Finally! After more than 3 years and half a dozen quotes, we’ve finally plunked down cold, hard credit as a deposit on a new basement door and windows, and storm doors for the front and back. The basement door has been a thorn in our side since the first time it rained, because anything more than about 1/4″ in an hour causes water to spill over the threshold and create a wide stream across our basement (the dungeon side, thankfully). In the end, we went with Allied the Window Center in Annandale, based on three things:

1. Highly recommended: received Checkbook’s top rating for quality and price (96% “superior” average from 136 ratings)
2. By far the most knowledgeable salesman, Scott Stratton. Only two of the four companies in this batch of estimates sent people who actually knew what they were talking about. Two companies sent guys who were nice enough, but were neither the official measurers nor particularly knowledgeable about what we needed. The third guy (Nova Installations) knew what he was talking about, but recommended the cheapest possible windows (read: uninsulated) because “that’s what everybody gets for basements”. Even when we asked him about insulated, low-E options, he seemed to just make up some unrealistically low additional price. Scott, on the other hand, started from the top-of-the-line, and that’s what we wanted. If I wanted a cold and drafty basement, I wouldn’t be replacing the windows in the first place.
3. Decent prices. Admittedly, our original quote from Allied was over the phone, and thus completely useless. Scott did admit that because the original quote was over two months old, they couldn’t honor it, and that the suppliers’ prices had increased. While that sucks for us, I can’t really complain because I wasn’t firm enough about getting a written estimate and expiration date for it originally. Even with the price increase, though, Allied’s estimate was the second lowest of the four. (The lowest, Nova Installations’, seemed unrealistically low. Besides, they wouldn’t “officially” do the basement door; instead, the guy offered to have one of his employees come in and do it as a side job some weekend. Screw that.)

Here’s our order:

Front storm door
Back storm door
Door from Hell (aka the basement door)

I can’t remember the window manufacturer right now.

The work is scheduled to be completed by the end of June. We can’t wait!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 at 2:34 pm and is filed under The House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.