Pella seems to get pretty poor reviews around here. I have heard not so great things about Peachtree either. I have heard very good things about the Anderson Woodright 400 clad. Lincoln was recommended very highly to my parents by several people and they replaced all their windows ( a bunch - around 40 I think) and they have had no problems with any of them. It has been 3 years or so.

We went with Marvin after agonizing over which windows to go with. It seems Marvin was the only one that didn't have any negative reviews that I could find anyway. The windows are installed, but we aren't in the house yet to give a real opinion on functionality. They do look and feel like quality windows. To trim our cost, I changed the five atrium doors from Marvin to Thermatru and that saved a substantial amount.

Another one I've heard mentioned, but know very little about it called Kolbe & Kolbe. I believe they do architectural as well as historic reproductions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kolbe and Kolbe

We had originally been considering Pella all wood architectural windows for our new house. At first I was not interested in clad. Then reconsidered clad due to thinking about all the maintenance issues associated with wood. I evaluated Pella's clad and then looked at Marvin's clad product, Ultimate Double Hung. The clad material on the Marvin product is extruded whereas on the Pella it is rolled and much thinner. We went with the Marvin. Our windows have clad upper and lower sashes and the frames are wood. I liked the look of the wood frames....more substantial and beefier look, more historic looking like a traditional plank frame window.

We looked at all the major brands when building five years ago. Went with BiltBest windows and lower level french doors. Some windows are operable casement. Some fixed. On the 4 larger windows, facing the lake, each end/side is a casement but the large center section is fixed to avoid another wooden divider down the center.

It's hard to impress my dad, but he liked them so much they used in their lakehouse. My builder has continued to use them after our build as well.

Only close-up I have on computer:

Here is a link that might be useful: BiltBest

If you quote Marvin and Eagle and they both know your are shopping around, they will claw each other's eyes out for the business. It was ridiculous.

Marvin drops their drawers when you introduce competition. I sort of lost respect for them and liked the Eagle product better.

Allison - question about your stone :) Is it limewashed or whitewashed? If not, what kind is it? We are building somewhere where the ARB may require we incorporate some stone on our house somewhere, and we definitely have to have a stone mailbox. We are headed towards a whitewashed brick exterior and it has been hard for me to picture stone. I like yours though!

Thanks!

I strongly recommend extruded aluminum cladding instead of roll-form aluminum.

Marvin stopped using roll-form aluminum long ago because of the problems with wood rotting when water inevitably ges behind a thin aluminum covering. Most high level window manufacturers did the same. An extruded aluminum cladding is essentially an exterior aluminum window grafted to an interior wood window. In some designs the interior wood is more of a cladding. Obviously, this costs more to fabricate.

As far as I can tell, Pella still uses roll-form aluminum (with bad joints IMHO) for all of their residential windows and calls it "EnduraClad". This puts Pella a whole notch (or two) below Marvin and Eagle in quality. I can't tell you more about Pella because I stopped using them in the 70's.

Marvin's extruded aluminum cladding is available in 5 standard colors, 14 select colors, and unlimited custom colors. One of the select colors is Hampton Sage. Many other manufacturers offer surprisingly similar colors.

I like Eagle but haven't used them since Andersen bought them. I did have some leaks at the perimeter of the sash and at the glass on two jobs but Eagle was good about replacing the sash. I've never had any trouble with Marvin.
400
The Andersen 400 Series Woodwright Double-Hung is a good window but is in a category of it's own because it is the only plastic clad wood window (that I know of). It doesn't always save much but it is preferable to many cheaper windows. The other 400 Series DH window (the TiltWash) uses the same plastic wrapped frame but the sash is of such poor quality (painted instead of clad and thin muntins) that I will not use it.

Prices for windows vary greatly from town to town and between different kinds of distributors/suppliers so it pays to bid with several big outlets. I would avoid Home Depot and Lowes because of their inflated prices, poor knowledge, sloppy ordering, poor service, and intentional lying about delivery dates. Find the three biggest independent suppliers and give them one chance to price the job (with a minimum of discussion, indecision and revisions; these guys are used to dealing with pros). A contractor will get a better price because the suppliers want repeat business and are more likely to trust them not to "shop" the job by taking their price to other suppliers to see if they can beat it (like Home Depot). Buying windows isn't like buying a used car; the good suppliers make a small percent profit and need to move a lot of windows fast.

Here is what a Pella roll-form clad sash joint looks like:

thanks for the picture macv - you are right, that is not good :)

I think it's a Pro Line Pella window with a plastic compression-type jamb liner. I should take a follow-up photo since it's about 5 years old now and next door to me.

It is proof that advertising is more effective in maintaining a product's reputation than good performance in today's consumer oriented marketplace. We all need to get out more!

We used Eagle for our build, they were installed just over 3 years ago, so it was just as Andersen was buying them, and the distributor told us that Andersen hadn't made any changes to the windows at that point. In our area (NNY) Eagle was about 15% cheaper than either Kolbe & Kolbe or Marvin, and since we felt they were comparable products, we went for the best quote.

We have mostly double hung and a few awning windows, 2 sliders and 1 set of french doors, we have been happy with the quality and look and would recommend the brand. Their color choice is excellent and they operate nicely.

I don't have a great close-up, but here's an old pic (our chimney is now stuccoed, yay), the color is Cinnamon Toast.

Good luck-

sandyponder

I'm not sure what you mean by "architectural"?

I only looked at extruded aluminum clad wood casement windows with SDL. The Marvin and Kolbe and Kolbe seemed like the nicest. However, they were both well over our window budget, so we went with Windsor. My SIL has had Windsor in her new house for about 7 years. They had one small problem which was covered by warrenty and repairedwithout a problem.

Our windows are not in yet so I can't comment on how I like them. My family has allergies so we tend not to open windows. Also, they don't do things like french casement. But it was extruded aluminum clad with a 2" sash which is what I wanted.

We have had Marvin aluminum clad DSL double hung, casements and french doors installed for three years and are very pleased with the quality of the windows and doors. Don't have any photos handy - color is coconut cream (really an antiqute white) with brick mold.

I just installed Sierra Pacific and they have the thickest alum extrusion I have seen. To me, they are at minimum, equivalent to Marvin at a more reasonable price.