Window shopping - literally

After opening up the house for the contractors, I went home to work on calls and research. There's just so much to do, and it's hard to manage so many things at once. I spent most of the day researching windows online. As with everything, it is incredibly complex. We need to replace the windows before we move in. There are bars on the windows that don't have a safety release, so if there's a fire between you and the door, you die. We don't need or want the bars and nobody else in the neighborhood has them. Once we remove the bars, we have no security because the old windows are so badly rotted that they don't close and lock correctly. So our house would have a welcome mat for burglars.

I found some good information though, and went to a nearby Pella showroom to look at windows. They have three lines of wood windows which are clad in aluminum (meaning the outside is aluminum to better withstand the elements). I liked the lowest priced line they have, which comes in standard sizes and limited options (yes, there are options on windows) so they are cheaper.

The showroom was nice - it was good to actually be able to see the windows installed and open and close them. I was less than impressed with the showroom help though - they seemed to know very little and gave me a cell phone number of a sales rep. Another confusing thing about windows is that there are no prices to be had. In order to get a price, you have to have an in-home consultation and get a quote on the whole job. What a time waster! Why bother having a sales rep spend an hour or two plus travel time at my house when I may be able to rule out their product before I even bother. Stuff like that is really irritating to me. It wastes my time and theirs, and I think the underlying assumption is that consumers are so gullible that we'll buy something we think is too expensive based on the words of a glib sales person.

I liked the Pella windows, but was disappointed to learn that they don't make a slider window (e.g. one that opens by sliding the glass to the left or right). They claim that it is not possible to make a quality one out of wood, and steered me to fiberglass for my sliders. We have mostly double hung (e.g. window consists of two panes of glass, one on top of the other, that both slide up and down), but there are three sliders thrown into the mix. One of the sliders is over the kitchen sink, so that makes sense since it might be easier to operate. For the rest of the windows, I think the original builder used leftovers from other jobs. They are all different sizes - there are 4 different sizes of double hung, and then one of the bedrooms has two sliders of different sizes. It's very strange. In the paperwork the prior seller left behind, I found something that indicated that some family member was a builder. A neighbor also told me that one of the reasons there was so much stuff left behind is that this relative who was a builder stored a lot of stuff there. Anyway, I don't believe Pella's claim since other quality window manufacturers sell sliders made of wood. Also, I didn't like having windows that don't match. The fiberglass window line looked completely different than the wood. In a few parts of the house, this mismatch would be really obvious.