New Window questions and recs
I need 14 new windows and I have questions! Would appreciate your experiences and expertise.
For most of them, I am looking at both the Marvin Elevate and Ultimate. I was thinking fiberglass because I am concerned with longevity and quality, and I’d prefer them to be as maintenance as possible. I want to color match with my building’s historic color, so they’ll need to be custom colored. I’m curious about the longevity of the finish on the Elevates, which are fiberglass exterior (wood interior) and the Ultimates, which are aluminum clad exteriors.
I am wondering if the best bet is to hire/order through a contractor who is also a Marvin dealer (rather than a window-specific company…)? Some of the window sills, etc, will need to be replaced, too.
Does anyone know if there’s a showroom somewhere that I can go and see the windows in person before making this pretty big commitment? I can’t seem to find one for Marvin… And/or any chance anyone has the installed and wouldn’t mind DMing me your address so I could take a look at them?? (I wouldn’t bother you… would just roll by for a look outside.)
And lastly, I have a few lot-line windows. Any recs for that? I know the rules are more specific…
omatokai
in General Discussion 2 days ago
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Brownstone Home Inspection | 10 hrs ago
bob and anyone else, if you have trouble with your window balances, speak to me. like many other things in houses, these are made to be adjusted and maintained (they require a special tool; i have mine from the 1980s) and i have learned that we have a lot of people running around this city telling people, and in some cases females and our senior citizens, that things are shot and must be changed. When companies make it their modus operandi to defraud homeowners (and we do not know that that is what happen to Bob but i have NEVER seen a house where EVERY window balance had to be changed; there may be one or two that are broken beyond adjustment on a house but most – and with that house i took care of during covid – all were able to be adjusted), it does not matter where the recommendation for the contractor comes from. Crooked contractors move from job to the next, taking money from people who trust them all the while knowing that homeowners do not know what they are looking at on (roofs, sump pumps, windows, stone cellar parging, damaged finish on a wood floor). They often make unnecessary recommendations to drive revenue up or start jobs and under perform. Homeowners and condo boards need to call someone who knows what is acceptable and what is not. you need a professional who is on your side and is not married to another entity.
Truth is, i can pretty much teach anyone on this board how to service a window balance. wanting to do so is another matter because other issues can arise – broken shoes or say a sash frame that has a snapped screw. but these are in the wheelhouse of the most talented DIY homeowners.
Steve
brownstonehomeinspection.com
BobMarvin | 1 day ago
Steve,
Perhaps my faulty balances were repairable, but when they failed to hold the sashes up I had them replaced by a company neighbor’s recommended. My back parlor windows are very large and heavy (since I have triple paned glass) and I had the top sashes fixed in place since I never open them.
omatokai | 1 day ago
Thanks for these replies. Yeah, I’ve done my research on fiberglass, which is why I am keen on them. Marvin didn’t start making them until the early 2000s (with this more advanced technology, that is), which is one reason it’s a bit harder to find people saying they’ve had decades of experience with them. But the high-end fiberglass is generally considered superior in terms of the intersection of longevity, low-maintenance, and aesthetics, which is also why they have a high price tag (relative to everything except custom wood windows). And supposedly the color is supposed to last for decades, since it’s integrated. BUT, as I said, I’m looking to color match with our historic house color, which is not available in an integrated color. Hence my question about whether anyone has had fiberglass or aluminum clad with a custom color coating…
Brownstone Home Inspection | 1 day ago
so for anyone reading bob’s comments. First, these old windows are serviceable and the parts are available from a company called SWISCO. also, my glass supplier, Al at Major Lock and Glass on Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood, stocks balances and some other parts and if someone went in there and mentioned my name, i am sure Al would coach you a little.
Now this: i am not sure what Bob means by having issues with “balances” but this really happened during covid: I got a call from a guy in Carrol Gardens and he told me that his balances were shot and that he got a quote for $2800 to change all of them. I told him, “I have been working with these windows since 1981 and very rarely to i see a bad balance. They usually need to be adjusted”. he said he had bought a few balances and asked if i could come adjust and change as needed. We agreed on a hourly rate and i spent an afternoon with him (and he helped as needed) and $700 later i had adjusted all of the windows and the only one we could not fix was one with a broken “shoe” and we did not have the part. Needless to say, that man was very happy and if people do not believe this is the truth, i can rustle his email out and ask him to comment here.
Every person on this board has to question contractors or get second opinions. they will not even attempt to pull something like this with me and i had a contractor ask a customer of mine a question the other day that was none of his business. I told her what i would have said to him.
if anyone wants to learn how to fix their windows, bring me over for a consult (on more than just the windows). Servicing these is easy with the correct tool. I do not want to get involved in it because sometimes things can come up that we cannot complete in a day (the broken shoe i mention above; if we had the part i would have changed it).
