The big pile of wood, with all the scratches and dents and cracks, and even one broken board? Just in a heap at the bottom of my driveway? With a broken pallette and the plastic wrapping thrown in for good measure?
No, actually that's just five thousand dollars worth of ipe that was delivered two weeks late and apparently just thrown piece by piece from the delivery truck. The driver actually called me the night he delivered it and told me that he'd done this so that thieves wouldn't think that it was valuable. Ohhhhhhh. Not because you were lazy, or in a hurry, or aggravated that the driveway was too steep for your truck even though it was described in detail at the time of purchase.
So I left the boys with Sarah's parents and raced out there the next morning to find this mess. Not ten minutes after I got there (around 9am), two people had already stopped to ask if I was throwing it away. It's a wonder it was still there. I spent the next four hours loading it into the back of my minivan, driving it up the hill, and restacking it up at the house. Five trips and 3500 lbs of ipe later, I was finished. It's all scratched up...
Couple of boards were even broken...
(Hey that's me in the reflection! That might be my first appearance on this blog!)
Oh, and it wasn't pre-grooved (to receive the TigerClaw clips). I call Mike at Austin Wholesale, tell him the whole deal. He was apologetic, but also tried to tell me that I hadn't ordered it pre-grooved. After we confirmed that I had been charged the pre-grooved price, he actually told me that they had delivered the right stuff but charged me the wrong amount! To his credit he immediately offered to refund my money and come and get the wood, and I said yes, give me my money back and come and get the wood. Of course, I don't have my money back yet and I've still got the wood. So we'll see where we get with this mess.
When I was looking for ipe, the places everybody seemed to recommend were Austin Wholesale, East Teak, Banner Elk, and IpeDepot. Austin Wholesale had the best price by a few hundred bucks, and they said they would have it there four days from the time I placed my order. They were two weeks late and they screwed it up. So on Tuesday I called George at East Teak, who had longer lengths than I could get from Austin Wholesale (fewer butt ends) and they're supposed to deliver it to my local 84 Lumber today (84 will deliver it the rest of the way on Tuesday). Cost a couple of hundred bucks more. I suppose I should have factored in the potential difficulties of a long distance delivery when I first compared prices.
2 comments:
Whoa! I personally would have blown a gasket if I'd seen that mess in my driveway! This is why I stay away from all wholesalers, unless I can pick up the materials myself, and inspect the goods before they leave the distributor. I realize that's not always possible to do, but still... The level of disrespect from that company is appalling.
You've been doing a great job so far, by the way. Looking good!
Hi Justin. You know I read everywhere that going and picking out your own boards is the way to go. What lumberyards are stocking their own ipe? I couldn't find any or I certainly would have. Another in the long list of "complications" that go with DIY...
I was pretty angry about the whole mess. But I had already had one go around with the driver the night he dumped it, so I had already gotten a lot of it out of my system by the time I got there the next day. And there was nobody to yell at when I got there...
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