<p>Anyone have any experience? Good or bad?</p>
<p>replaced picture windows 2x. Need to replace for 3rd time. The windows face south, and get full afternoon sun and winter storms. The windows are fairly large. </p>
<p>Windows are available in different thicknesses. I forget what we have (W’s doings). </p>
<p>No problems with other our other Anderson windows, just the these. Replacement guaranteed is honored. But then I haven’t come across a manufacturer that didn’t offer a replacement guarantee.</p>
<p>We’re about to replace all our windows with Anderson Renewal. Crossing my fingers since the cost by far exceeds the cost of any car we’ve ever owned…</p>
<p>fwiw–I did my windows last year–used ClearChoice USA. The price was less than I thought it would be. And I was very happy with the service/installation.</p>
<p>I’ve always heard that Andersen is very overpriced. I had them come to my house to discuss replacing a front door and nearly keeled over at the quote–sent the salesman away immediately.</p>
<p>MommaJ, I’ve heard the same… we decided on Anderson because they are pre-approved by the historic association that oversees the neighborhood where I live. Going with others would require waiting to get a special permit. I also like their lifetime guarantee for whoever owns the house. But yea, that price tag…</p>
<p>Laf- we put renewal by andersen’s in our cape house two summers ago. Have been very happy with them. The guy who did them also recommended them over some other well known good brand (pella? marvin? don’t remember) because of ease of service/warranty claims. We did not consider newpro or similars. Wish we could justify replacing the crappy but not old windows in our main house.</p>
<p>Our house is 17 years old and came with kind of cheap windows (Rivco - ugh). Had the Renewal by Anderson guy here last night for a no-obligation quote good for one year. He was nice, showed us the windows and explained the technology, and it truly seems like a great product. But the cost… would have been $31k to do the whole house, except for discounts that we’d only get if we signed up right now. With the discounts, it was $24k. We said no. Then he said we only had to do 5 windows now to get the discount, and could do the rest any time we wanted (all at once or in small groups) and still get the discount on the rest of the windows no matter how long we waited. But it was still $8k to do 5 windows. We said yes but I didn’t feel good about it. This morning I woke up and told H that I thought $8k could be better spend re-roofing the house. He agreed, so I took advantage of the 3-day window to change our mind and cancelled the order. Went by the showroom to drop off the cancellation form, just waiting for the manager to call me back and tell me he’s mailing our check back.</p>
<p>wow, 1600 per window! Is that gilded with gold?</p>
<p>We used Anderson Renewal to replace most of the windows in our previous house before putting it on the market – about 20 windows, I think. The installation was quick, easy, and clean. I don’t remember exactly what we paid, but it was nowhere $1600/window. There was some sort of promotion going on at the time. We had a good experience. (Oh, this was 4 1/2 years ago.)</p>
<p>Not a big fan of Andersen Renewal - they are ridiculously overpriced, and when I was researching windows for my house there I came across too many horror stories.</p>
<p>I wound up getting Marvin Infinity windows. This is an all-fiberglass window - no vinyl at all. Because fiberglass is so much stronger than vinyl, the stiles and rails can by much thinner (as thin as wood). This was important to me because my windows are on the small side - the fiberglass window got me about 15% more glass area than vinyl. The cost came out to around $650 per window installed, and that included a humongous picture window (74" x 48" or thereabouts). The quotes I got for a good quality vinyl window (Harvey) were under $400 per window installed, and for a metal-clad ranged from $900 per window (Marvin) to $1200/window (Pella).</p>
<p>I’m very happy with the windows I got.</p>
<p>$1600 per window? Keep shopping.</p>
<p>And the minute any salesman said “this price is only good for tonight” or “I need both you and your spouse to be there” it was game over for that company. And if you want to play that game, you should always say no that night, because a “manager” will call back the next day with an even better price.</p>
<p>Laf - I see you are in New England, if you are in eastern MA, PM me and I will give you the name of the window company I used. I was very happy with them, got them from a friend, and have recommended them several times to other friends, good experiences all around.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that a good installation is at least as important as the product.
Window installation is not rocket science but there are many ways to cut corners (especially in sealing and flashing details). I’m not familiar with the Renewal product in particular (though I’ve installed 14 of the 400 series in my own home.) If you’ve heard horror stories about Anderson (aside from the cost), they may trace back to bad installations, not to the product.</p>
<p>
Good point, this is absolutely true and totally glossed over by a lot of the big companies.</p>
<p>The dirt-cheap companies are almost certainly cutting corners on the install because they pay their installers so little.</p>
<p>Renewal by Anderson is an Anderson-only-Install product. They won’t sell it to anyone else, and only let their own guys install it. So I’d assume the install is good (for that price, it had better be!), and the price we were quoted included the installation, tax, etc (everything but the permit fee). </p>
<p>But I think we will shop around for something a bit more reasonable.</p>
<p>I never checked Anderson prices, because I replaced windows with hurricane proof glass, Winguard. $1600 per window with regular glass seems expensive. I still paid over $20,000, but no longer have to deal with steel panels. Glass s so thick it cuts down on noise and is burglar proof.</p>
<p>I do think installation is key. The installer had a family business for 30 or more years.</p>
<p>We recently replaced all our windows with Windjammer vinyl replacement windows.<br>
A local guy (a friend) who has done work for us in the past recommended them and did the installation. So far we are very pleased. They were a good bit less expensive than most of the big name brands that we priced. We have 22 windows and paid a little less than $10,000 for the whole job. </p>
<p>We have Anderson Silverline (builders grade) windows in a vacation home. It was what our builder used so we just went with it. They seem very comparable to the Windjammer windows.</p>
<p>FYI… if you have any windows that are lower than 18" from the floor, the new code requires that those windows be tempered glass for safety. We have ten such tall windows in our downstairs. Tempered glass is a cost adder, something like $40 per window. We were told by several window salesmen that if we did not use the tempered glass, whenever we tried to sell our house, if the inspector noticed, the house wouldn’t pass inspection until the tempered glass was installed. I might not have believed just any old salesmen but the guy who did our install was a friend we trust. So we coughed up the extra for the tempered glass.</p>
<p>Our woodwork inside the house is stained, not painted, so the windows will have to be wood on this inside so that we can stain them. I know that this will add to the price, since we can’t use all vinyl.</p>
<p>H spoke to the Renewal by Anderson manager, he’s sending our checks back.</p>
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I actually like the look of stained woodwork around a white window, but I’ve been told before that all my taste is in my mouth. 
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<p>The Marvin Infinity windows I got can be ordered with an interior surface called Everwood or something along those lines, which can be stained to match your woodwork. I got it on some of my windows, it looks pretty good.</p>