Friday, September 13, 2013

Windows Part II

Continuing with the windows saga, I had two more window company representatives stop by on Tuesday, the fourth and fifth meetings in two days.

The fourth window rep was a likable guy.  He was aware that I was meeting with several reps and we were not going to make a decision until the end of the week.  He was also aware that I had seen most of the demonstrations and did not waste our time on the little things.  He showed us his fine product, all it's unique and desirable features and gave us a fair estimate.  We had a new front-runner.

The fifth window rep was an older guy, had probably been in sales his whole life.  He was realistic and efficient, but his product was just not quite as good as the one before.  Not bad, but not as fancy or quite as efficient as the previous one.  He gave us a pretty low price but, again, went for the sale at the end even though we told him we were not making a decision that day.  Thankfully he was not as obnoxious as the third rep.

So, after all that we had made our decision;  window company number 4.  We got a very nice triple pane window with a u-value of .22*, wood grain interior (white exterior), hardware to match what we have throughout the house and black cladding to go around the outside of the window exterior.  I think the black cladding is going to look real good outside.  With a white house and a white window it will give the windows some added definition, plus the trim on the garage and the foundation are both black, so it will match.  The rep came by last night and we made it official.  Now all we have to do is make appointments when the time is right and in about 2 months we'll have our new windows.

My task today is to make courtesy calls to the other window reps, thanking them for their time in most cases and simply trying to remain polite in others.  Should be fun!


*The energy star rating this year is still .30, next year it lowers to .27 so we did pretty well - and I believe we'll get a 200 dollar tax break!

2 comments:

delcatto said...

Wow. That sounds like it was a hard slog but from our experience of buying windows you did the right thing. Especially needed if it's another cold winter.

Scoakat said...

Thank you, Delcatto. It was a crash course in replacement windows, that's for sure. There were more I could have talked to, but I feel we did our due diligence and got the best windows for our needs. I fully expect our heating bill to be half what it was, if not better.