Encore Windows & Doors

I just wanted to comment on the job that Encore did for us. We have a 20 year old home with wooden windows (builder grade no less) that needed replacing. Once we made the decision to change them out, we contacted 4 companies and got quotes from 3. After much research and interviewing, here what we found...

The window industry is crazy insane with lots of fly-by-night outfits, deals for "no money down" and 0% interest deals (which really aren't) but the biggest issue (and the one that really pushed up to go with Encore) was the Window Wise certification.

Lots of companies will claim to be WW certified for installation (which is hard/costly to get/keep) but what they really mean is that the windows they are buying are WW certified (which is pretty common and not that hard). It is definitely not the same thing and installation aspect is at least as important as the brand of window (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise). It's also a great question to ask when interviewing window companies as you can go check on the WW website to see if they are registered (and being square with you). As there are something like 2000+ window companies and only 40 or so are WW certified, it's pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chafe (or so we hoped).

The Sales Rep was very knowlegdgeable (to be fair, so were the others) and clearly understood what made his brand of window "better". I felt that he was not just trying to make a sale but rather trying to educate a consumer. Very comfortable to deal with and was willing to be flexible on some of the custom things we wanted.

After we had picked Encore and placed a deposit, we crossed our fingers and like most buyers hoped we had done the right thing. As it turns out, we had absolutely no reason to be concerned.George was amazing! He came by to take all the measurement and make sure that all of our questions we answered. He loves his work and genuinely wanted to make sure that we would be happy with the results (which we were). He came when he said he would, worked his butt off when he was hear, cleaned up his mess everyday and was very easy to deal with. To top it all off, the quality of his work is flawless and leaves nothing at all to be desired. In addition, Encore only uses the best quality foams and sealers (which many of the cheaper companies don't) and I now have no doubt that these windows will outlast us...

One last thing I should mention is price. I realize that I could have "saved" a few thousand dollars by going with an other company but I really think that you get what you pay for in this case. It just didn't seem to be worth it to have to live with cheap windows and poor installation, especially knowing that you have to "look" at them everyday and you could have done better. At the time, it killed me to spend the extra cash but in hindsight, it was the best money we ever spent.

AJ

P.S. As my grandpappy used to say, "Good things are seldom cheap and cheap things are seldoin good"