New Window Poll: Pella vs. Marvin?
Would you go with Pella or Marvin? Type: Double hung, full travel Size: 103″ x 39″ Interior: primed wood Exterior: aluminum clad Glass: Low e 366 w/Argon Casing/subsill: none Grill/SDL: none thanks!
Would you go with Pella or Marvin?
Type: Double hung, full travel
Size: 103″ x 39″
Interior: primed wood
Exterior: aluminum clad
Glass: Low e 366 w/Argon
Casing/subsill: none
Grill/SDL: none
thanks!
The difference between Marvin and Pella as far as a clad exterior goes is night and day. Marvin uses a completely extruded aluminum exterior. Pella has an extruded aluminum frame but a roll form aluminum on the sashes. Pella windows will expand and contract at different rates because of that; not to mention fade considerably on the sashes after just one year. The finish on the Marvin’s clad exterior is Kynar paint and fades very minimally over the years.
The exterior cladding on a pella window is actually applied to the wood frame where as the cladding on the Marvin is kerfed into the wood to form one solid unit.
The best way to see the difference is to go into a showroom that can show you both at the same time. To do this, i would recommend contacting a marvin showroom.
Very glad to hear that story, too, Broolynista. Thanks. I ordered the windows from Park Avenue (ironically on Atlantic Avenue) where I had never been before, but loved their showroom, and their salesmen were very very helpful.
I may get those tilt-and-turns someday for other windows in the house. Love them.
Ditto jmcg’s post. When we initially considered both Marvin and Pella some years back, we were of the opinion they were pretty much in the same league. However, in order to respond to your question, I just pulled up for review some old email exchanges we had with both vendors.
Seems that Marvin was able to offer some “specialty windows” we wanted that Pella could not, i.e. tilt and turns and double casements with awnings. The jamb depths on the Marvin’s were wider than the Pellas. In addition, the Marvin vendor was Bill Jacobs at EZ-Tilt — a longstanding veteran in the window business who had a showroom in Brooklyn and who readily provided us several referrals to customers in our neighborhood. (And, yes, we did go and check out those neighbors and their windows and were totally impressed). Meanwhile, Pella, also had a great, congenial salesman who was willing to negotiate quite liberally on price. However, he had neither a brick and mortar business to display Pella products nor customer referrals to offer. In the end, the combo of (1)Marvin and EZ-Tilt’s really strong reputations (2) greater flexibility in product offerings and (3) showroom and customer access caused us to go with Marvin. That was back in 2005 and we’ve not ever regretted that choice since. HTH
i only have the price for Marvin. As described above, $1800 a window.
crazy, right? but this window is supposed to outlast me.
thanks jmcg!
Marvin, for sure. The two companies used to be fairly similiar in product line and quality but, IMO, Pella has slipped in quality and durability.
What are the price differences???