I am in the process of building a new home on the Central
Coast of California and getting ready to make a decision on the windows. The house is a Spanish Colonial style and
after looking at what feels like two dozen options I have narrowed down my
windows and doors package to three options: Marvin, the Kolbe Ultra series, and
Sierra Pacific. The windows will mostly be
crank operated casements with a few fixed and from an aesthetic standpoint we
would be happy with any of the brands. While
all three are within our budget the pricing of the Sierra Pacific windows is significantly
less than the other two.

I do not mind spending money on the windows and doors as
they are a very visible element of the house. However I am not really into brand prestige so
there is really no benefit to me to say I have Marvin windows over Kolbe or
Sierra Pacific if they all perform reasonably similarly. It also seems to me that unlike the 100 year
windows I have in my current house which look beautiful and work fine after I restored
them, windows today all seem designed to fail eventually. As a result, no matter which brand I pick I
am likely to be throwing out my windows in 20 years and have to put in new
ones. This makes buying windows seem
less like an investment and more like an expense.

From all the research I have done it seems Marvin has the best
reputation with Kolbe not far behind.
Sierra Pacific unfortunately seems to have a poor reputation but then
again it seems like the majority of window brands have a very poor reputation
if measured by online comments (even Marvin and Kolbe have plenty bad reviews
although they are clearly more highly regarded than the others). I have interviewed ten different contractors
for this job, all with experience building high end custom homes, and they all
thought the three options were fine (one even recommended Sierra Pacific over
the others).

This makes me wonder how much of the issues with Sierra
Pacific are from installation versus craftsmanship. I would imagine there is a correlation
between windows pricing and installation quality with someone buying Marvin and
Kolbe windows more likely to pay for a higher end contractor which would get a
better install. However, I have seen
projects with $4-5 million custom homes locally using Sierra Pacific windows so
I know they are used in high end projects as well. Given the shear volume of windows and doors on
those projects I assume that there has to be a problem with at least one of
them that the contractor will need to go to the manufacturer about. I don’t think those custom builders would
risk their reputation on windows that are of poor quality and/or can’t get the
manufacturer to fix problems. On the
other hand, given the nature of a lot of contractors perhaps I am making too
optimistic of an assumption here.

This brings me to my questions. Has anyone on this site had a good experience
with Sierra Pacific windows? When
installed correctly how long are they working reasonably well? For those that have Marin or Kolbe windows or
doors, how long are they lasting before replacement?

Any thoughts would be gratefully appreciated.