Today lets talk about the ordering and delivery process. Since it is still busy season this is a good time to go over some of the issues we encounter. When planning their project some customers like to try and schedule them with military precision. They wait till the last minute to order then schedule a contractor to come in and do the work the day after the estimated delivery date from us. This more often than not leads to problems and frustration when using a contractor. Please do not attempt these types of surgical strikes when planning your project.
Here’s some of the reasons why. During busy season demand often outstrips our production capabilities for epoxy and deck coatings. So instead of next day shipping epoxy can go out 2-3 days after the order and in the case of our Renew It Deck Coating lead times can stretch out as far as 10 -14 days. So when you make your decision to go forward with your project using one our products please allow as much of a cushion time wise between when you should get your order and the time you plan on doing it. This advice holds true even if you decide to go with another brand. The only time you don’t have to do this is if you’re going to your local home improvement store and buying off the shelf product. You’ll have other problems but scheduling won’t be one of them. We do not make or sell off the shelf type products.
You will notice that if you order an epoxy kit from us it will come in multiple shipments. Why because sometimes the delivery company can be abusive with our packages and the epoxy can and does sometimes leak out. When that happens we rather just the epoxy be damaged and not the whole order. When you get an epoxy kit from us it comes with a lot of other items such as rollers, mixers, squeegee, nonslip additive and such. These items ship separately and usually go out first with the epoxy a day or two behind depending on the order volume at the time.
Also besides your shipment getting damaged in transit, it can get lost or you may have forgotten to order something or believe it or not we could have made a mistake and shipped you a wrong item or left out an item from your order accidentally and yes we do make mistakes even though we try our best not to.
So when planning your floor, deck or roof project allow for a little bit of Murphy’s Law to creep in. Order you product to arrive at least a week before you want to do the job if you are doing the work yourself. We would allow a little more time if you are scheduling a contractor to come in and do the job for you, just to be extra safe. Once your product arrives, open the boxes to check for hidden damage. A lot of times a customer will receive everything way ahead of time and not open anything or check the packing list until the day they are doing the work. Then if there was some hidden damage or something is missing, all the planning goes out the window and now we both have an emergency on our hands. We don’t like these emergencies any more than you do. To avoid these situations order in advance, the product will not go bad if you get it a week or two ahead of time, it won’t cost any less if it gets there at the last minute. When you receive the product bring it inside where it is protected from the elements. You can store it anywhere you want just don’t let it freeze during winter months. Once safely inside open the boxes and cross check everything against the packing list. If you think you’re missing something or don’t know what a certain item is give us a call or send us an email. Same goes for something that might have been roughed up by the delivery company. We had a customer call in the other day saying he’s not sure if the Part A of the epoxy is still good since the can looked like it was kicked up and down a soccer field. It happens to be that the epoxy was fine but it was good that he made sure before applying it.
Another factor to keep in mind is that the majority of orders ship from our distribution center in NJ. So if you live on the west coast you need to allow for at least 5-6 days of travel time plus a day or two for us to pack and ship your order. While we are on the subject of packing and shipping. If you call in or order online at any time past 3:00 EST your order goes in as a next day order. If you order lets say at 5PM EST on a Friday, your order will then be processed as a Monday order. So please take this into account too. We have had customers order online over the weekend and then call first thing Monday morning looking for a tracking number. We understand why it happens in the age of Amazon, but we are not Amazon and the products we sell are basically custom made products.
In sum if you pressed the go button on your project give yourself as much time between ordering and when you plan to do the job. We do our best to get all orders out the door and to you asap. But just in case something goes wrong, if you allowed some extra time it gives us time to get you out replacement product if you missed something, we missed something or FedEx damaged something. And finally if using a contractor DON’T schedule him until you get all the tracking on your order and then schedule him at least 2 days past the time it would take us to get you replacement product just in case Murphy’s Law hits us.
Well it’s almost that time of the year again. The snow and ice will be melting off your decks and for many of you so will your deck coatings. If you don’t deal with this then the elements will damage your deck and you’ll need to get someone like Austin Fence & Deck – Repair & Replacement in to sort it. So you have a choice, do the same thing you do every year, strip and repaint or just repaint or reseal with that same clear sealer. All of which doesn’t work. So why not try something different?