We finally had all our windows and patio door replaced on 9/13 after years of getting ridiculously high quotes (one place quoted us $8000 for the patio door alone). We ended up going with a guy our neighbors hired to replace all their windows and his price was nearly half that of the cheapest window company we could find. Are they the highest quality windows in existence? No. Are they nice looking white vinyl windows that are better than the old aluminum ones? Yes.
The one thing I’ll say is that while we did save a lot of money, it was a bit of a pain going back and forth with the guy to make sure we were getting exactly what we wanted. I’m sure that process would have been smoother with a bigger company, but in the end everything (mostly, see update below) worked out fine.
The guy and his crew, which included two other guys, arrived early in the morning and did all the work in one day, finishing up sometime around 4 pm I believe. I can’t remember the exact time, but considering we had a three panel patio door and 8 windows, I was impressed. I was told by at least one company the installation would take two days which I didn’t like since I knew Wookie would be stressed out the entire time.
I figured I’d list some things no one warned us about that might help someone else:
1) There will be dust EVERYWHERE, and I do mean EVERYWHERE. On every single surface, including those nowhere near a window. Of course the installers cleaned up all the big pieces of debris around each window, but a fine layer of dust settled on everything. Needless to say, I had to vacuum and wipe down every surface in the house.
2) The caulk around the windows will take days to cure and will be easy to mess up if you touch it at all within the first day or two (and even beyond that if you press on it with something hard/sharp). I wish the crew had brought this to our attention before I accidentally put indentations in the caulk near the bottom of a window.
3) The windows will need to be cleaned. Maybe other companies take care of this, but I was left with windows with fingerprints and little spots of glue all over (and sometimes fingerprints IN the glue). I guess that’s the price one pays when hiring someone who charges literally half the price of their competitors. Although don’t get me wrong, I will gladly take on that task to save thousands of dollars. Luckily they are double hung, so getting access to both sides of a window is pretty easy. That being said, it still took me over an hour to thoroughly remove the glue from two windows. There’s a lot of back and forth trying to figure out which side of the window the glue is on, using a razorblade to scrape it off, then using window cleaner to clean up the residue. Then you put the window back up, only to realize you missed spots. Rinse and repeat.
4) You might need new window treatments. We had inside mount white faux wood blinds on all the windows but the casing of the new ones take up more space in the frame now, so they cannot be reused unless we mount them on the outside of the frame. That’s not possible with the windows in our living room because the fireplace mantel is RIGHT there in the way. Not a huge deal, as the blinds are pretty old, and in some cases yellowed by the sun on one side, but I’m overwhelmed by the available options and having a hard time choosing what to buy. Right now I have curtains over the primary bedroom window for privacy, and temporary paper cellular shades over the other windows. We were able to reuse the vertical blinds for the patio door, however. I gave them a real thorough clean first (which took three hours) before Joe put them back up.
5) Because you don’t want to damage the aforementioned caulk, your windows will be bare for a few days. Otherwise the risk is too high that the caulk will get indentations all over when you install your window treatments. It was creepy as all hell at night, let me tell you. We felt so exposed!
All that being said, I’m still happy with our new windows and patio door. They look/function great (well, other than a small thing with the patio door I need to address with the installer).
Update (April 2024):
Back in September we failed our inspection with the village because the double-hung windows in the two front bedrooms were too small to allow escape during a fire. This is something our installer should have known, so that was annoying, and even though the one room had a second window that didn’t fail, thus not requiring us to replace the failed window in that room, it didn’t make sense to not replace both windows anyway since it would look dumb from the outside to have two different types of windows next to one another.
Therefore we ended up having to remove two double-hung windows and replace them with casement windows since they were the only type of window that would pass inspection. That was done on 4/10. The installer redid the windows for cost (aka didn’t charge us for labor, only for the actual windows, since he was largely at fault) and then we sold the two double-hung windows via Facebook Marketplace.
I hate the way the new windows look and function – they crank open, which means you have to be cautious about keeping them open if it’s especially windy out as they could be ripped off their hinges or at the very least damaged. Also the screen is on the inside and spans the entire window whereas with the double-hung windows the screen is on the outside. Unfortunately, we had no choice and have to live with it.
I suggested to the association that they warn people moving forward that they’ll need casement windows in their front rooms, but I doubt they will do it. Sure, the window installers should catch this when applying for a permit, but it’s still aggravating that neither the village nor the association bother to give anyone a head’s up, thus saving them time, money, and frustration. Instead owners don’t find out until after the windows fail inspection. This already happened to another resident before it happened to us (which we learned of at an association meeting), and I have no doubt it will keep happening depending on which company is tasked to perform the replacements since the association and village do not request the window type/measurements to ensure they adhere to code before the work is done.