of fitting, service and repair, I'm really sorry to say but its crap
 
crank39 said:
Regarding the frame rigidity then unfortunately its an inherant problem with that particular pvc extrusion/profile, its called Duraflex ironically and IMO is one of the worsed systems I've ever come across in 30 years of fitting, service and repair, I'm really sorry to say but its crap
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Pretty much confirms what I think, now the difficult decision of what to do, live with it and forever have issues or try and get it replaced with timber.
Not sure how it works when your not happy with the installed product.
 
Belle427 said:
Pretty much confirms what I think, now the difficult decision of what to do, live with it and forever have issues or try and get it replaced with timber.
Not sure how it works when your not happy with the installed product.
Click to expand...
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OP I am curious as to why you replaced the original hardwood frame and door
 
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I confess that I dislike plastic doors, and my initial disapointment that one had been chosen for a prestigious and fairly expensive job, deepened as I read on.
 
I was curious simply because hardwood doors and frames are normally eminently repairable - one of the joys of timber structures. That, and I'm a wood butcher by trade...
 
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