So I got a call from one of the installers (I had been trying to meet them each morning, but their morning schedule seems to fall behind more and more each day, so I miss them since I need to go to work. In fact one day, I was told the lead had to change his fuel filter. I guess he thinks I’m an idiot. There Is no reason for a fuel filter to be an emergency unless he hadn’t been keeping any tabs on starting problems or high fuel consumption situations. An old fuel filter is identified by a decreasing fuel pressure.).
Anyhow, the siding lead told me that he painted my old kitchen vent (black while the siding is “saddle” (a tan) ) and sided around it because he said the existing vent was riveted to the house and installed from the inside making it impossible to do anything about. This was upsetting because we had already told him before they sided that part of the house that the salesperson, Stacey Skelton of Lowes, was doing new vents as a purchasing decision we made at the beginning. Well, I had to have him cease work on that part of the house until this could be addressed. Moreover, Shawn Adams, Jack Adams, Lafe (the lead installer), and Stacey Skelton, all had my mobile and home phones and some had my email address(es), but no one even attempted to call about the change they unilaterally made. I already had messages with Stacey from Dec 4th to contact me immediately (about the lack of siding progress) and she never had. So I tried the store. I then got a call from a Rochelle at Lowes that she would help me while Stacey was out. I explained the problem to her and she said she would look into it and get back with me by the end of the day (Friday, Dec. 8). Well, she never did, and she left at 3pm. I know because I called Lowes at 4:30pm to check up on it. After a half hour on the phone and having to talk with people from odd departments like cabinets, I spoke with a manager also named Stacy who said she would follow up on my problem, although she said it might not be immediately on Friday, and I responded that this weekend would be fine. Well, as of Sunday night, there has been no contact from Lowes (including from Rochelle and Stacey Skelton).
So I during a snowy weekend (further raising my regret with Lowes and Adams Home Exteriors), I climbed the outside wall to look at the vent cap. It looked poorly painted black and looked like it was installed on top of the siding with screws mad straight into the siding. This poor workmanship started upsetting me further. Today, I fully removed the microwave oven/range hood unit so I could check out the ducting situation from the inside (unfortunately, I fried the light on the microwave doing so), but I found that there was nothing holding the ducting in like Lafe (Adams Home Exteriors) swore would have required all this huge work cutting through the duct and removing, etc. etc. It was all @$#%. Better yet, the vent was closed and I could not open it from the inside. So I went back outside, reclimbed the wall, and found that the bird guard had been pushed so far inside that the flap could not rotate. They made it so the kitchen vent is completely unusable! Just to be clear, this is Adams Home Exteriors installers doing this.
So I sent a text to Shawn Adams, setting up a Monday morning meeting at the house to go over the poor installation choices and the correct way to handle it. FWIW, here are some instructions from one of the many sites I found about this:
“The vents you buy may not be weatherproof. You will have to do the weatherproofing when going through a side wall. First, remove all the siding in the area you will be working in by unzipping it and lifting it off the nail heads. Don’t pull the nails. It will give you a precise location to reinstall your siding. When you determine where your hole will be, you will need to build out the hole area with a square of lumber, probably a 1×8 or 10. Cut the hole through the wall and the attached 1x lumber. Flash over the lumber at least 8″ and let it protrude over the lip of the lumber for a drip edge. Install sticky window tape on bottom, sides and top, in that order. Band the exterior of the 1x with jchannel with proper drip cuts, then reinstall your siding, cutting it to fit the jchannel. Once your vent is placed through the hole, apply elastomeric caulk to the exit wound, prime and paint the wood.” [source https://www.doityourself.com/forum/exterior-paneling-all-exterior-sidings/443130-i-want-run-range-hood-vent-thru-my-vinyl-siding.html ]
To add insult to injury, they installed a cheap louvered vent for my dryer. I know it’s bad because I’ve had it before and the cheap plastic gets brittle from the heating-cooling and there is no hood or cover. So I found the Exterior Portfolio accessories listed on their 2017 brochure (given to us by Stacey such that I would think we were getting Exterior Portfolio accessories, but…). The installed vent is actually a bathroom vent according to Exterior Portfolio. For them, the only dryer vents are hooded (see http://www.exteriorportfolio.com/uploadedFiles/Content/For_Professionals/Resources/EP_ProductGuide_2017_LR.pdf ).
So therefore, I have two vent problems. Better yet, they had already installed another siding course above the kitchen vent already and a couple past the dryer vent.