Replies

1. 
   JAlden | Aug 19, 2009 12:35am | #1

   I don't know that they're the "best" but I like my Marvins. I have both their Casemasters and French Casemasters.

1. 
   Omah | Aug 19, 2009 01:09am | #2

   thanks.. ill check em out

2. 
   RedfordHenry | Aug 19, 2009 01:09am | #3

   For vinyl clad, I vote for Andersen.  Never cared for the aluminum nailing flanges or cladding on the Pellas.

    

1. 
   Omah | Aug 19, 2009 03:42am | #4

   Thanks for your help, I think my client is pretty much fixated on a bronze exterior casement. But i'll check them out and see what they got.

1. 
   RedfordHenry | Aug 19, 2009 04:00am | #5

   In the past couple of years, I've put in six Pella casement windows on two separate jobs. In each case, the client chose them solely for their exterior color (Pella "brown").

2. 
   rnsykes | Aug 19, 2009 04:46am | #8

   Andersen's are not clad with vinyl. It's supposedly phenolic. Whatever the heck that is. But I like the Andersens.

1. 
   Shep | Aug 19, 2009 05:10am | #9

   I know some of the Andersens are clad with vinyl. I think the casements and 200 series double hungs are.

   The Frenchwood doors are phenolic clad. I'm not sure what else is.

1. 
   rnsykes | Aug 19, 2009 05:25am | #10

   i thought the 200's were just vinyl. Never used them though. I only have experience with the Frenchwoods. We just replaced hardware on 20 year old Andersen casements. New cranks and a little lube and they work and look as good as ever. The wooden interiors need to be maintained though.

3. 
   Shep | Aug 19, 2009 04:05am | #6

   Pella and Andersen are good. I prefer Andersen for a couple of reasons, excellent customer service being one.

   A grade up would be Marvin or Kolbe & Kolbe. Both are very good windows, tho I have more experience with Marvin.

1. 
   hubcap | Aug 19, 2009 04:13am | #7

   my experience with pella on the four houses I used them in-
   customer service was abysmal.never againNo Tag

4. 
   shelternerd | Aug 19, 2009 06:01am | #11

   The very best made in America regardless of price? http://www.seriousmaterials.com/html/seriouswindows.html
   Serious windows, no joke. beyond that you gotta order in from Canada. or go to Weathershield if you don't mind arrogant and sloppy customer service.

   For best value I like the new fiberglass/wood windows from Peachtree (value oriented division of Weathershield) with the Zoe-E squared "easycare" self cleaning glass. The fibeglass is in many ways better than their aluminum clad product and priced to reflect that.

   Peachtree's customer service and factory trained installation crews and service techs have been first rate in my experience. I'll never have my trim guys or framers install windows again.

   ------------------

   "You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."

1. 
   ranchodiablo | Aug 19, 2009 06:23am | #12

   In Canada, the best window's I've seen and used are Loewen made in Steinbach Manitoba... although they distribute across the country.  Beautiful windows.

1. 
   shelternerd | Aug 19, 2009 07:08am | #14

   No doubt, you Canadians understand why windows are important. The manual J calc will drive it home pretty well too. we just built a house with 12" thick R-46 walls. 8" thick R 30 foam in the roof but plenty of windows that had a U-value of .30 and a SHGC of .30 so on our manual J calc the windows were 28.5% of our heating load and 48.5% of the cooling load (though the man-J software couldn't compensate for the shade structures we built over all the south and west windows) Of course "internal gains"- the refrigerator, computers, TV etc accounted for 23.4% of our heat gain and the house hit a HERS 48 with an ACH-50 at 1.75. so we're not really talking about all that much energy. Still, if we'd had the budget to go for some of those super windows we could have really pushed the performance of the total envelope.------------------

   "You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."

1. 
   jonblakemore | Aug 19, 2009 07:14am | #15

   "the house hit a HERS 48 with an ACH-50 at 1.75"

   Michael,

   Were you satisfied with your blower door results? I would have thought that a house with the specs you describe would have a lower ACH, but I don't have a large sample size to compare with either. 

   Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA

1. 
   shelternerd | Aug 19, 2009 07:40am | #16

   Yeah, I was a bit disappointed, but we had a 4" passive air intake in the room we had the blower door set up in and a 6" range hood with dubiously effective damper but other than that the house seemed to be pretty air tight. We were pulling 780 cfm at 50 pascals and calculated the volume of the house a 26,642 cf. It's full on stucco siding over meticulously taped Tyvek, spray foam in the band joists as well as the roofs, very good quality windows well installed. I feel like it's going to perform very well and we're seeing good indications so far at a month and a half into occupancy. I also think the HERS 48 was high considering we have a solar water heater with three 4x8 panels driving close to 200 gallons of storage to preheat the radiant floor with a condensing nat gas boiler for back-up and 9" icf slab edge insulation to the footings and 2" of XPS under the slab. I'm trying to get Truvion to do a real time web enabled energy monitoring system to watch it's energy consumption. I really think the house will perform better than the numbers we're seeing.------------------

   "You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."

5. 
   Jeff_Clarke | Aug 19, 2009 06:53am | #13

   Marvin's new Ultimate Casement window.

   http://marvin.com/default.aspx?page=Ultimate_Casement

   View Image  View Image  View Image

    

6. 
   hipaul | Aug 19, 2009 09:58am | #17

   Another vote for Marvins. Loewens too if you've got the money. Both are first-rate.

   Paul

   http://www.pauljohnsoncarpentry.com
1. 
   Adrian | Aug 19, 2009 07:42pm | #18

   Loewens are first rate windows, but expensive....I toured the factory once, and they are excellent.

   I just finished my house (last window in yesterday) with windows from Polytech, a smal company here in Nova Scotia....they use a high grade of vinyl, and the windows are the Euorpean tilt and turn system....the window swings in to clean, but tilts out at the top for ventilation.  We love them. We get some rugged weather here, and these are the most solid windows I've seen.

   These windows have the highest rating it is possible to get under the Canadian Standards Association cirteria.....A3 B7 C5 F10 (A=air tightness, B= water leakge, C=wind load resistance F=forced entry)....check them out: they'll ship. http://www.polytechproducts.com/index.html

    Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

7. 
   webted | Aug 19, 2009 08:21pm | #19

   We went with Sierra Pacific aluminum clad. Vertical grain doug fir interiors came as standard, although a pine option is available for those that don't like grain figure... The radius casements were customizable and the powder coating (a bunch of colors to pick from) all looked sharp. Simulated "true divided lights" with a milled detail ("colonial trim") only added ~$11 for each "new" pane generated, regardless of where the grills were located (completely customizable) or whether they were curved. For example, addding a single horizontal and a single vertical (creating a cross) turns a single light into a 4 pane panel. That added $33 to the price of the unit. We came up with a design motif that used a single horizontal divider across the top of the pane (5" or 6" inset depending on the scale) and a pair of vertical dividers on either side.

   The large (5' tall, 6' wide) radius double casement operates very smoothly, which is impressive for a window that size.

   They came in about 60 - 65% the cost of the equivalent aluminum clad Pellas (which we also bid out). No drama to the installation - outside of the fact that the radius casement and the accompanying 10' french door set were heavier than bejeezus...

   I had one set of casement handles that showed up the wrong color, and one window was late being delivered (one out of the 12 units was left on the dock in California), and both problems were dealt with promptly.

   Because of the timing, I handled bidding and installing the windows myself. Nonetheless, my GC, site superintendent and the lead carpenter (who mostly handle Pella, Anderson and Jeld Wen) were all impressed with the look, performance and price. When people visit, it's usually the first thing they comment on - i.e. "Wow, nice windows!"

8. 
   chizelhead | Dec 28, 2015 04:20pm | #20

   How are the Sierra Pacific windows holding up?

   thx --