The big day has arrived. Your new sliding doors are ready. Your builders are ready. It’s time for the Minima Sliding installation team to arrive and work their magic.
So what can you expect on installation day? And what’s actually involved with a sliding door installation? With this in mind, we sat down for a chat with Dave Beckwith, our Installation Manager.
I’m basically in charge of everything that goes on on site. When an order first comes in, I will liaise with the client or the builder and arrange a time to go out and conduct a survey.
Some builders struggle to get their head around the way we work, so if necessary I can go out and do a pre-survey where I’ll take along some track samples and talk them through our process. The difference with us is that we take a very precise approach. The door opening must be completely finished at the point of survey because our doors are made to measure. Accuracy is everything.
As long as the door opening is ready for us and the area has been cleared of obstacles such as garden furniture, there isn’t really anything the client needs to do. Mind you, the offer of a cup of tea never goes amiss!
We have a dedicated team of five installers who are all fully employed with Minima Sliding. This means they only install Ultraline doors, and they learn from day one how we like to do things to ensure everything goes smoothly. We have certain procedures and ways of working that they must stick to rigidly to make sure no errors are made.
Because they’re only installing one product – Ultraline doors – our installers become sliding door experts and I think this is one of the reasons we make so few errors. We don’t like to have any dramas or surprises when we’re doing a sliding door installation. We want everything to go as smoothly as possible.
Typically, four or five of our installers will go out on a job, but it depends on how complicated the particular installation is. Although I like to say I’ve retired from the hands on stuff, I’m not averse to getting my hands dirty. There are some jobs where we all need to get stuck in. I wouldn’t expect the lads to do anything I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself.
My own son, Harry, is part of the installation team so it does have a family feel. We’re a happy bunch who enjoy what we do. We work hard, but we also like having a laugh – usually at each others’ expense!
I think the main thing is attention to detail. We take a great deal of care over each and every one of our sliding door installations. A good installer is very thorough, checking every detail as he or she goes along. We also need to remember that our customers are paying good money for a high quality door, so they’re expecting top level service.
It’s brilliant – such a good feeling. We’re installing the best sliding doors on the market, so even though I know so much about the product, even I still get impressed by the end result!
Our customers are always wowed by the way the doors look. That’s the thing I love most about my job. Getting amazing feedback from our customers. It makes all the hard work worthwhile. It might sound silly, but I actually look forward to coming to work!
Thinking about sliding doors for your project? Give the sliding door experts at Minima a call to find out more about the award-winning Ultraline sliding door system.