Exploding Doors
Looking for some professional advice regarding a dispute with a joiner.
We have had some softwood doors (doors with half round top) made by a joiner (he measured up then had them made at a local joinery) for an outside building. When they arrived with frames he had to change both the frames and the doors as they did not fit the curve. He finished and when I inspected them they were quite tight and difficult to open, had quite a few screws missing for the hinges and he had not sealed the frames at all. I asked him to come back and re-work which he did, in-between this I used a stain recommended for outside softwood doors to protect them as the weather was very poor, however, due to this poor weather I only covered the outside of the door and edges. He returned re-worked the door and left. I inspected them that weekend to find they were completely jammed shut. So, much so that they wouldn’t open at all. I asked him to come back and discuss the problem, which he did and we tried to open the doors without success. They were so tight he had to actually destroy them to gain access. We concluded the doors had expanded over 1” min width and had suffered a seriously amount of warp. The frames however, had not moved.
We argued over the reason for this and he basically blamed the movement on the fact that only the outside of the door had been stained. I appreciate that this might have some impact; however, the degree of warp and expansion was incredible.
I need an experienced view on if his view is reasonable before I take further action.
Thanks
Chris