Windows

For some reason, the only three appointments that we actually scheduled during the Home Show were for windows. Two were with major name brand window companies and the third was with Sears. Both of the presentations for the windows companies were basically the same, except one guy showed his on a laptop and the other had it on paper. Each one claimed they were the first to offer vinyl windows and that their windows was superior to everyone elses. They both performed a heat lamp test showing the superiority of their windows. I have to say that that test was pretty amazing. The man went outside and held up a heat lamp to the glass patio door. We were on the inside and could instantly feel the heat coming through the glass. Then he held the lamp up to the "competitors" windows and although it wasn't quite as hot, you could still feel the heat coming through. Finally, he held the lamp up to his company's windows and you couldn't feel any heat come through. Since both companies did the same test and both windows performed equally well, I would have to believe that windows with the same performance rating would fare equally well on the heat lamp test.

We left the first Sales Rep in the dining room working on our free estimate and Jason and I huddled in my office, each coming up with our own gut estimate. We were both shocked when the estimate came in at $14,000 for seven windows and two sliding glass doors. This was after the Home Show "discount" and the energy tax credit. Then the sales rep looked us square in the eye and asked us when we would like to schedule them to come out and measure. We'd already decided that there was no way we were going to sign anything right there on the spot, so we explained that we had other people coming in for estimates and we'd make a decision after that.

The following week we had the second company come in for an estimate. This was a little lower, around $10,000, but still more than we had expected. We were getting discouraged and staring to realize that maybe we wouldn't be able to afford windows after all. We'd just have to live with our old aluminum, single pane windows forever.

The next day Sears was due to come by for an estimate. They were scheduled to be here at 6:00pm. Five minutes before six, their office called to say that the sales rep was running late and would be there in a half hour. Since the presentations tended to run at least two hours, I explained that this would make it too late in the evening for us. They offered to reschedule, but I declined. I basically told them that there were plenty of companies out there that wanted our business. If they couldn't hold to their scheduled time, it reflected poorly on them as a company. How was I to know that this tardiness wouldn't also carry over to the installers when they came to install the windows.

So we were basically at the point where we were going to just forget the windows and concentrate on the other repairs and remodeling we needed done.