Howdens - Leyland Avis 

As always, excellent service and quality

It's not often I leave reviews, only when they're very good or in this case very bad.

It's a long read for which I apologise but please read if you intend to purchase "standard doors" with honeycomb construction.

I recently purchased 7 internal pre-primed Linear doors at a discounted cost to me of £800. I chose Howdens as a reputable brand name assured me of being supplied with a product of quality and being fit for purpose.

However, I am bitterly disappointed with the product both in terms of the quality of materials used in construction and their total inadequacy in their being fit for the purpose intended.

I chose the Linear door range specifically due to it's classy design being perfect for our internal decor scheme and the pre-primed option due to needing to paint the doors in a specific colour that Howdens do not offer. Howdens description of "semi-solid construction, it also has a honeycomb core which re-creates the robust feel of solid timber without the premium price tags". This gave me a misguided assurance to place the order in the first place but in hindsight, the description also creates a somewhat misleading concept regarding the actual product supplied being suitable for the purpose of what a door is intended for.

Having looked around at various definitions for the actual purpose of internal doors, the most accurate as far as my expectations go is "Internal doors will go a long way to completing the overall look and feel of your home. Their primary role is functional - they divide up spaces and prevent noise travelling around the house".

All of the internal doors lead off from a central entrance hallway. These include bedroom doors for each of our teenage girls, our main bathroom and master bedroom. Four of the doors were professionally hung by a qualified joiner before we noticed how bad they were and stopped.

What I was subsequently and completely horrified by is the total and sheer amount of noise transference through each and every one of the doors. Quite frankly our teenage girls are too embarrassed to use the bathroom and even though the bedroom doors create a divide that cannot be seen through, they feel that they have no privacy whatsoever due to sound transferrence, which as a teenager is completely unacceptable. The most important rooms in a house for a teenage girl, their bedroom, to them now feel like public shared spaces.

So I wrote to Howdens regarding the issues and build quality. I got the standard wash their hands reply "It is our understanding that the noise level requirements were not discussed with the depot prior to purchasing the doors in question. Had this been mentioned then the depot staff would have suggested you go for developer doors to assist with this. Furthermore, our catalogue states to look for an ‘E’ logo when looking for a sound reducing door to help minimise sound travel and to provide a peaceful and quiet environment."

In their corporate defence, I get this to some degree but they did not tackle the issue about the "standard" door being fit for purpose and misleading descriptions.

God loves a tryer so I replied.

I shopped online, a common practice because of COVID, so didn't have the luxury of looking at a catalogue. I'm not a door expert either. Regardless of "E" logo's and "Developer" doors (there is only one type of this in an old style), one would expect a "standard" door to be fit for the very basic purpose intended and even a basic level door should have some level of resistance to sound passage. Believe me when I say you would not have these doors in your house. You may as well just put up a sheet of paper, that's how bad they are.

In addition, the website description of the door construction is misleading, "engineered core" would tend to suggest a decent, robust quality door, plus it makes no reference to the product not being suitable for specific areas such as bedrooms or bathrooms where sound privacy is needed, so why would I think that they are not.??? Neither are there any filter options to assist in this respect, so again why would I not think they are not suitable.

Howdens reply and position, surprisingly remains unchanged and I still have doors not fit for purpose and the problem of having to re-purchase.

I'm only giving it a 1* as I'm getting a refund for the three doors we refused to fit.

An expensive mistake........................

Excellent service from howdens,, great advice, very friendly customer service were nothing is to much trouble, delivery was spot on

Multiple times I’ve used howdens and I’ll be going again

My wife and myself chose fittings for a new Kitchen and Utility Area. We dealt with Wesley who surveyed the areas and offered alternatives of design and cost. We found him very polite and courteous with an endless amount of patience to accommodate our changing whims. We were very satisfied with the service we received from all staff and the Kitchen/Utility, fitted by local joiner Tom Barron, is lovely.

What a hassle free, excellent process it has been ordering a kitchen from Howdens! Home visit to establish basic requirements. Gary was superb in interpreting our wishes. Priced reasonably, and incorporating everything we wanted! Thank you Howdens

The Leyland branch is fantastic. Loads of samples to help you decide and nothing too much trouble.
Wes was fantastic and very patient as we changed the colour options numerous times and he had to redo the plans each time.
Slight issues with delivering wrong colour doors but rectified the following day. Had to chase a few times but overall a very happy customer.

Have recently had a new kitchen fitted which was supplied by Howdens' Leyland branch. We received a first class service from James who provided excellent advice right from the start. With his expert guidance and customer care we have ended up with our dream kitchen. Nothing was too much trouble and he was more than happy to answer any queries l had (and l did have quite a few 😄)Very highly recommended.

Usual Howdens choice and value, I’ve been to lots of their branches but this one always seems to try that little bit harder and always seems good-humoured.
Credit where credit is due, the staff are superb.