originally posted july 30, 2005

The Thousand-Dollar Door

It's another lazy summer where I have much to do. Earlier this month I took a trip up to Boston to meet up with some friends for the Fourth of July, and I was impressed with the show they put on up there. Despite the Red Sox championship gloating that started at the border ("Welcome to Massachusetts - Home of 2004 World Champion Red Sox," on I-84 coming up from Connecticut) I encountered fewer Massholes that weekend than I have in many trips to Boston in years past. I was also impressed by how walkable the area around downtown Boston is. It's possible to walk all the way from Brookline to Boston Common with many interesting sights and neighborhoods in the way. In Pittsburgh we don't have that sort of luxury: even if I could walk from here to work, I don't think the three-mile trip would be very safe or pleasant. Meanwhile, back on the home front, I'm the proud owner of a new door.

Throwing Money At the Problem

I've identified a few small problems with the house since moving in two months ago. Two stand out: I'd like to have a closet built around my unsightly water tank, and the front door was not in very good shape. The latter really started to wear on me when, starting less than a week after the security system was turned on, I started to get phone calls about my burglar alarms being tripped. Despite several service calls, it became apparent that the front door was in such lousy shape that the "door closed" sensor simply malfunctioned at the slightest change in wind speed or humidity.

So, back to the closet bit for a moment. I started calling various area carpenters to get an estimate. I got recommendations from co-workers, from folks in my neighborhood, and from anyone they know: every contractor simply didn't show up, even if they bothered to return my calls. I've given up on the closet idea until the fall, convinced that my business simply isn't worth the effort of even the most novice carpenter who could otherwise be working on roofs or decks at this time of year.

It was with that knowledge that I walked into the Home Depot on Memorial Day weekend to pick out a door. The Home Depot subcontracts out door and window installation to various local folks who (I can only assume) get a significant amount of work from the Home Depot. I picked out the door I wanted, put $25 down, and expected an installer within a week. He came two weeks later and spent about five minutes measuring the frame and grumbling about the poor state of the existing frame. I really don't understand the logic behind griping to me, the ignorant homeowner, about the age or condition of the home I bought months prior: the home inspector did a thorough job, and I don't need a second opinion.

The door I wanted would cost me $200, not counting the molding or labor or installation. Installation "started at $265" but would definitely not end there. The price quote by phone came to just over $780 for parts and labor. Excited about the idea of actually getting a contractor to do work on my house in the summer time, I agreed. They wanted my credit card number up front. I agreed to that too, expecting that they would place a hold on it to determine my credit-worthiness. A few days later I found that they actually charged the entire amount of the installation to my credit card without providing so much as a written estimate to me. The estimate came in the mail days later, and it lacked the mail slot I requested. That would be $75 extra including installation, and it would "void the warranty" on the door. (Coming from the electronics world, I wonder how one would return a door for replacement.)

So on July 18, just about 50 days after starting this process, two guys showed up and replaced my door. The following day, an installer from the security system company came in and reinstalled the sensor that started this whole mess. Total cost: $70 for the service call.

I finished patching up the damage done to my wall during the door installation with about two square inches worth of spackle. Now I have to paint. I primed the trim last Sunday after a Home Depot trip that cost me about $75 in supplies. Other trips related to this door have cost me about $50 in total. Once I apply the second coat of paint and let it dry, the total expense will be over $1,000 for something as simple and mundane-looking as a front door.

What I've Learned From This

One thousand dollars for a front door! With a thousand dollars I could buy one of each video game system that's on the market today. I could buy a top-of-the-line cell phone. I could buy a low-end media box. I could put together a decent non-audiophile-grade stereo system for $1,000. Yet I spent this wad of cash on a front door. Justifications for this expense:

No more false burglar alarms, so I get more done at work with fewer distractions.
No more false burglar alarms, so the police will stop needlessly visiting my house as its security system cries "wolf."
I got tired of kicking my own front door in, TV cop-show style, every day upon arriving home from work.
New wider "magazine slot" increases the size of mail I can receive!
I'm getting so old and lame that a new door is worth writing about.

So one thing that to me is still remarkable is that everything in my home is supposed to last. The water heater, unsightly as it is, will last for 10 to 15 years. The floors are good for another decade at least. I've been playing with computers and other electronic toys that barely last for two years before they're obsolete or broken; the idea of something designed to last that long is still alien to me. This new door will last forever, it will be perfect, and I will never need to worry about it ever again.

Now if only I could unpack all my stuff...

Back to July 2005, or to the year 2005.

Where am I?

This is Weill Aspects, the official news archive of Jason Weill Web Productions. All articles posted to the front page end up here. This page was generated automatically by a series of Perl scripts.

Articles in Weill Aspects are organized solely by date. You may find the Google search in the left column to be useful if you are looking for an article but do not know the date on which it was posted.

Weill Aspects is composed of static web pages generated as appropriate when a new article is posted. It was developed in May 2001 as a way of managing the content on this site. I also used it extensively while in Japan, during which time I did not have continuous access to the Internet. I was able to write daily updates during July and August 2002, pack the files onto a CD-R or memory device, and upload them from the Internet-connected computers at school.

These scripts are all hacked together in less than elegant fashion, and I don't plan to release them. Some of the design that went into Aspects also was used to develop Livestat, a suite of Perl scripts to process statistics for academic competition tournaments. Livestat is available freely.