The Saturday Morning Home Repair Blog (SMHRB) is where we gather to discuss the many and varied aspects of home repair. Some here are trained professionals. Some, talented DIYers. All are welcome. Please feel encouraged to ask questions, share successes, lament sags, drips and cracks and, as always, share any advice that you have for the rest of us.
I've had a lot of windows replaced. I've had four houses of windows done.
The first time I did it, it was my own house in 2006. I used an independent contractor who bought the windows from a local company that only deals with contractors. He talked a good game when I was interviewing contractors, and the work was satisfactory, though we didn't end up on speaking terms because of a conflict we had over something one of his subs did to my house that ended up costing me quite a bit of money. (Evelyn Wood version: He damaged the mast that brings electric service into my house then tried to claim it was that way before he started. It wasn't that way before he started and I knew it. But I ended up having to pay for a new mast and it came to more than $1,000.)
Before I settled on the contractor, I got estimates from a wide variety of contractors including the company that has the biggest TV advertising budget in the Detroit area, a small, family owned renovation that operates in my city, and several other independents. I chose the contractor I chose because he seemed to know what he was talking about and he didn't piss me off the way the guy from the big TV advertiser did.
I don't know if it's this way in the rest of the country, but around here, if you see advertising for window replacements on TV, the price they give you when you ask for an estimate is inflated by 100%. They give you this wildly high price, then they tell you they're running a half-off special, JUST THIS WEEK. Thing is, the half-off price is competitive with what the independent contractors charge. And every week, 52 weeks a year, is JUST THIS WEEK.
I'm sorry. This pisses me off. When I ask for an estimate, I want a fair estimate of what this job costs. I don't want to have to wait for an oily salesman to get around to giving me the real price. I just want them to tell me the price.
I turned the oily salesman down and for the next five days, the company kept calling me (at home, at work, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening) until I told them I was going to sue them if they didn't stop calling me. What did they think? If they could just annoy me enough I would give in and give them the job?
If you live and watch TV in the Detroit area, you probably know what company I'm talking about.
The next time I needed replacement windows it was after I started buying and renovating rental houses. It was the summer of 2009. There was no way I was going to talk to another salesman from that big TV advertiser, and the independent contractor I used the first time was out too.
There's another company that does a lot of TV advertising. Their tag line is "We can do that, we're the factory." Their salesperson didn't piss me off, though they did do the same, double price/special half-price thing as the first big company. If you see their TV ads it's always the last weekend for their half-price sale. It ends every Sunday and starts every Monday.
Here's their crew installing a big double-hung window in the living room. (This, BTW, is the same little house I was preparing for city inspection in my last diary.)
I was satisfied with the work and the windows. They're still in good shape and tight six years later.
My next window replacement was in 2012. The oldest of the houses I owned (I've since sold this house) came up for inspection and the city cited me for the fact that some of the windows wouldn't lock. These were unusual windows (original from 1928 construction) and new locking hardware was going to be a problem. I've never seen windows quite like them. The screens were embedded in the bottom of the frames. In the summer, you were supposed to open the window then pull the screen up out of the frame to meet the open sash.
The screens were mostly missing. A lot of the sash weights were missing so the windows were hard to open and close. There weren't any parts available anywhere.
I called back the "we're the factory company" but they had a six week wait between ordering and getting your windows. I didn't have that much time to get my window problem sorted for the inspection. I didn't want to go back to the contractor who did my house. But "M" stepped up and suggested he could do it for me for a good price getting the windows at Home Depot.
M did it, and his price was lowest of any of the window jobs I've had. There were some glitches along the way, but in the end, the job got done on time and I've had no issues with the installation.
As for the windows themselves, after the stickers were peeled off I have been unable to find any difference between the windows from the "we're the factory" guys, the company that builds windows for contractors and the windows from Home Depot. They're all low-E double glazed vinyl windows. They all tilt in for washing. I don't think there's any difference.
My last window job was different. It was the brick bungalow I renovated in the fall of 2013.
The new windows were like all the others. But the windows that were taken out were completely different.
This house had steel casement windows. They were leaky and poorly insulated. The windows are built into steel sheet metal boxes that were embedded in the brick exterior of the house.
The original windows
Building the wooden frames
A finished window
The estimates I got on the job dropped my jaw. Because the steel boxes had to be ripped out and replaced with wooden frames to put the new windows in, the cost was going to be two to three times the cost of all my previous window replacement jobs. The cost took my breath away. Not only that, but most of the contractors I had out to estimate told me they wouldn't do the job at any price. It was just too much trouble. M was completely uninterested in doing it.
I was close to leaving the original windows in place (a bad idea because they were in pretty bad condition, rusted and leaky) when I finally found a contractor who was willing to do the job and at the best price I'd heard up to that point. Later, I found out he'd messed up and quoted the job as if it was replacing normal windows, but he honored the price he'd given me. If I need this kind of work again, I'll undoubtedly go back to him because his work was good and he kept his word.
So, if you're thinking of replacing windows, here's my advice:
1. Forget the big companies that advertise on TV. They all use basically the same windows, and often even the same subcontractors. But the money for all those TV ads has to come from somewhere. Go to a small company that doesn't have so much overhead.
2. It doesn't make a lot of difference where the windows come from. Vinyl replacement windows are vinyl replacement windows. After the stickers are off, you'd have a hard time telling what company they come from.
3. The most important thing in the process is the contractor. When you find one you can work with, keep him.
So... what's happening in your world this morning?