Trim Materials - excerpt from book, Working for Subs

Trim Materials:

Plan for your millwork package (see Appendix E – Trim Order List) to be delivered at least two days before the trim subcontractor is to begin, just in case there might be a delay in shipping. Your trim man’s time is too valuable and rigidly scheduled to risk not having materials on the job when he arrives. You will lose his respect, and your job may suffer if he leaves to begin someone else’s work instead. He will resent you, as his other customer probably was told to hold on his millwork order, and he will have to wait to begin that work.

Photo 21: Built up fireplace surround by trim subcontractor, shown unpainted under construction and finished product.

We rarely lost any trim materials to theft, perhaps since the expensive items, like doors, are too difficult to haul and specially sized. Theft is therefore usually not a reason to worry and delay your order. The only materials your trim sub will furnish are nails and staples.

Before ordering meet with the millwork company’s estimator after meeting with the trim sub, since you will have a better idea of what is needed at that time. Your trim sub can advise you on what to order for unusual items, like the scroll on a mantel leg or built-in shelving. Be sure to get precise prices on every piece of trim to be ordered before placing a purchase order. Let the estimator prepare a written quote, and then edit your purchase order to suit your own takeoff, since the supplier will over estimate materials to be cautious, to prevent extra deliveries, or to sell more product. Ask the cost of deliveries. We always got as many free shipments as we needed, even for just one or two missing pieces, since the millwork supplier had trucks making rounds daily just shipping odd pieces.

An unscrupulous salesman we dealt with once delayed faxing his quote, but gave an oral quote. We needed the order right away and had to trust his word. When we received the bill, it was a thousand dollars high. His boss assumed we were bilking him, since we did not have written proof, and our working relationship suffered as a result. Eventually the crooked salesman was fired (probably for multiple complaints,) and we received a credit, but we never recovered our reputation with the owner. Always get your quote in writing.

Some items that may surprise you in price include: flexible rubber molding for curved walls (some pieces can exceed $18 per lineal foot), extra height doors, fiberglass doors, or over sized wood veneer shelving (Photo 22.) Get accurate written prices on everything before ordering. Another expensive piece is a curved casing over an arched-top window. There are online videos showing building some of the more intricate moldings from old historic homes, duplicated with plaster molds and templates. If you are handy and somewhat artistic, you might attempt to fabricate these yourself, using a mold or a sculptured trowel. We had some trim men who could fabricate specialty items at home from wood rather inexpensively.

Ordering doors requires more detailed specifications than most finish items (See Appendix E - ...Door Schedule, & Door Hardware List.) We bought our doors from the lumber company rather than the millwork supplier, because the latter's were more expensive. A mystery to me at first was how to tell the difference between a “left-hand” and “right-hand” door swing. Our salesman had a silly but effective phrase to remember which; he said, “It’s comin’ at cha.” This meant when you are opening the door toward yourself, the side that the knob is on determines the swing of the door. Opening your front door from the inside with the knob in your left hand indicates a left-hand door.

Most of our doors were called “six-panel” even if stamped from one piece of Masonite hardboard. This is due to the original way doors were built with six different beveled edge panels of wood joined together in a frame. There are four-panel, solid slab, two-panel doors, and other variations, but the six-panel doors we ordered were traditional and seemed to never go out of style. Interior doors can be built of a hollow-core frame, sandwiched between two hardboard faces, or they could be built of more costly high-density fiber (HDF), or even more expensive and non-environmentally correct wood. The wood doors are more sound proof, but only truly so if weatherstripped, which is impractical for interiors; thus specifying wood doors alone to prevent sound transmission is ineffective. Exterior doors come in many different configurations and materials. Fiberglass veneers over a foam core are very weather resistant and durable, but they are more costly than many other types and less secure. Metal clad foam core, insulated doors are not attractive, but can serve for garage or rear yard access and are inexpensive. Wood six-panel exterior doors are attractive, but not weather resistant, and require more protection and maintenance to prevent warping, splitting, and discoloration.