Anonymous
Avoid this company!! We decided to use DWL for our luxury new build project after getting quotes from all the main large size architectural glazing suppliers. As DWL were the most competitive and quite local to us and we were able to try the system in their showroom we were happy to give them the order. The order total was approximately £160k, so by no means a low value order. After the initial installation the first issue we experienced was that the sliding panels were impossibly difficult to move and a million miles away from the same glazing system we had tried in their showroom and which they also show in some of their promotional videos. As the glazing is our only route for escape in the event of a fire or emergency situation this was nowhere near acceptable. After much arguing with them about this, with DWL and their supplier blaming the contractor and dirty tracks for the issues, they eventually came and replaced all the brushes which made them much easier to slide, but still not to the level we expected. The next major issue we experienced was that the ground floor glazing panels were required to be toughened (Part Q) to obtain building control sign off. Again DWL and their supplier argued that they had supplied other projects with non toughened glass and had no issues, but this was clearly not the case in all situations and with every building control company. After extensive arguing the only solution was that we had to have a plastic film installed on the inside of the glazing to enable us to get them signed off. Due to the size of our glazing and the limitations in the size of the film it meant we had to have a joint in the film across the middle of the glazing. Hardly what you want when you have paid a huge amount for large panoramic glazing. We strongly believe they omitted the toughened glass in order to save themselves the costs of the extra work involved in the toughening process, hoping they would get away with it. This situation cost us many days of our time arguing with them and liaising with building control and also thousands of pounds of extra building loan costs because of the weeks of delay getting the building control sign off. Both the Architect and QS agreed that ultimately they had supplied us with tens of thousands of pounds worth of glazing that was not even fit for purpose. Ongoing issues we have had are due to the poor installation by their team and are as follows: Some of the sliding panels were not aligned properly with the frames so the metal frames banged into each other when closing which caused cracking in the internal plaster and external render. Some locking mechanisms were not aligned properly so this meant there was still movement in the panel when the door was in the closed and locked position. This also made the panels harder to lock as they had to be in exactly the right position for the lock to engage, not in the fully closed position as you would expect. Initially DWL did send their installers a few times to rectify the problems but they were unable to solve many of them. Their strategy was to remove the fixings holding the end part of the frame in place and then to whack the frames with a hammer in an attempt to move the end frame over to prevent the frames colliding. This again caused cracking on the internal plaster and external render. They also installed coloured plastic packers to try to alleviate some of the colliding frame issues by essentially stopping the glass panel from fully entering the end frame. They informed us these were temporary fixes but they didn’t really work and we have now been left with unsightly coloured plastic packers visible on our high end glazing. Some of their installers complained when they were on site that DWL didn’t pay them enough for the amount of work they were expected to do so hardly surprising so little care was taken when they were installing our £160k glazing package. The original account manager Dave has now left and he was then replaced by Brian who visited our project and who we showed all the installation issues and discussed the huge inconvenience and costs for us dealing with the building control sign off. He ensured us DWL was not going to ignore the situation and that they would rectify the issues but that just hasn’t happened. DWL are currently ignoring our emails so we have started legal proceedings to get some money back and to hold them to account for this disastrous, shambolic and costly experience. You have been warned!!
1 year ago
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