Jeld-Wen Patio Door: Install, Comments and not Recommended

This Sunview Victorian patio door came branded as a Jeld-Wen door, bought at Home Depot in Canada. It came with no instructions nor hardware from Home Depot. Further Jeld -Wen customer service refused to send us the mounting hardware.

My neighbour recently bought a patio door from Home Depot, and had asked me to help him install it. In fact, this Jeld-Wen patio door was the most expensive they carried. I would not have bought this without a good amount of research, but he is different. The install did not go very smoothly, and the end result was sub-par. After contacting the manufacturer I was left with a negative view of the company and their service. I do not recommend you buy a Jeld-Wen door.

My neighbour bought a Jeld-Wen Connection Donat Flamand Kent Victorian patio door, code: SDL-K-10 Type: DDSG, from Home Depot. it is one that slides one panel only, and comes with a lock. The first indication of a problem was that the door did not come with instructions, nor installation hardware. For a $1,000CAD door this was unacceptable to me. Back we went to Home Depot, where he bought it, and found multiples of the very same door, all without installation instructions nor hardware. After asking the sales guy he simply grabbed the instructions and hardware from another Jeld-Wen door and gave it to me. These instructions and hardware, it turns out, were completely different from the door we had and therefore useless. This was a bad sign. I told my neighbour that we should wait for the instructions but he was insistent on installing. Ok, I knew there would be problems.

The door was delivered to his house by two burly men and sat in his living room. The door was very heavy. We could not figure out how to remove the sliding panel, in order to make the frame lighter. We eventually jostled the door enough that the sliding panel just came out, but this was more by luck than by design.

Half way through the experience we took a break and I started my search for the Jeld-Wen instructions. While the Jeld-Wen site was easy to find, the door we bought was not listed on the site, and all other doors had different instructions. It turns out that while the door was branded Jeld-Wen, they actually use another manufacturer’s door, Sunview, with their name on it. Nothing on the door states this. I found this out after I sent an email to Jeld-Wen customer service, the next day. The sales guy was nice enough to tell me that the door was made by Sunview Patio Doors, located near Jeld-Wen. He sent me instructions by email. I later found the same instructions on the Sunview web site.

The .pdf I received was extremely complex, and written for a door that had been shipped completely collapsed and in parts. The door we bought from Home Depot was completely assembled, but packaged in an easy to transport but not easy to install way. You would think that Jeld-Wen or Sunview would have slightly different instructions for a DIY door, but you would be wrong. It took me a good hour to figure out what was relevant and how I might do it. I eventually figured out how to remove the sliding panel, but it was by then too late to be useful.

What was also obvious was that at the top of the instructions they mention installation hardware. I emailed the sales guy and asked for him to send me this hardware, that was explicitly stated in the instructions. This he refused to do.

As a result of not having instructions with the door, we made some errors and the door was not as aesthetically installed as nice as it should be. The sales guy sympathized and said he could ask if he could offer me two plastic side strips that we had drilled through. I could pick these up where I bought the door. In the end, he never got back to me and therefore I never received these.

This install of the Jeld-Wen door had multiple errors from the manufacturer:

1. The door is not actually made by Jeld-Wen. It is made by Sunview Patio Doors. Nothing on the door says this.
2. No instructions came with the door from Home Depot. All the other doors of the same type also had no instructions.
3. No hardware came with the door, even though the instructions, stated explicitly the hardware comes with the door.
4. The instructions, once I searched and found them online from Sunview, does not easily show how to install this door. The instructions are written for assembly from the ground up where the door is all in parts. The instructions are also not easy to follow.
5. After the Jeld-Wen sales guy told me the door was made by Sunview, he sent me instructions, but then refused to send me the installation hardware, which is clearly documented in the instructions he just sent. We had just bought his company’s door, and he refused to provide mounting hardware that is clearly stated as included in the instructions? WTF?
6. Without instructions we made some installation errors. These could have been avoided if we had the installation instructions, which the sales guy acknowledged. He then did not provide replacements for the side plastic strips that we damaged.

For such an expensive door I would not recommend Jeld-Wen. They may be Canadian, but while their customer service was accessible and communicative, they were unwilling to solve our problem and even provide us the installation hardware that is documented in their own instructions.

If you like beating yourself over the head repeatedly with a heavy door, then get a Jeld-Wen. I would also hate to try to claim any warranty from them. If I could not even get installation instructions from them, then what is the hope for a warranty claim? And this, for the most expensive patio door that Home Depot carries, at over $1,000CAD. Do not buy a Jeld-Wen door.

P.S. While Jeld-Wen was really terrible at installation customer service, I did talk to a guy named Hardy, x223 about how the lock works. He was very knowledgeable and answered my questions very well. Thanks, Hardy!