The Sliding Door Company

Normally I would have rated the Sliding Door Co in SF as 5/5. Sakura did a nice job with a showroom visit and scheduling the work once we signed a contract. The quality of the doors delivered was excellent. It took a long time for delivery, but it was worth it. A great experience through the first of two installation appointments. Where things went south was on the second visit. One of the areas receiving new sliding doors had an uneven floor in the kitchen. We pointed this out during initial discussions and during supplying of photos for them to assess the job. When they visited to take measurements, we once again pointed this out so they could prepare shims to make sure the door track was level along the entire length. They asked if we were going to have the floor “fixed” before they came back, but we pointed out that was not possible as the slight variation in level was part of the structure. We did however modify and finish the floor trim in the ends of each door installation so they didn’t have to. They carefully measured the slight “hump” in the wood floor at one end of the door installation. When they installed the four large glass sliding doors in the uneven area last (all other doors had been finished with excellent results), they set the shims so that when in the center closed position all doors were vertical and lined up. However, when you moved the doors in the track we quickly realized that the floor track was like a gentle roller coaster. Where they had placed shims, the aluminum track was solid, where they had left gaps with no shims, it sagged under the weight of the heavy glass doors. We brought this to their attention, sent photos and movies of doors in action, and they agreed that this was not right, and that they’d correct it. They came out out to fix it but in the end said nothing could be done. That was as good as it would get because they could not pull up the aluminum floor track. Not sure why, but that was their belief. We registered our disagreement with the showroom and they said they’d look into it. After that it became a series of responses about how their COO was reviewing our case. After weeks, we followed up and we’re told the COO was still reviewing our case. We never heard from them again. Guess that was the result of the review. We don’t feel we were being unreasonable to expect them to make right what they knew about in advance of quoting, discussed during quoting, and even had a chance to reprice during an early scope change (added more doors). This was a very expensive multi door installation (5 figures) and we never debated price. No objections were raised during quoting, but we were told that what we had was all they could do because the track was already glued to the floor. If they had used slightly increasing thickness shims along the entire 10’ length of the 4-door track, it would have worked well. We suggested this be their fix. It had sagged and could have been made very level as ordered. However, the unfortunate arrogance of the installer and the refusal of this firm left us with doors that look great when closed and are stationary, but which tilt back and forth when they travel. We find this unfortunate and unnecessary because it could have been easily avoided and even fixed later on, but for reasons unknown to us they walked away. This is a disappointing end to what should have been an outstanding experience because showroom support was great and door quality excellent. However, their senior leadership chose to not fix the problem. As such I’d have to rate our overall experience a 3/5. If you have anything odd in your installation, make sure you not only discuss it thoroughly but also get it all documented in writing. Better to be safe than sorry.