I wish i knew more about marvin and pella windows to be able to talk about them. i might look and see if they have training classes.
Steve
BobMarvin | 1 day ago
The warranty on my windows was 20 years. I think Maejo was out of business before that was up, but it didn’t matter. Whatever problems I had ( mainly balances) took longer then that to develop.
BobMarvin | 1 day ago
Sreve,
My windows are dark—“bronze “—almost black. There’s no noticeable fading.
Brownstone Home Inspection | 1 day ago
and we cannot fully compare aluminum clad with aluminum. let us know that if some knob head installer does not caulk something properly or caulks a weep hole up in a window, all sorts of problems can result with the wood under the cladding (and we might not see the problems until it is too late. know that windows should be recaulked like every 10 years give or take.
50 years on an exterior building product is a long time. i seem to recall my boss telling me that stuff we were installing was “guaranteed a lifetime” and i recall asking, “what is a lifetime?”. i think he said 50 years.
Brownstone Home Inspection | 1 day ago
bob, how is the color fade? or are they white? i worry about color fade on the darker colors with this stuff.
BobMarvin | 1 day ago
FWIW my nearly 50 year old aluminum windows ( from Marjo, a long defunct company) are still in good shape. I’ve only had to replace some of the spring balances.
Brownstone Home Inspection | 1 day ago
I do not see a lot of fiberglass windows in my line of work but in my youth, i had worked with fiberglass and i grew up on the south shore of long island around a lot of boats. i also worked as a window installer before college and serviced windows during college (in the 1980s) and have installed or managed the installation of a few (literally a few) since. We worked with solid aluminum and aluminum was and still is my favorite (but admittedly, the only thing i could compare that against was vinyl and i know you know better than to consider that. we did not have fiberglass windows back then). I did pm a sliding door change on a commercial building i consult for last year and i have to say again, i like aluminum. Other members of the team were considering fiberglass, but I sold them on aluminum.
In so far as installers, I THINK that marvin makes all of its installers get certified. If they do not require it, i would find a certified Marvin installer. A person certified by a company will be able to talk to you about the product in a much better way than say, well, a guy like me. They also know what can go wrong if they do not follow the directions (could invalidate a warranty). I deal with a lot of contractors and those who do not seek training and certification cannot stand up to someone with certification. I don’t mean to brag, but if someone like me reads all of marvin’s literature and installation instructions and recommendations, many uncertified installers would not even be able to hold conversations with us about the products they claim to install all the time (this is how someone like me selects contractors; learn a little and have a conversation; the bad contractors will not even be able to get through the initial phone call; they never get to visit us; we call them “time wasters”).
So on fiberglass. i grew up around a lot of boats and i took a class on working with fiberglass in the early 1980s. I had some uncles on the east end who were commercial fisherman, so i saw a lot of old boats – including some 15 year old fiberglass boats in the late 1970s. i know what happens to fiberglass when it gets old; the color fades and it gets brittle (from uv rays). Maybe Marvin has found a way around some of this (maybe dark colors or some sort of coating can protect it from UV rays – a lot of boats are white and MAYBE that is more susceptible) but because i do not see a lot of these and certainly not a lot that are say 25 years old, i have no way of knowing myself. if i were you, i would put a new post up on this board asking if anyone out there has 25 year old fiberglass clad marvins or if they even know someone who does. see if you can connect with them. (i can almost put this up wanting to learn for my home inspection business and if you don’t ask, i might).
this is also what i do for my clients: aside from raising good questions, i do research. AI returned this result when i asked “what does Marvin do to make their window fiberglass better than the fiberglass used on boats”: “Marvin enhances its fiberglass windows for better performance and aesthetics compared to boat-grade fiberglass by utilizing a proprietary material called Ultrex Fiberglass and a unique acrylic finish. Ultrex offers exceptional strength and stability, while the acrylic finish provides superior resistance to scratches, fading, and other forms of damage”.
Confirm that AI result by doing research. hit the web. it is easier for me because i know the questions to ask (i just checked, marvin introduced fiberglass in the mid ’90’s) but you can try to find comments from people who talk about old marvin fiberglass clad windows (and even color fade on aluminum clad). I did just looked and there are two kinds of people commenting on the marvin: those who had them installed recently and love them (those people are naive when it comes to building products; we need the test of time) and others who for some reason do not like them. See if you can get comments on 25 year old marvins.
Knowing this stuff helps my home inspection business and i do not know a lot about marvin (and pella) windows anyway. it is not what i worked with years ago. so feel free to tell us what you learn or ask me more questions on here and i will even do some research if needed.
I know the questions to ask.
Steve
brownstonehomeinpsection.com