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Do Floor Installers Usually NOT Trim Doors?

7K views 20 replies 9 participants last post by  Scuba_Dave 
#1 ·
Just spent $12,000 having all our hardwood floors replaced with 3/4" solid tigerwood. It looks great, the installation team was very professional.

However, we arrived back at the house to find all our doors off their hinges. The foreman said that they needed to be trimmed down before they went back on the hinges, and it was their policy to NOT trim doors.

This was puzzling as the salesman had said that the would trim the doors for us as the floor would be higher. I remember this vividly because we were prepared to go with thinner engineered wood so we wouldn't have to deal with trimming down the doors, and he assured us that they would take care of it.

In the end, we got into a shouting match with them insisting it wasn't in the contract for them to trim the doors down and that he never said they would do it in the first place. We countered with his verbal promise to do it, as well as just common sense that people would expect the doors to be trimmed and re-hung simply as part of the job.

So, is it standard practice for flooring installers to NOT trim doors?
 
#20 ·
Pinwheel & bigsee,

O.K. let us assume no floor scribing, short distance to the cutting area, and a small enough amount of trimming that it does not necessitate any re-gluing. Then lets assume an average of one job per week and 8 doors per job. This equates to 1.3 hours per job that are given away for free. Now multiply that by 52 and you are giving 67.6 hours a year away on one particular function. This doesn't account for time given away moving refrigerators or whatever have you. This is just what you are giving away on the doors. Now let's assume the hourly rate for an experienced carpenter to be $26.65 (may be more or less depending on the area) and multiply that by an average O&P of 69.6%. This equates out to a billing rate of $45.20 per hour (I am using national averages for these numbers) assuming no overtime wages are to be paid that equates out to $3055.52 that is being left on the table as freebies per year. In a five year time span that equates out to $15277.60 of expenses that are not being compensated for. In ten years time you have given away $30554.12. Now out of that number 10% is profit (again national average) so take 30554.12 and subtract 3055.41 and you have $27498.71 that is the total in uncompensated expenses you have paid out of your profit margin. If you give other "nominal" services away in the name of customer relations you could very easily drop your profit percentage to a point that eventually you make no profit at all. The problem with most tradesmen that run companies is they never take the time to take any basic business classes to learn how to run their company. This seems to be the situation in pinwheels case. The problem with most customers is they do not understand the true costs of operating a business and undervalue every bodies time but their own.
 
#6 ·
Your point regarding contracts is valid, clearly established, and is understood.

Moving on, I simply want to know what flooring contractors, on the whole, do about trimming doors. Did it need to be specified, or did the contractor do it as a matter of course?

This could be answered by flooring contractors themselves, or people who have had their floors re-done.

Thank you.
 
#7 ·
What you may have ran into is the difference between a true flooring pro and a flooring installer sent by the supplier of your flooring. many times they will leave out all the extra steps needed to keep the quoted price lower so you buy. Once you made the decision to use them it is easy to upsell.
 
#8 ·
If the contract is to install the flooring and no mention is made to trimming the doors in the contract then you should not expect the doors to be trimmed. What Bob just explained in post 7 is dead on. This is why you need to make sure you compare apples to apples and have everything you expect to have done in writing. It doesn't matter what anybody here has to say about whether or not flooring guys trim the doors if it was not specified in your contract to be done.

If the foreman said it is not their policy to trim doors down then that is probably the truth. The guys doing the install are probably getting paid by the hour so I doubt that they would mind getting some extra time on their paycheck. Remember when dealing with salesman they usually over sell and under deliver. If you want it done, get it in writing. Otherwise do not assume it will get done.
 
#9 ·
I live in Missouri and have worked al over the Missouri-Kansas area. In this part of the country, flooring installers do not usually trim doors. They are normally left for a carpenter to trim. Of course this may be entirely different in other parts of the country.
 
#11 ·
When I was still in business I would trim the doors. Break out my jamb saw and go. I would also bid accordingly. A few of my jobs were going behind crews like yours who outbid me and doing exactly what you needed done.

A lousy job hangs around far longer than the sweetness of a low price lasts.
 
#12 ·
I'm an independent flooring contractor in NE Missouri. I trim doors. If it's one or 2 doors, it's part of the original bid, I don't upcharge for it. If it's a house full of doors, I'm billing by the hour for the extra work. But seriously, how long does it take to trim a door? It's already off the hinges to lay the floor. 10 minutes tops/door.

