When deliveries go bad....

[Danw99]

The contracted delivery company shows up and before they even try to take it up her stairways, they fold the mattress in half and bind it with a strap.

Wow... just wow.

[Dianne47]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. It alerts me to be sure to have the delivery guys wash and dry their hands when my new H & M sofa and recliner get here. We are 50 miles from the closest town, down many miles of dirt road, so I'm anticipating everything that could go wrong with the delivery. This information is very helpful.

[drcollie]

It's a good thing to watch the delivery team and speak up if you see something amiss. Some delivery teams are seasoned pros, and others are buffoons off the street used to carrying cheap furniture. Let's face it, no one has "Long Distance Furniture Delivery Trucker" as their career goal when they're in high school. Its hard, dirty work with grueling hours and you don't always get the best of the best. This is why I am ALWAYS on the lookout for the very best delivery service and so far Sun Delivery (they did not do that mattress) is the best I've found to date.

I believe in telling the good with the bad here on the forum. To make everything seem perfect all the time does no one any service, the facts of the matter is there are always issues aplenty in this industry in one form or another and no sense in whitewashing everything all the time. By pointing out where things go wrong, it might prevent another similar occurrence from happening......

[levitt11]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. It alerts me to be sure to have the delivery guys wash and dry their hands when my new H & M sofa and recliner get here. We are 50 miles from the closest town, down many miles of dirt road, so I'm anticipating everything that could go wrong with the delivery. This information is very helpful.

Sun Delivery, when they made their delivery to us - we asked them if they needed anything such as a cold drink or use of our bathroom. They said no thank you, they had just come from McDonald's - which is not far from our home - and they let us know prior to leaving McDonald's that they had "indeed" washed their hands before getting into the truck to deliver our furniture. I specifically remember them telling us this. In fact, normally you can smell McD's food on people after they go there, and there was no tell tale smell of McD's on either of these two gentlemen.

If you are worried about this, read the primer here on the forum that describes what to do when your "delivery team arrives" - I certainly read it - and made sure I offered them cold drinks, use of the bathroom if needed, and yes, they were tipped well for their service(s) - as they went above and beyond - for having to bring our furniture all the way around the back of our house - and into the house through the sliding glass doors -and removing some hardware from that door - to get it in.

Take care of them, and they will take care of you - is how I and I think some others look at it - and you should have no worries. But we met them outside at the truck and watched everything as it unfolded.

They also appreciated that we had a contingency plan in case our furniture did not fit through the front door - many people don't think about this - but I was measuring like crazy the day before - and double checking with the H&M Factory about measurements - just to be sure - with our contingency plan. My husband heard the one say to the other - we don't have to worry about these folks - they have it all set up for us - for an easy access - they have it all together. So yes, anticipate what might go wrong - but have a plan for if it does on your end - like we did so. If it might rain - what plan do you have? Do you have boards or wood that they can walk on - rather than grass if need be or mud? Think of things such as this - I would with the conditions you have described.

[Dianne47]

Thanks for your advice levitt. Haha, the closest McDonalds is about 50 miles away so I doubt the delivery guys will still "reek" when they get here.

I have the read the original primer here on the forum, but need to read it again. We have 36-inch front door, so if pieces don't fit through there they don't come in the house. Right now that door is still 4 feet off the ground (we moved in 4 months ago), but the contractor and his helper are working on the porch now. I checked with Duane last week and he says delivery should be around the first of November, and if my porch (or por-TAHL as we say in New Mexico) isn't finished by then I will have already torn out my hair.

We're still in the mode of shifting furniture around the house and have to do more of that before the new sofa and recliner arrive. This has definitely been the most difficult move ever, a function of living so far out in the country. After months of complaining to the plumber that I have no cold water at my kitchen sink and the icemaker line still isn't functioning, he discovered that he failed to run cold water to the kitchen! His solution was to run a water line across the floor in my pantry (I'm not making this up) and snake it through the walls behind the cabinets. Fortunately, DH prevailed on him to open the wall in the pantry where the manifold is located and make the repair there. That was 4 days ago and plumber "says" he will fix everything tomorrow. Meanwhile, everything from the pantry is all over my kitchen counters AND I will now have a big access panel decorating my pantry wall...

Honestly, the furniture delivery will be a piece of cake compared to everything else that's gone on with building this house. Thanks again for the advice - everyone.

[levitt11]

We have 36-inch front door

My front door also 36" measured on the door itself - but when opening the front door and measuring the actual inside measurements for fitting furniture inside - the measurements were not 36" - plus my staircase was right in front of that door leading upstairs - another issue - so I would take the inside measurements of that door from the door open to where it would hit any door frame - and your furniture measurements - that is what we did - and hence them going all the way around the back of our home through the sliding doors - we realized the front door was not going to make it with the dimensions - unless we had them remove the feet of the sofa, chair and ottoman - which they would have been able to do - but we had Plan #2 to go with.

What you have going on sounds like a nightmare with them having to open up walls - let alone the porch not being finished yet <eek>. And I think I've been through a lot with renovations, not fun all of this is it <comfort>. But think in a month or so you will have lovely new furniture to rest on. Once we got ours, it seemed all worth it in the end, it truly did.

[bubbaonline]

Plumbers... the single worst sub-contractor when we built our house.. That was in 1998, and I'm still ticked off at them..

[drcollie]

Give a guy a forklift, and here's what happens....

I usually prefer White Glove Delivery Services whenever possible and practical because of damage such as this. This is a Hancock and Moore sofa that was shipped from my store in the original packing (export box) via Common Carrier. Outer carton has been removed.

As you can see, they rammed a forklift under the support frame and removed the right rear leg. As this is not a screw-on leg, but integrated into the frame, so its considered major damage and the sofa may be suitable only for salvage at this point. Depending on what else they tore up with the forklift, it may or may not be repairable.

What causes this? A lazy forklift driver in a distribution center who doesn't want to get down off his seat and see how to best pickup the piece. I refunded the customer his money today and filed a claim for the full amount of the sofa with the carrier.