Home repair nightmare

After my highly successful home repair last month, when the front door would no longer open from the outside I figured I would take a stab at this one. I removed the door handle and looked at the hardware inside. Without going too far into it I realized that some of the highly complex mechanism was broken and I needed to replace the hardware.

I went to home depot yesterday morning on the way to work and noticed that all the handleset were very expensive!!! I didn't see any that matched what we had before. The least expensive one that was silver and had a similar look was $73.97. It was a qwikset handleset UPC 042049477856. I reluctantly purchased it and went on to work.



After work, when I got home the kitchen was a disaster and everyone was gone to Jacob's football practice, except Austin. I started to replace the handleset. Everything in print was duplicated three times in different languages. The instructions were on one piece of paper (for all three languages) and the print was very small. The pictures were small as well. There were several sizes of screws. When I screwed the handle in I picked the screw that looked to be the right size from the picture and from matching it up with the width of the door. It must have had at least 100 turns to get it in with a screwdriver.

When I screwed both in all the way, there was still about 1/8" left. The handle and knob on both sides weren't flush with the door and loose. I looked at the other screws and there was another set that were a little shorter so I started unscrewing the 100 turn screws. When I went as far as I could go the screws wouldn't come out. I pulled the handle out from the door to see what the holdup was, I noticed that the "nut" for the screws had come out of the handle hardware. So I reached down into the gap and held onto the nut, so I could unscrew all the way. When I did that and pulled the screw out, the interior hardware of the handle, fell apart! Parts were falling all over the porch, and I was not a happy camper.

I noticed on the box that it has a lifetime warranty. That lifetime warranty would have satisfied a gnat. I was very displeased

1. With the price - its a freakin doorknob!


2. Lack of detailed instructions (which screw to use)


3. Lack of standarization in door construction (I had to use a cold chisel to carve out a gap for the door slide in the door which wasn't in the old version)


4. Lack of sturdiness of the qwikset door handle


5. Size of schematics was too small!

Needless to say my temper was flared and the evening was ruined for me. I neatly put all the hardware back in the box and will return tomorrow and make another attempt at replacing it.

Modified Home Depot slogan for the day - "You can screw it up. We can help."
This wasn't Home Depot's fault, just fit me well for today.