IMO, your contractor just cost himself far more than he saved, cause how likely are you to refer him to your friends & family now?

We work primarily off of word of mouth advertising & I can't afford to leave a job with a client dissatisfied, especially over something as minor as trimming a few doors.
 
#14 ·
10 minutes seems low to me. To many factors to consider to throw out time estimates here. Some of those factors could be: type of door (Masonite, wood, luan, french), number of doors, how far and how many stories the doors have to be moved to get them to the cutting area, whether the door will require fine tuning via scribing after the initial trim. Then lets not forget time to remove and rehang the door (that alone is at least five minutes total).

Any time not accounted for is money lost. When you tag on operating overhead and lost profits that can really start to add up fast. The more people insist on hiring the lowest bidder with no regard towards comparing apples to apples bids the more of this kind of unprofessional work appear. In order to be the lowest bidder they must cut costs somewhere. The OP should consider himself lucky that he got away with it being something as minor as trimming the doors to size. Again get it in writing or do not assume it will be done.
 
#16 ·
Im with PINWHEEL. The company is doing themselves a dis-service. If you spent $12,000 with them they should, in my opinion, be willing to trim 6 or 7 doors.

Kind of a common sense thing. They took the doors off you would think they are gonna put them back on.

Might not of been in the contract, but they are the ones in the business and not the homeowner. It really isnt much to trim a door, for them to make a fuss over. Figure they send an employee there for 4 hours hell say 8 hours. Its only a couple hundred dollars. they probably ckeared at least $2500 - $3500 on the flooring job, if they supplied the flooring, materials and labor.

just tell them you ae unhappy and surprised that the doors werent rehung. Tell them the floors are beautiful and what would it take to get the doors re-hung.

Good luck keep us posted on the outcome.

p.s when I put our floors in I didnt think about trimming the doors. It was no big deal, but it definately WAS NOT in my wifes contract! I ended up doing it as a FREEBIE :whistling2:
 
#19 ·
I'm the original poster -- all this feedback has been really great. Everyone has made very valid points. I especially feel the point about leaving a customer satisfied is extremely important.

My Dad has been a General Contractor for over 40 years. He would have done this for me if he wasn't retired. When I told him about what happened, he was completely appalled and felt that the job "wasn't done". That's how I felt too. Many times when I was younger and working with him, he'd do things for people just because they asked. If they're paying him $50,000 to add onto the house or build a pool, you could bet he would have trimmed a door or helped move a refrigerator if it would have made them happy.

I've been around carpenters all my life, I have seen what skill these men have with a saw, and I bet they could have cut the doors down in less than 5 minutes each. My house was filled with skilled men last week cutting hardwood floors. They installed intricate baseboards with cut-outs for outlets and window frames. You mean to tell me they couldn't rip the bottom off a door? I had 8 doors that needed to be trimmed. In the time we spent arguing with them, it could have been done easily.

As for the posters who talk about "time spent is money lost", I encourage you to re-think the power of goodwill and customer satisfaction. If you bean-count every expenditure of your skill, you will be as popular as a lawyer. So trimming the doors wasn't in the contract. So we didn't think to specify beforehand, although it was verbally understood. We as customers were not satisfied and the contractor could have very easily rectified that by simply taking an hour and doing what we asked for. The guys were there, the tools were there, it would have been easy. But no, they yelled at us and kept pointing to their contract. The poster who pointed out that they lost far more than they gained was exactly right -- we will NEVER refer this flooring contractor to anyone, as nice as the floors are. They could have done many things -- ranging from simply not being verbally abusive to me and my wife to offering a small adjustment on the bill as a goodwill gesture to cutting the doors -- but they didn't. It was pathetic.

Not only will we not recommend them, but we're going to write a factual review on Yelp.com detailing our experience -- in summary, great floors, decent price, but watch out if you have any disagreements. If you think they won't lose business because of that -- think again!

And as a epilogue, the contractor would not listen to all our pleadings no matter what. It got so unpleasant, we just gave him his final check and told him to leave, with the promise that he would not receive any referrals from us. I will be trimming the doors down myself. I suppose I could have withheld payment, but we just wanted it to end, so I suppose he won the battle, but he will certainly lose the war.
 
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