How to choose a door fitter you won't regret

Question 1: who actually fits it?

The most useful question in the whole conversation. Many companies sell nationally and subcontract the installation to whoever is available in your area that week. The person who quoted has no ongoing relationship with the person who fits.

That's how you end up with a good product installed badly and nobody accountable. We fit with our own team out of our workshop at Unit 5-6, 9-13 Saffron Road, South Wigston, LE18 4TD. Ask any company directly, and treat a vague answer as a no.

Question 2: is the guarantee insurance-backed?

There are three different things called a guarantee. A manufacturer's warranty on the product. An installer's guarantee on the workmanship. An insurance-backed guarantee, which is underwritten by a third party and registered against your property.

Only the third survives the company going out of business, which in this trade is not a remote scenario. Ours is a 10-year insurance-backed guarantee. If a company says 'lifetime guarantee', ask which of the three it is and who underwrites it.

Question 3: what deposit, and why?

A deposit on a made-to-measure product is normal — the unit is manufactured specifically for your opening and can't be resold. What's not normal is a large deposit demanded at the end of a sales visit, on the day, to secure a price.

Pay by a method that gives you some protection where you can, get the deposit amount and what it covers written on the order, and never pay the balance before the work is finished and demonstrated to you.

• Is the deposit proportionate to the manufacturing commitment?
• Is what it covers written on the order form?
• Is the balance due on completion, not before?
• Is there a cancellation period stated in writing?
• Is the full price fixed, or subject to 'unforeseen works'?

Question 4: does the price expire?

The single clearest warning sign in this industry. A price that is only valid today, or a discount that vanishes if you don't sign before the salesperson leaves, exists to prevent you comparing it with anything else.

A genuine price is a genuine price next week. Ours are written, itemised and hold. If you're being rushed, the reason is never that the offer is good.

Question 5: what's the specification, in writing?

A quote that says 'composite front door, fitted' is not a quote, it's a number. You want the door construction, the frame reinforcement, the lock type, the cylinder rating, the glass specification and the colour, all on the paper.

That's not pedantry — it's the only way two quotes become comparable, and it's the only way you can hold anyone to what was agreed if the door that turns up is different.

Question 6: is the work certificated?

Replacement external doors and windows are controlled under the Building Regulations. A registered installer self-certifies through a competent-person scheme and sends you the certificate. Without that, you or a future buyer's solicitor will need to sort it retrospectively.

Ask which scheme, and ask when the certificate arrives. It should be a matter of weeks after completion, not something you have to chase.

Questions 7 to 10: the practical ones

These four get skipped and cause most of the day-of-fitting friction.

• How long will my house be open to the weather during the swap?
• Who moves furniture and lifts carpets near the opening — you or me?
• What happens if the surveyor finds a rotten lintel once the frame is out?
• Who do I ring in year four if the door needs adjusting, and is that chargeable?

Reading reviews properly

Recent reviews describing the fitting day are useful. Reviews describing the salesperson are not, because the salesperson isn't fitting your door.

The most valuable review is an old one where somebody came back and said the company returned to fix something. That tells you what happens after they've been paid, which is the only part of the relationship that's actually being tested.

What good looks like

A fixed written price that doesn't expire. A named team who work for the company. A specification on paper. A proportionate deposit. A certificate afterwards. A 10-year insurance-backed guarantee registered to your address. Someone who'll tell you when the cheaper option is the right one.

None of that is exotic. It's just uncommon enough in this trade to be worth checking for deliberately.

The sales visit: what a good one looks like

A genuine survey takes measurements, looks at the lintel, checks the floor levels inside and out, asks how you use the door and leaves. It takes half an hour. Nobody phones head office for a special price.

A sales visit dressed as a survey runs to two or three hours, involves a presentation, produces an eye-watering initial figure, and then discounts it heavily in stages as you decline. That structure exists because the discount is the product. If the first number was real, the last one is a loss; both cannot be true.

You are allowed to end a visit. 'Thank you, leave the written quote and I'll be in touch' is a complete sentence, and how someone responds to it is the most informative moment of the whole appointment.

Checking a company is what it says it is

Five minutes of desk work before anyone visits saves a lot of grief. All of this is free and public.

• Look up the company at Companies House — how long has it traded, and has it been dissolved and reformed under a similar name?
• Check the registered address is a real premises rather than an accountant's office or a mailbox
• Verify any competent-person scheme membership on the scheme's own website, not on the company's
• Check the guarantee underwriter exists and covers the period claimed
• Read the one- and two-star reviews first, and look at how the company replied
• Ask for a local address you could physically visit — ours is Unit 5-6, 9-13 Saffron Road, South Wigston, LE18 4TD

Price is a data point, not the decision

Once you have filtered for registration, insurance, a real address and written quotes, price differences between the survivors are usually small and usually explainable: different profiles, different glass specifications, different hardware grades.

The way to compare those quotes is line by line. Does each quote name the same frame system, the same glass specification, the same cylinder grade, the same guarantee length? If one is materially cheaper on a genuinely like-for-like specification, that is worth a conversation — occasionally a smaller firm's overheads genuinely do undercut a larger one.

If one is dramatically cheaper with no specification to compare, you haven't found a bargain, you've found a quote without a specification. Our own pricing is public for exactly this reason — uPVC doors from £799, composite from £1,099, French doors from £1,499, all fully fitted — so you can test every other quote against something real.