Driving to Massachusetts to look at granite: where should I go?
Stacey Collins
15 years ago
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weissman
15 years agonhbaskets
15 years agoRelated Discussions
Wayne Dalton i-Drive vs. Belt Drive vs. Screw Drive
Comments (24)IDrive: NEVER EVER BUY A WD IDRIVE! Heres my story. Two doors, each purchased directly from WD local store (company owned). First installer shows up, its her 2nd job since being hired! I ordered IDrive ( HUGE MISTAKE) She had never installed an IDrive before, or a Wayne Dalton system. She had worked for other door companies. After 3 hours a 2nd installer arrived. He was to be with her orginally, but overslept (or somthing to that effect). Ok so by 3:00 pm the have the tracks in and the door panels installed. Inform me that the next day the opener guy will be here to install IDrives! Two days pass...still no installer. Finally, after rearranging my schedule they guarantee me he will be there. Since I have a garage full of tools ( more on that later) I make arragnements to have someone at my home. Again a no-show. Finally I call WD corporate. Within an hour I get a call from the local store: He will be there first thing in the morning. Another day lost, as I am unable to have someone at my home to cover for me. Well at least he shows up. Within 15 minutes he askes me who installed the doors? WD , I say, and he begins to argue with me! Turns out the install was so far out of plumb and that the I drives, he said, would not work. Mostly it turns out the overhead tracks needed to be fine tuned and raised/lowered. How do I know this? Heres where it gets fun. I tell the guy how upset I am about the service and he goes banannas on me. Ranting and raving, complaining about his drunk manager and on and on. I finally tell him he has to leave. I take pictures of the install and the subsequent repairs. I then redo the install myself. I complain to WD headquarters but to no avail - its a local issue and they will have a district manager call me. After about four hours I have the door tracks perfect. I have the openers still sitting there so since no cooperation from WD I go ahead and install them. Not that difficult to do and overall I'm pretty satisfied. Now about the refund for WD failure to install. Make a long story short: Small claims court, pictures are invaluable! Local WD must pay me for my time etc.! Corporate has to cut the check. I get a call from the office asking why they were cutting me a check for a court ordered settlement? Check you own phone records and complaints. To say they were rude isn't even coming close. They send the check ( yes it cleared). Three months later the west door IDrive acts up. I call customer service and a very knowledgeable lady walks me through the set up and viola - works perfect. Two months later the east door acts up. I call again (since I hadn't written down the entire sequence). Again the door works but she asks what part number on the circuit boards I have. Turns out WD knew that an entire production lot was faulty and I have the faulty circuit boards. They agree to replace one. This means I must use the orginal installer -their own company store. Guy shows up, muttering about IDrive crap and POS they are. Within 40 minutes he has the board installed and its working OK. He then trys to collect a service call fee from me. 20 minutes of arguing he learns this was under warranty. And he is ticked at me! Two months later...yep you guess it; the other door fails. I call WD. This time its entirley different. They have my phone number attached to technical service calls. And due to my sucsessful small claims action against they, they bar me from any help! Even their technician was stunned. So much so, he told me, once again what to do and sends me a new circuit board, under warrnaty. He tells me that they have nothing but problems with IDdrives etc. He was sorry that I had been treated so shabbily. He actually apologized for his coporate bosses actions! I install the board upon its arriveal (took about 20 minutes) and for a year both doors worked fine. Then, once again the west Idrive fails. I call tech service ( why bother with the local store?) and they tell me they are not allowed to provode me with any help (phone number). OK..I say - no problem. I wait a week and call from my neighbors house, and with the information taken from the 2nd circuit boards I am able to talk with a service tech. I am told that lot of boards was defective and that I could get a new board under warranty from the local company owned store. I had to chuckle, as the tech had no idea what I had been through. Of course I tried to get the borad from the local store and they refused. Oh I am still, as of this writing under warranty. For the past year one IDrive does not work. I am having the same reocurring problems with the second unit. Fortunately, I only need 1 side of my garage to open. Recently I called the local store and talked with the secretary. She knew who I was and I asked if there was any way I could get the door repaired. She informed that the manager had been fired, and she would figure a way for me to get it serviced as she knew how screwed I had been. She said aI would have to pay a $75 service call though. I described the problem: the motor is running but no engagement: thus no opening or closing. Local gal is qutie familiar with this problem too - motor shaft most likely has broken. "Happens all the time". Oh and before someone says the door is out of balance... its not. I have held off as I am planning on remodeling my home and will address the issue by going with another brand. Now the kicker: I am a licensed General Contractor in two states, Florida and California. I have over 30 years experience in all phases of construction. I have never had to take any supplier to court - ever! In fact, I have never had a lein filed on me, or been sued, and only once have I fired a subcontractor during the course of a project (drinking on the job). 30 years of business! The way I was treated by Wayne Dalton was disgusting. I urge you not to buy the IDrive - it is a piece of junk - even their own employees know this, and for that matter any Wayne Daltin product - period. To this day I am unable to get customer service to assist me via phone; a clear violation of their own warranty and guarantee. Despite WD firing the manager (who was resposnible for the faulty install) and the subsequent small claims suit - they hold me responsible. Remember their corporate philosophy that Wayne Dalton has for its customers. Thanks for reading this. Oh and by the way, our company no longer uses Wayne Dalton products, and I have convinced several other builders ( the local builders assocation) to not use their products. That wasn't all that hard to do --thanks WD. Somewhere in Florida.... As for what we've been installing: Liftmaster. No customer complaints or call backs. Average home value of install: 3.2 mil. Way to go Wayne Dalton!...See MoreWhat Should I Go With???
