<p>I need to replace some windows, the old ones are Pella. I find the new Pella windows are much more expensive than many of the locally made, less known brands. Pella said their windows - metal clad wood windows are much more durable than the less expensive vinyl windows we are considering. </p>
<p>Pella said the vinyl windows only lasts about 15 years whereas their windows last more than 30. The windows we are thinking of replacing are about 30 years old. They are well made. The windows are made of wood and needed to be painted over every 2 -3 years. </p>
<p>The new windows are clad with aluminum so I expect maintaining them is easier. I don’t expect the vinyl windows needed to be painted over either. </p>
<p>I live in a very harsh climate - very cold in winter and quite hot in summer. All windows, Pella or not, have sealed argon gas double/triple glass panes that the sellers said are guaranteed for life.</p>
<p>My question is: are the Pella windows or the more expensive metal clad wood windows better than the cheaper vinyl windows ?</p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t have experience with Pella windows. But, one thing you said really caught my attention.
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<p>I have been shopping locally for vinyl window replacements and most of the quotes I’m getting only have 10 year guarantees. Only one quote went out to a 20 year guarantee. No one is quoting a lifetime guarantee and I have contacted every seller/installer in the area. Of course, the guarantee is only as good as long as the manufacturer is solvent. Still, I wonder why the difference in guarantees?</p>
<p>Pella makes a good window, but so do many other manufacturers. I think exterior cladding is a must. I personally like the look of wood windows much better than vinyl which usually have weird visible seams. Don’t skimp on installation, if a good window is installed poorly it won’t perform any better than a poor one.</p>
<p>Fine Homebuilding regularly has good articles about windows. Some are available for free others you have to pay for, but you can probably find them in your local library. There’s a good article in the April 2009 issue.</p>
<p>munchkin, the original windows in our house are Pella, probably around the 30 year old mark. A couple of years ago, we started replacing them, also with Pella. After doing a lot of research, we went with Pella. We’re doing some each year, because we have a large house. Yes, they are expensive but, in my opinion, if you plan on living in the house for a long time, it’s worthwhile to get an excellent product if you can afford it. Pella has been around for a long time and I don’t have to worry about them closing up shop and disappearing, which is always a risk with a small, local operation. </p>
<p>The service we received, from start to finish, was excellent. Installation was as close to being ‘a breeze’ as is possible with home renovations. The finishing work around the windows was done in a professional and timely manner. By the way, the EnduraClad exteriors of these beautiful wood windows do not need painting, so no maintenance there.</p>
<p>We have Pella windows which we selected when we built our house. To say I love them is an understatement. Not only are they solidly built, they are low maintenance. Vinyl cladding exteriors with wooden interiors (which are painted). They just seemed so much more substantial than other windows we looked at.</p>
<p>We also selected the inside the window pane blinds for all the bedrooms. They are fabulous!!!</p>
<p>Thank you mathmom for the link. I need an education, I had been getting educated by the people who stands to make money off me so I doubt the information is totally bias free. Just from skimming the article I think I do not need to replace the windows totally. Those windows are beautifully made and still fit and operate well. It’s just that the wood frame needed to be painted regularly, and due to neglect from the property management company, there is some weather damage. </p>
<p>alwayamom - I think we live in the same city, the other company we are considering is Euroseal - they claim they have been around for over 20+ years and do original research for themselves. They are more expensive than the rest of the window sellers but not as expensive as Pella. This is the one single house, more than even my own home that we are going to keep for a long time. It will be passed on to the children. I just spend the last two weeks overlooking some renovations and upkeep. I was on my hands and knees cleaning and caulking , it’s not that we didn’t want to pay people to do the work and we did, but no contractor/cleaning crew can do the level of work that we expect. They miss spots here and there. The house is small so we are not looking at a lot of windows, but they are all casement (?), not the inexpensive sliders in my own home. </p>
<p>The puzzling thing for me is, besides the windows that needed to be replaced, maybe repaired, the house has a lovely wood attachment to the brick structure, which, again due to neglect by the property managers, had some weather damage. I thought it was just a matter of taking out the rotted part, and replacing the wood. The contractors just told us that the wood is in one piece and an integral part of the structure, and the only solution is to have the wood clad in metal, to hide the damage. I brought this up because we had resisted doing that in the first place was we thought cladding the wood in metal (aluminum) could lead to rotting under the metal when/if the water/moisture gets underneath the metal. I was surprised that Pella go the metal clad route with their new/improved windows.</p>
<p>Munchkin - we had some wood rot areas around some of our windows and doors. My H was able to scrape out as much rot as possible, then apply a wood hardener (eg. [Minwax</a> Definitely Gets Your Wood Hard - Minwax Wood Hardener, 1 Pint. - Epinions.com](<a href=“Shopping Online at Shopping.com | Price Comparison Site”>Shopping Online at Shopping.com | Price Comparison Site)). Then he filled it in with wood filler, and painted it. Looks like new. That was a year or two ago, and it’s still fine. I don’t know how much rot you’re dealing with, so I don’t know if this would work for everything, but it might work for much of it.</p>
<p>Thank you ! I wonder if we can find someone willing to do that for us for pay. Most of the rot is on the second floor and this house has 9 ft ceilings and a high basement. Dh said he is getting too old to do ANY work, not to mention climbing up a ladder. The molding has gaping holes where the contractor, in his hurry, ripped out the rotted part and filled it up which ever way with, quarter round, random pieces of wood he has around. It was at the end of the job and he was in a hurry to finish up. </p>
