I initiated the process with HD on 6/20/2011. Here I am on 8/27/2011 and I’ve got a set of double doors still sitting in my garage that have not been installed yet.

Here’s the process so far:

1. Some woman from R&D Installations in Kansas City calls me to set up a measurement. She then asks how old my house is. I said it was built in 1976. She then says that it more than likely has lead paint and they would have to test for it. If it does have lead paint, then they won’t install the doors. If this is the case, I just wasted $30 and my time in waiting for nothing. But I already knew that my house doesn’t have lead paint anyways. About 4 days later, I call the woman at R&D and left a message to confirm that there was indeed an appointment set up to measure. She never returned my call. Apparently, these people at R&D do not answer the phone and they will not return voice mails.

2. Without receiving confirmation, luckily some guy does come out to measure my doors. Didn’t bother to test for lead.

3. Several days later, HD calls and tells me to come in and complete my order for the doors. But I would have to talk to the expiditer to do this.

4. I go to HD a couple nights later, and the expiditer was not there. Someone was in the door department, but was already helping several others.

5. I go to HD again the next day on my lunch break to finally get the order finalized. Of which could have been done over the phone. But the types of doors I had wanted were already specified up front when I first came into HD before setting up the installation. All that was needed were the right measurements. So that whole process of just “finalizing” my order wasted 3-4 days because it could have been done over the phone.

6. A week and a half later, doors finally arrive. HD calls and says that someone else will notifiy of installation.

7 A couple days go by, R&D installation in Kansas City calls me to set up an installment time. It was set for a week later on a weekday. So I would have to take the day off of work. They told me that the installer would call me between 9 and 11 a.m. to let me know they are on their way.

8. 8/3/2011. Day of installation. Installer calls at 10 am. He tells me he is on his way with my doors. He shows up in pick-up truck. No company name on the truck or any indication anywhere that the guy even works for anyone. I can already see that my double doors are literally just sitting face down in the back of some pick up truck amongst some other junk in the back of this guy’s truck. My doors looked like construction debris that was just tossed into the back. Some guy that weighs about 350 lbs, gets out of the truck. He grabs my doors and pulls them over the side of the truck dragging the doors aross the side. He then shows me a scuff on the doors that looked like the fiberglass had melted or something. I think he damaged the doors, but he claimed he didn’t. There was absolutely no way of proving who was at fault. But I decided just to accept the doors anyhow and I would take care of the damaged area since it wasn’t that bad because I was painting the doors myself. The doors were unfinished.

7. The installer then says, “Oh wait, there’s no sill extender with the door. Sorry, I can’t install the door”. He leaves. And the doors are left sitting in my garage and I missed a day of work for nothing. At that point, I got knots in my stomach and I was becoming very upset.

8. I decided to paint the doors while waiting for the “sill extender” to be delivered. I suspected that having a “sill extender” is optional and that the installer lied. Anyhow, it took almost 2 weeks for the part to be delivered to HD. HD should have overnighted the part, but they chose standard UPS shipping so that I as a customer would have to wait.

9. Part finally comes in on 8/11/2011. R&D Installations calls me on 8/14/2011 to set up a time for next week to install the door. I ask them if they have a Saturday time. The woman at R&D said yes, and set me up to have them installed a week and a half later on a Saturday.

10. Saturday 8/27/2011 rolls around. It’s early morning, I’m finally relieved and excited that I’m going to get my double door installed and I could finally add more curb appeal to my home.

11. My phone rings at 8:45 a.m.. It was the installer and I answered it expecting to hear him say that he was on his way.

12. The installer told me, “I hurt my back and can’t install your doors. Can we reschedule for next Saturday?”.

I just hung up the phone. I am super f-in pissed off. I spent $1300 for nothing. It’s been over 2 months, and I’ve got doors just sitting in my garage. The money I paid up front for installation is just being kept by someone else. So immediately after hanging up the phone, I marched straight down to HD to demand a full refund. I was hot. The guy here just enters in some notes into the computer and said that I would have to talk to the “expiditer” on Monday.

The situation is, everything is 3rd party when it comes to getting something istalled through HD. No one in the entire process is responsible for anything and nobody cares if you have any problems. The installers that are used are typically the types of individuals that are completely unreliable and do not want to work. I suspect that they collect a fee just for showing up to a house. So when they get to a house, the will purposely look for an excuse not to install anything just so they can leave and collect a fee. No one from R&D to HD knows or cares about what is going on with your project. I have never been offered store credit or a discount off the installation for my troubles. Nothing. I’m a reasonable person, I’m patient, and I don’t expect perfect work. But even i am absolutely livid and upset and have been angry the entire weekend. And part of it is that I have dealt with the truck-driving low wage installer types of individuals in the past. They typically will always delay delivery on something or not show up to a job because “their back hurts” or “their truck broke down”. And then if they do show up to do something, there is always something with the work that wasn’t done right.

My only options now are to with either, send the doors back that I have painted already for a full refund. Get the installation portion refunded and find an installer myself. Or at least get store credit or a discount and continue to wait for installation. But I am going to push for HD to not use R&D Installation services and to get the “expiditer” to find someone else in the KC area to get this done. I’m upset, and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

For what it is worth I find the staff at my local HD in Florida are usually extremely helpful and most will go out of their way to give excellent customer service. This is in stark contrast to the staff in my local HD in Quebec who sem to run away as soon as a customer starts to walk towards them.