How to Check Your New Cabinet Doors for Defects
Updated November 22, 2024
Ensure your cabinet doors are defect-free with our four-step inspection guide, helping you maintain quality and avoid costly delays.
Before placing your order, you’re already thinking about the worst-case scenario. “What if something goes wrong? What if the cabinet doors aren’t correct? What if they get damaged?”
When you spend at least $1000 on a set of cabinet doors, it’s incredibly frustrating to receive a defective or damaged product. It’s even worse when you’ve invested time and money into the project, only to discover an issue later. Plus, having to fix or reorder a defective door delays the job, harming your reputation.
So, how can you avoid wasting time and money?
At Cutting Edge, we ship hundreds of cabinet doors each day. We stand behind our work 100% of the time, so if you have an issue, we’ll make it right. But to avoid the hassle of working on a cabinet door you can’t use, the best thing you can do is to perform a quick inspection when you receive it.
Here’s a simple four-step process to follow whenever you receive a cabinet door order.
Four-Step Inspection for Cabinet Doors
You and your team need to remain efficient to keep your orders on track. This inspection should take approximately two minutes per door.
Step 1: Check the Exterior of the Package for Damage
Sometimes, packages get damaged in shipping. Whether the transit company handles the package roughly or damages it more severely, there is a chance the cabinet doors inside have suffered.
So, your first step is to check the package for damage, which can be as extreme as ripped or missing packaging or as simple as scuff marks or creases.
Freight damage is fairly rare. Of the 118,000 pieces we shipped last year, we only remade 70 (0.059%) because of freight damage.
Don’t Proceed if Your Shipment Is Damaged
If you notice any damage, you need to perform a more intense inspection in case you need us to do a freight claim. First, take a photo of the damage. Then, open the package and take a photo of the interior. Take close-up pictures of any immediately visible damage before you remove any doors.
Then, take out each door and closely inspect it for damage. If you notice damage, take a close-up picture and record the cabinet door size.
Most importantly, though – until you contact our team, don’t put any work into the cabinet doors. Depending on the nature of the defects, it may be more time-effective for us to produce warranty doors on a rush timeline.
Step 2: Open the Package and Remove the Cabinet Doors
You can open the package once you have checked for freight damage. We bundle most cabinet doors into groups of five when we package cabinet door shipments for easier handling.
Remove the first bundle, unwrap it, and move on to the next step.
Step 3: Inspect Each Cabinet Door
Now, compare each door to your packing list. Ensure the size, profiles, wood species, and all other details are correct.
Then, if you ordered unfinished doors, lightly sand the stiles and rails of each cabinet door with 180-grit sandpaper (the final sandpaper grit our team uses on the cabinet doors). We recommend this final sand to remove any scuffs from packing, transit and unpacking.
Also, this quick sanding helps the finish adhere to the door. It opens the wood grain back up consistently across the door.
Repeat steps two and three until the cabinet door order is completely unpacked and inspected.
Step 4: Request Warranty Replacements for Any Defective Cabinet Doors
Now, it’s time to request warranty replacements for any defective pieces you noticed in your inspection. At Cutting Edge, you have three options for warranty requests. You can complete a warranty request, call or email our team, or submit a warranty order online.
How Long Do Warranty Replacements Take To Arrive?
We understand that warranty replacements are not convenient. For one thing, you have to put time into completing a warranty request. Plus, you have to wait for the replacement piece to arrive.
So, our team makes warranty replacements a high priority. Most warranty orders ship within three to five working days.
In addition, if you have freight-damaged doors, we don’t make you wait for the shipping company to approve a freight claim. Instead, we replace the piece immediately, free of charge, and sort out the freight claim later.
Save Money by Spending Time Inspecting Your Cabinet Doors
This inspection might seem like an impractical idea. How does spending time inspecting your cabinet doors save you money?
We can think of at least three ways right away:
1. Avoid Putting Time Into a Defective Cabinet Door
First, you avoid wasting time working on a defective cabinet door. If you catch the defect in this quick inspection, you only spend two minutes on that door.
If you skip the inspection, you might be ready to install a cabinet door before you notice the defect. At this point, you’ve easily put an hour of labour into your cabinet door. And you’ll have to put the same amount of labour into the replacement piece.
2. Avoid Spending Money on a Defective Cabinet Door
By catching the defective cabinet door in the inspection, you can avoid spending money on it.
You avoid paying twice for finishing whether you pay your team members or another company to finish cabinet doors. You also save the money spent transporting a defective cabinet door to the installation site, plus the cost of a second trip with the replacement piece.
3. Request a Warranty Piece Immediately
Third, you have more time to wait for a warranty replacement if you notice a defective cabinet door upon inspection.
In comparison, if you don’t notice the defective door until you are installing the job, you need the warranty replacement right away – which isn’t possible.
Learn How to Submit Your Order Online
We understand how frustrating damaged products are to you. Each damaged product costs you time and money. You spend time repairing, reordering, or refinishing the product, and you have clients waiting on the completed product. Repeated delays damage your reputation. However, with human error, consistently perfect products aren’t possible.
So, Cutting Edge has enabled you to inspect your cabinet door order when it arrives and save time and money. What do you need to do next? Learn how to submit your order online to save more time!
