New house, no problem! (?)
October 30, 2017
[Part 11]
Let the nesting and relaxation begin!!
Well, not quite.
For one thing, If You Give A Mouse a Cookie …..
We chose not to do work on the exterior or much of the interior – nothing that wasn’t critical to function was updated. I can learn to live with anything, after all! Which is plain truth but it turns out I underestimated how badly it would stand out like a sore thumb.
Never mind that, though. I can ignore the sore thumb(s).
You would think that all the new stuff would be amazing to use but if you’re a pessimist or a realist, you’d know that another way to describe new stuff is “things that haven’t broken you yet”.
The refrigerator developed moisture problems two days in, a brand new window is growing a wicked crack down the middle, the range hood sounds like we’re trying to blend razor blades, and the microwave would be better suited to a career as a nuclear reactor. Oh and I have no idea how to work the thermostat, ten days in. Or why does the oven make those really strange noises? And two sets of the new blinds just broke.
Can I just say that most of my old stuff worked just fine?
This is like the time I replaced my laptop a couple years ago. Remember that? Months of woe later, we’re finally running smoothly, but once in a while, it still just shuts off for no reason. Cute. Real cute.
Thankfully, everything is still under warrant, or returnable in the case of the microwave, so we’re still able to get these taken care of it but good grief.
So here comes the helpful part of the post!
What companies would I recommend and which should you stay the HALLELUJAH away from?
Milgard windows – said to be the best product on the market, comes with a lifetime warranty. Everyone said they were the best quality, and best warranty. It turns out there’s a good reason it’s a lifetime warranty. When I contacted them for a replacement window, they gave me an appointment four months later. They ignored follow-up emails asking for an earlier appointment when I saw the crack in the window growing. I’ve tried getting them on social media instead, but it’s been weeks and nothing has come of it. We’d had Milgard windows before with no problems for nearly a decade but from my initial experience looks to me like their actual warranty service is poor. Definite thumbs down on that side of things.
Jenn-Air refrigerator – middle of the road fridge, set me up with an appointment immediately on reporting the issue via their chat function. They goofed on the appointment which is actually serviced by a different company – Electric Express Appliance – but the repair itself was fine. The guy was a little forgetful but overall, called before he arrived, did the job, and was neat and polite. Thumbs-up, worth extending that warranty with them.
Elica range hood – it supposedly worked at installation but the hood quit on us when we moved in. Turns out they sold us someone else’s defective hood. Then the Elica warranty people were nearly impossible to get hold of, we got the run around for several days, and the store was crappy, too. Going with a small retailer, in this case, was a bad idea.
Blinds.com – we ordered our blinds sight unseen, without color samples, going off our own measurements. Which part of that isn’t calculated to make me nervous? It took a good long while to get them delivered, and two of them broke the day after installation. For some reason, that didn’t surprise me greatly. The surprise was this: To report the problem, I was juggling the chat and JB at the same time which just made it that much more challenging, but the chat rep was excellent. She took down the problems and submitted a replacement order within 10 minutes of conversation, probably less. It took three weeks to actually take receipt of them but still, they were replaced without fuss. There’s that much at least.
Latest developments update: The biggest problem we had with Blinds.com is that we ordered a cordless version for the windows that are reachable by an enterprising toddler, and y’all know JuggerBaby is nothing BUT opportunistic, and it kept failing. It didn’t matter how much we adjusted the tension, the blinds got stuck in the deployed position. We had to resort to removing the entire blind set each morning so that JB could get the morning light ze needs to wake up at a reasonable hour and that was a total pain, and that may have loosened the brackets too much because one day when the kids were excitedly jumping on the bed, the whole roll came crashing down! They escaped injury but that was pure luck. Go with the corded versions, y’all.
A crack down the window, what!?
We used the Handwerk Shade Shop for blinds. It took us forever to get the final product, but we wanted a certain look and the blinds themselves are very well made. It’s clearly a small shop and the folks are real sweet. Harvey windows because that’s the standard here (good warranty, very responsive if there’s an issue). For appliances, I spent days combing through WireCutter, Consumer Reports, and product reviews. We got all the appliances from a local retailer that was generally helpful but hired out the worst delivery crew.
A crack out of NOWHERE! And even after contacting them on social, we STILL haven’t gotten any better appointments. Right now, I would seriously not recommend them.
Awesome that your standard window manufacturer is actually responsive.
I had good luck with blinds.com. We got blackout cordless cellular shades in a couple rooms, and some corded roman blinds on two smaller windows. I really really like the cordless blinds! But, I don’t have an LB at home!
Windows are on our “someday” list, so keep me posted on how the service turns out!
I love the cordless ones in theory, we just haven’t had good luck with this one set. But they’re responsive so that makes up for a lot.
Milgard however, right now, I’d say stay far away from them. I’ll update if I EVER get a better appointment with them than several months out.
Gosh, all that sounds like a real pain! I’ve now lived in this house longer than any other in my life (21 years) and we have decided it is our ‘forever’ home. I hang on to appliances of any size for as long as possible (even ugly ones) because my experience is that the older it is the more reliable. Like you, I can get used to quite a bit. However, there does come a time when the appearance of the old carpet, cracks in the ceiling or walls, the drafty windows gets on my nerves and I replace, redecorate, etc. I won’t bother with recommendations as you don’t live in Britain. There are some websites around called ‘checked and vetted’ or the like where you see other people’s views on their experience with a company or individual. “Which” magazine functions something like Consumer Reports did at one time and when it doubt I check with them. No idea if any of this still applies…the world is changing fast these days! Hopefully you’ll get happily settled in and begin enjoying your new home.
Thanks so much!
I’m happy to replace or repair along the way, and space out the expenses, too, so this was a shock to the system but I am starting to enjoy it here quite a bit more even with the problems.
It’s a big adjustment when you move into a new home. We’ll probably move next year and I’m not looking forward to it at all. There will be a ton of work to do. Hope you can relax a bit soon. š
Thanks! Do you have a place in mind, yet?
I have found most new appliances/cell phones, plug in heaters, etc. these days, sadly, are not very good. So, I usually go with the cheapest version because they all seem to break. I bought a $35 microwave from Walmart, the cheapest frig that Lowes carried (I think it was $350 or $450 on sale six years ago and it is still working), I was given a glasstop stove and two of the eyes have cracked, so I do not use them, but I use the other two, and the oven six years later, and my plug in heater/air conditioner that was $400 from Lowes is still working six yrs later.I bought a $200 Galaxey phone at Walmart and it quit working 21 days after I bought it. I had to mail it in and I was sent a reconditioned used one, which quit working four months later. I went with the $20 cheap phone and it is still working six months later….lol. I did buy one of those roll around radiater(sp?) looking heaters for when I wanted to heat only one room, for about $40 bucks. The thing started sparking (this was about two years after I bought it) and I managed to get it unplugged and rolled/thrown out in the yard…yikes…it was scary! I bought a $60 version of the heater by a different company at Lowes and it is working great. My large dog destroyed my blinds. I decided to stick with curtains after that fiasco.
This is too true! New things these days tend to break down so much. I selectively pick more expensive quality things but not for everything because at a certain point it just doesn’t matter how much more you spend!
Thank goodness you caught that space heater when it was sparking, I shudder to think of how terrible it would have been if that was when you were out of the room.