Comments (11)I had four outdated bathrooms plus an outdated kitchen. Here's what I did which really paid off. I shopped for floor model vanities. I looked at Lowes, HD, but found a vanity in an upscale bath/kitchen store. They had a beautiful, white vanity which was slightly damaged and were removing it from the store. I offered cash and got it for less than anything I saw in HD/Lowes. Its easier to bargain with private stores. I started looking at stone yards and found two marble tops which were cut but rejected by the buyer. One had a flaw in one corner, the other had a small chip. They sold it to me for a bargain and included the sinks in white. I bargained hard and won. What I learned, stone yards have tops which get rejected by a buyer. They are stuck with cut tops and will sell them cheap to get rid of them. I almost froze to death, running around stone yards in January, but it paid off. I really got bargain prices. It was worth the frost-bite! These two vanities looked like a million bucks. Again, I offered cash. I bought light fixtures in Target and HD for all four bathrooms. I kept the old vanity in one bathroom but replaced the hardware and top. I bought an inexpensive piece of granite at HD with the sink and put it on top. Replaced all the faucets on all sinks from HD/Lowes. I did not remove the floor tile from any of the bathrooms. The worse bathroom and the oldest (50's) was in our basement family room. It was green tile everywhere. All the fixtures were green. I put the bargain vanity with marble top there. I left the green tile but replaced the toilet (HD) with a white one. Had the green tub refinished, white (turned out great). Pulled off the old shower doors and hung a white shower curtain. Kitchen, I did replace the stove/oven and refrigerator. I left the old dishwasher. Cleaned the tile and dug out the old grout (mess). Changed the light fixtures. Changed the hardware on the old oak cabinets. Painted the walls. What I wanted, was to make the house look like the buyers could live with it until they decided to make changes. I didn't want it to appear as if changes had to be made immediately. I wanted it 'move-in.' It did sell in a terrible market and we were pleased with the price we got. I believe the changes helped sell the house faster and made it harder for the buyers to ask for a low-ball price. Jane...See MoreVirginia Mist Cost
Comments (15)Wow! Thanks everyone for all the advice!! To answer some questions.... The Granite quote is not from Lowes, it is from our KD but she asked that we not publish/post any of her designs. I know strange since we are paying for her, BUT I had a Lowe's design that is exactly the same. So, in order to keep my word I posted that. I expected the quote to be higher bc it came from the KD but it seemed really high to me! We are not planning on using the KD for the granite but were looking at this quote as a starting point. If the starting point is $17k I will be changing my granite selection! HA. Yes, I do live in San Francisco, and yes it is super expensive for everything! GRR. However, we will not be getting any of our kitchen stuff from places in the city, bc of the markup. There are many resources a hour or so away that have much cheaper prices. There are a ton(probably at least 20) of well priced granite yard about 30 mins from the city. Boxerpups and Buehl, The KD did not give us the details of the quote. I tried to figure out the sq ft, I came up with 120 ( width x length, please help). I also forgot to mention in the previous post that both sides of the island and the one side of the peninsula will have a 'waterfall' effect with the granite. As pictured below. I know that adds cost. I was just shocked the VM would be $140/sq ft, especially since my KD stressed this was a Medium priced granite when she gave me the quote. Boxerpups- Thanks for the comparison. It really helped me get a handle on how much VM should cost. We have two sinks, and I donÂt think we are doing any special edging. I am going to try and do what you did with white veins Âmatching up to hide seams. We are willing to pay extra for no/nearly invisible seams. (However, the KD didnÂt know that when she did this quote) Live wire oak- Like I mentioned above we are not purchasing the granite from a Granite yard in SF, there are actually very few granite yards in SF bc of the issues you mentioned. Thank you for your explanation. I found it very helpful and a great reference! We are not doing any type of granite backsplash, we are doing some sort of tile, that's a whole other issue! I did not think VM was a premium granite, but according to my quote is priced like. My lingering question is what price level is VM? I was under the impression it was mid-level, but based on this quote it seems to be premium. Thanks to everyone for all the advice!...See MoreThree Gals - Should I be the one to Drive?
Comments (25)Hey everybody. Just came across this post and thought I would tell you that the trip was cancelled. We heard from others that several of the good women's stores had closed and there wasn't much else there. Since then we haven't been anywhere but today we planned another trip to another town. I will hold back from driving and see who drives. Squeaky car drove today around the city to browse around the stores and that was good, but the other one has a new car, so we'll see where that gets me. Otherwise I guess I will drive. Will let you know....See Moreerikanh
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15 years agoStacey Collins
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