Installing a Pella Sliding Glass Door

As I am sure I have mentioned numerous times, we needed to replace the doors downstairs in the basement. There was some rot at the bottom of the framing. Just this morning, I realized why. Remember that big long post (directly below) about rain gutters? Well, it now all makes sense.

When it rains, the back gutter overflows. The water falls, hits the ground and splashes. Guess where the water hits. That’s right, the bottom of the basement door. Good thing I am working on the gutter project. These new doors are vinyl and the exposed framing is inside the house, so that should help things.

I had Lowe’s do the install. Actually, it was a contractor that works with Lowe’s. I was a little nervous about the whole thing because I really didn’t know how good a Lowe’s contractor could really be. I have zero experience with them. It ends up that this guy did a better job than I ever expected.

This is the old door. I removed the door knob and all the other goodies I put on it, like the automatic closer. These were French doors. I don’t really like French doors because they are a bit more difficult to deal with. There were no screens on these and I kept thinking they were going to open by themselves. I really like the sliding glass door we had installed.

This is the rot at the bottom of the door. This and the fact that one of the outer panes of glass was broken prompted the replacement.

These are some photos of the installation. A nice guy who immigrated from Poland about 20 years ago did it. We talked about Communism and Socialism and all that stuff. It was pretty fun. We talked about the ups and downs of different types of government. He said he really loves this county and there is no other like it anywhere. See, I even found a little first hand education in the process.

When you make an appointment to have a Lowe’s contractor come out to measure the job, they also take note of any extra work that needs to be done. Since this door is a few inches shy of the previous door, there was some work that needed to be done. When Lowe’s calls you the next day to give you the price on the job, they give the price for the materials, the standard installation and any extra work. In this case, the extra work cost over $500. That was more than the installation price.

When he was here, he kept telling me that he was going to make it look nice. After I got the price, I was wondering what in the world could be costing an extra $500. After he finished up, it appears that he did all the trim on the inside. He did all the caulking and waterproofing too. This stuff, plus the reframing of everything was the cause of the extra money. He even got rid of all the junk. I was pretty impressed.

Overall, the installation was a bit pricey (probably double of what it should’ve been), but it is a complete job. All I need to do it paint up the trim on the inside. I would definitely use the service Lowe’s offers again and probably ask for this installer.