Sliding door aperture is 8mm too high

[ProDave]

16 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

tell door company they need to take the door out and reinstall it 4mm lower. They say architect is wrong and there is 8mm of space. Architect then measures again and discovers some “concealed space”. Foreman and architect get laser level out to measure current deflection (about 75% of the load on the roof has been on for a few months already) of the beam. 

Didn't I mention the deflection space requirement about 4 posts above?

[Adsibob]

2 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

My god what an interesting tale. Builder will love recounting that down the pub. Be interesting to see what tolerance your 11k door company work to. I can appreciate a brickie getting an 8ft opening quarter of an inch too high, especially if rsj out of level. For a door company to survey after aperture is built, tell you the hole is wrong size then still make door 4mm too big I think it's their problem! Bet they wouldn't want to replace £££

Yeah. Ridiculous. Not sure why they prepared drawings which showed a level of accuracy their manufacturer couldn’t keep to.

 The issue I have now is that it would probably take three days of Labour to take the doors out and reinstall them a couple of mm lower. That is probably not cheap, but much cheaper than ripping them out in 6-12 months time when all the adjacent wall and floor finishes (which are all pretty expensive) are in. Their contract will exclude all consequential loss, so even if I go back to them in the future and force them to reinstall, they will say they can’t be liable for the cost to make good those floor and wall finishes. 
I wasn’t going to install the Seedum for a few months as we still have a lot of dusty work to do above the Seedum and thought it would be better to install it after the dust has gone. But now I’m thinking it should go in now so we can give the doors a bit more of a real world test before installing the adjacent finishes. 

[Adsibob]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Didn't I mention the deflection space requirement about 4 posts above?

Yes, and I was not concerned because door company has been clearly briefed about deflection risk and knew the tolerance. Obviously if I knew everyone was going to cock up like this, I would have done  things differently

[Oz07]

Will your threshold still be level with floor finish if you remove all (or most) of packing underneath them?

[Oz07]

I'd be getting them to re fit for free if so based on them manufacturing too big out of tolerance. Eat some humble pie and buy your builder a crate of beer to grind off all the mortar or whatever he built it up with

[Adsibob]

34 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

Will your threshold still be level with floor finish if you remove all (or most) of packing underneath them?

We can probably make it work. There are about 4mm of packers underneath. What are those for?

[Makeitstop]

Blimey, what a mega stress that lot sounds.

 

Have to agree that I'd not be at all pleased with door manufacturer. All the fuss they appear to make about "tolerances" only to provide you with a product that doesn't meet their own surveyed dimensions. Surely they have to accept some responsibility for things not working out.

 

Having said that, if the architect says "most / majority" of the loading is already taken into account and that deflection is really minimal, then maybe all is ok as is.

 

Out of interest, what kind of door is it.? I understand it's a triple track slider, but what maker / system?

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Makeitstop

[Adsibob]

26 minutes ago, Makeitstop said:

Out of interest, what kind of door is it.? I understand it's a triple track slider, but what maker / system?

Sunflex SVG30 with 2G windows and PAS24 security upgrades. 

[Mr Punter]

With soleplates, steel column bases etc it is normal to get them in place then level them to the correct height with packers and then fill the voids between packers with structural grout or dry pack.  I would have thought the same could have been done for the doors.

[Adsibob]

Update: there is only 4mm of space available in the middle for further deflection before there is contact between the lintel and door frame. We measured the defection so far again but with a better tool, and it has deflected about 3mm. So we are 1mm short if the beam deflects fully to the SE’s spec of 8mm (which according to the SE should only happen in heavy snow). Surely the frame can take a bit of compression? Particularly as it is not a top hung slider.

 

My architect also wondered how the frame design accounts for the fact that it is actually screwed into the lintel (at least abusing to the installation instructions). Wouldn’t that suggest that any deflection transfers to the doorframe via the screws, regardless of how much of a gap there is between the lintel and the frame, or are the fixing points on some sort of sprung mechanism?

[Adsibob]

On 20/07/2021 at 16:09, markc said:

Good chance the door will not be the right size

You were so right. 

[Temp]

26 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

My architect also wondered how the frame design accounts for the fact that it is actually screwed into the lintel (at least abusing to the installation instructions). Wouldn’t that suggest that any deflection transfers to the doorframe via the screws, regardless of how much of a gap there is between the lintel and the frame, or are the fixing points on some sort of sprung mechanism?

 

Normally doors are fitted after the lintel has been loaded/deflected.

[Adsibob]

11 minutes ago, Temp said:

Normally doors are fitted after the lintel has been loaded/deflected.

Hmmm. I need to work out what proportion of the maximal load we have already put on. Anybody know what the weight of a breeze block cavity wall is per m2? 

[markc]

My architect also wondered how the frame design accounts for the fact that it is actually screwed into the lintel (at least abusing to the installation instructions). Wouldn’t that suggest that any deflection transfers to the doorframe via the screws, regardless of how much of a gap there is between the lintel and the frame, or are the fixing points on some sort of sprung mechanism?

Nothing wrong with top fixings being screwed through frame into lintel. The fixings will be a clearance in the frame and therefore allow the lintel to `bob` without loading the door frame.

[Adsibob]

3 hours ago, markc said:

My architect also wondered how the frame design accounts for the fact that it is actually screwed into the lintel (at least abusing to the installation instructions). Wouldn’t that suggest that any deflection transfers to the doorframe via the screws, regardless of how much of a gap there is between the lintel and the frame, or are the fixing points on some sort of sprung mechanism?

Nothing wrong with top fixings being screwed through frame into lintel. The fixings will be a clearance in the frame and therefore allow the lintel to `bob` without loading the door frame.

Yeah, door company has come back to say frame can actually be compressed by up to 3mm without affecting the performance. Apparently this is a tolerance designed into the frame. I will double check with the manufacturer, but if that’s the case, I think it should be okay.