2008_07_16 Elevator shaft and bad elevator wall panel

The first picture is the elevator shaft. The guys working there have been here now for probably 5 or 6 days at least working on putting in the elevator and they have at least one more return trip for fine tuning and putting in some trim that had to be re-ordered. I think they originally planned on 2 or 3. Not my problem.


The picture at the bottom of this lengthy discussion is of one of the oak panels that form the walls of the elevator. I almost missed getting what I intended to capture. However, at the very left side of the picture you can see a dark stain on the oak.

When I saw it and took this photo I mentioned to the installers that there was a large stain on that panel. They said that they would get it off before installing it. I didn't see the other panels since they were behind that one.

The day that they were installing them Scott and Kathy were here and we were having a very serious discussion about money. They informed us that although their plan had been to pay us back a little over $20,000 that we had put on a Lowe's card (in order to get kitchen and bathroom cabinets ordered in time so they would be ready when the builder was) as soon as the next bank draw came in they had made a horrible mistake and would not be able to do so! Apparently they had thought that the elevator company had already charged their construction debit card for the elevator (over $20,000 also), but they had not so the money wasn't going to be there to pay us back!

Now, we've just been made aware that we're stuck with a $20,000 credit card bill that we have to decide how to pay. So, you can imagine that we were preoccupied so I didn't watch the elevator guys at all as they were installing the panels. It was about 8:00 at night and the elevator guys came into the room where we all were and said that they were done.

I went to look at the elevator and was appalled to see that the stain in the picture below was still there as obvious as it was before and also that 2 other panels had similar stains! I told them that they were not going to be acceptable and they'd have to replace them. You should know that they had spent all day installing them. Things are a very tight fit and there was much hammering to get them fitted in where they have to go so I know they didn't want to hear that.

They had tried to sand the stains out, but if you know anything about working with oak you know that once any stains get down in the pores of the wood it almost impossible to sand out unless you really take a lot of wood out. I could tell that they did try to sand it out, but it just made the surface there smoother than the surrounding areas, but did not resolve the problem.

One of the guys told me that he realized that the panels were not acceptable. I asked him why they had proceeded to go ahead and put them in since he already knew they were not going to satisfy me. He said that he just does that the bosses tell him to do and he said that they knew they had been stained when they were delivered to the elevator company by Fed-Ex and they were unloaded during a big rain storm.

Then after they got water on them he said that someone stored them against something metal. Well, that was the worst thing they could have done because the result was that dark stain down into the oak. When I was told that their boss had told them to go ahead and install them I couldn't believe it and that made me mad so I don't care if they make 20 trips up here from the Montgomery area to get this resolved.

I told Scott and Kathy that I expected them to call the owner of the company the next morning and make sure that he understood that we would not accept it as it was and they would have to resolve it whatever it took. They agreed. The next day Scott and Kathy called us to tell us that the owner wanted to send someone to look at them and if they were as bad as we said they were they would take care of it. So, they have been coming up and checking, measuring, re-ordering, re-delivering, and re-installing and they probably have just one more day before getting it done.

The State of Alabama elevator inspector came up this week and inspected all the hydraulics, motors, cables, etc and it passed the inspection. It works now, but they need to finish some more trim, etc and Scott then has to put in the Bolivian Rosewood flooring down in there so it will match the other floors and it'll be good to go.

Now that I've complained about this for what must seem to be the length of a novel I'll show you the picture!