<p>After he left we found a gaping hole in the structure where he removed the rot and just painted it over. Dh found a quarter round and stuff it in there and then used caulk he had lying around to seal the shower and baseboard and caulking the rest of the gap, and then painted it over. Just so that there won’t be a gaping hole where the water can get into the house over winter. </p>
<p>We are hoping to get it clad in metal next year to protect the rest of the structure. Maybe I should do more research on how to repair this. My problem is that I am rather ignorant about these things. The husband is not interested and just rather not deal with it. It used to be a source of friction between us. He keep saying that he pays a management company good money to manage so he does not have to deal with the houses. What he found was, after an unfortunate incident with a leaking toilet valve (relatively small problem) which led to water damage and mold in the basement, and finding the contractor the manager hired to replace the kitchen faucet left a hole where the soap dispenser was, which led to water damage in the countertop, the list just goes on and on, property manager or not, we just can’t be hands off.</p>
<p>It sounds like Pella windows is worth the extra money, everyone who has it loves it here.</p>
<p>I can’t afford them for my own home but I think I should convince the husband to use them for the other house. Thank you everyone for your input.</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend Pella over Andersen. We too live in a area with rugged winters and hot, humid summers. My friends who have installed Pella are happy Andersen-NO. I have 4 friends with same windows and we all have the same issues.</p>
<p>We have Andersen tilt-wash, wood on the inside, vinyl clad on the outside. What a joke! They started rotting by the time they were 3-4 years old. Tilting them in to wash is a major hassle and requires someone tall and strong (there are little plastic things that slide down and you have to force the bottom sash out, then slide the plastic thing up and push HARD on the entire vinyl jamb liner, while simultaneously jerking out one side of the upper sash, then repeat for other side.)</p>
<p>The outside is NOT vinyl, nor maintenance free. The wood is covered with some vinyl-type paint. It scrapes off when opening the windows for cleaning. Then, the bare wood rots. The bottom of the sash also rots where water seeps up from the sill. </p>
<p>I spent less time on window maintenance in my 100 year old farmhouse! ARGG! Buy the best you can buy. Make sure you actually try them out for ease of washing before purchasing. /end of rant/</p>
<p>We considered Marvin ( more expensive than Pella but I didn’t see any great additional value there) and Pella and ended up going with Pella’s architectural series for function and appearance. We replaced about half the windows in the house about five years ago and immediately noticed a tremendous difference in terms of draftiness, heat loss and insulation. We just recently finished replacing the remaining old windows a few months ago, also with Pella. I find them incredibly easy to open, close and clean and beautiful to look at, as well - they add a lot to the space visually.</p>
<p>The major company products are functionally equivalent. One person may have issue with Anderson or Marvin or Pella, etc. but they are on average the same in quality of build, install, etc. </p>
<p>I suggest you look at Costco to see if the promotion they’ve been running with Pella is going on in your area (or still running generally). We replaced two very large sliders, had another removed along with what might be called a transom and had them replaced by two double hung windows. I got bids from 3 companies, including one that fabricates locally and generally uses Andersen. The Pella bid came in the lowest for higher end materials because of the Costco discount. Because of that, I put in the Pella Designer Series doors that are a sealed double pane with a third pane that encloses mini blinds that can be raised. As you can imagine, a third pane of glass plus blinds would normally be more expensive but I spent almost $2k under the other bids.</p>
<p>I live in an historic area where wood is required on the outside of areas facing the street, so I have a mix of wood and clad exteriors.</p>
<p>We had Pella on our last home and insisted on Pella when we built this home. Some were the architectural series, some designer, and some Pro. They just seem more substantial to me compared to vinyl windows. I know I never feel any air coming through them in winter months. My only “complaint” has been that we had to replace an entire sash when a mover cracked one pane of glass. This one on is a low e window. With some you can remove the interior glass. One cannot remove and replace a single piece of glass in the low e windows because they are sealed.</p>
<p>We have Pella in our current home, and Pella in our last home. DH installed every window himself in both houses.</p>
<p>They’ve been great. He swears by them and I don’t think he’s ever had a quality issue with one…I think he’s installed at least 60 of them over a 15 year period. </p>
<p>Our house was built in 1994 with all Pella windows, Architect Series, and we’ve had a very bad experience with them. Lots of leaks and rot. So far we’ve replaced 1/3 of the windows with Marvin 2 years ago. Very happy with the Marvin replacement windows. Haven’t replaced any of the Pella double hung windows yet, they seem to have less problems than the casement windows.</p>
<p>I guess my experience has been unusual: all Pella casement windows on our home, built new 16 years ago. Most leak. Pella said the problems relate to installation; builder said the problem was the windows. Never resolved.</p>
<p>I did legal work for a window company. Most of the issues were with installation, especially if stucco was involved. The company was not Pella. I would go with Pella.</p>
<p>Go to the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) website and get the Energy Star ratings of the different windows. Pella makes a good window—but look at the ratings—many of the vinyl windows that they bash----are equal if not better. </p>
<p>If you don’t mind the look of vinyl (you can get more colors than white now) go with a good quality vinyl with good ratings.</p>