Patio Door Debate...
I’m about to buy a full-glass single patio doors for out to the back deck- I am going to check out Bk Window & Door this weekend, but in the meantime I got a couple quotes from Lowe’s for a Pella door and one of their lesser brands. A energy-credit approved standard-size Pella door was…
I’m about to buy a full-glass single patio doors for out to the back deck- I am going to check out Bk Window & Door this weekend, but in the meantime I got a couple quotes from Lowe’s for a Pella door and one of their lesser brands.
A energy-credit approved standard-size Pella door was about $1200- a more generic brand (Masonite) energy-credit approved door was about $350– obviously, Pella has the beautiful wood and nice craftsmanship and the generic was simpler and fiberglass. However, in my situation looks/quality of appearance/wood don’t matter and my goal is an energy-efficient door which will do the job and function well for a reasonably long time, does buying Pella make sense? I could buy almost 4 of the generics for that price– will the Pella one last much longer? Is it any more energy efficient, considering they are both approved for the energy efficiency tax credit?
What would you do? I can afford either, but also don’t need to be stupid with my money. Is Pella worth $850 more? And if so, why?
Oh – one other thing about patio doors. We did ours with laminated safety glass. It’s a layer of plexi sandwiched between two layers of glass. The plexi is unbreakable, so it serves as a security door. It’s expensive ($1000 just for the glass! Yikes!), but we would have spent that money on an ugly metal gate anyway. Instead we have gorgeous double doors and tons of light. So that’s a security option for you.
The best price we got for a patio door was from Tip Top (we went to Lucky, Bay Ridge and Brooklyn Window and Door as well). The guy who did our estimate had a lot of knowledge and could probably give you an intelligent answer to this question.
In general I don’t buy anything from Lowe’s or Home Depot if I want it to last. They dictate price to manufacturers and the manufacturers respond by reducing quality (for instance, plastic rather than metal bushings in power tools).
Tip Top deals with Pella and Anderson, but they also deal with some more reasonably-priced brands.