Once I got home last night I did some dishes, made our bed and had a few things to put away. Then I made some nachos and the girls came home as I was getting them ready. We quickly ate them and then fed Pumpkin. She was super hungry and could not wait to eat. We did not even have time to warm the rice cereal up.
(I’m not sure what the bib is about, she came home from the sitter with it.)
A short time later a big man in a blue shirt was at our door. He was a salesman from Window World and tall and built and had a nice brown/gray beard. Pumpkin was in my arms as we let him in and she got really excited and smiling when she saw the guy. I am concerned she may miss my beard as much as the rest of us do.
This WW guy had a different approach then the Anderson guy. We talked for a few minutes then went downstairs to check on the basement windows. 
Just like the Anderson guy he immediately mentioned that these were the worst windows efficiency wise and being in a steal case surrounded by concrete they would be tough. 
He did some measuring and figuring and made a plan for how to replace them. Then he got out his paperwork and toys and we sat around the table and learned about the WW windows and company. The Anderson guy the day before had shown us an example of a vinyl window and pointed out the problems with it. The WW guys window was nothing like the previous example and had built in solutions for all the little problems. Heath and I went into the quote meeting expecting to be unimpressed after seeing the Anderson stuff but we were quickly surprised. These windows had steal beams in them and were super strong. The guy did some cool stuff like lay a window on the ground and stand in the middle of the glass. The frame and glass held him off the ground and he weighed 250lbs. He also brought a heat lamp and held it behind the glass that qualifies for the tax refund and the glass that does not. It was night and day the amount of heat that is blocked. We learned some stuff about the tax refund and lead paint that the other guy had not told us.
The most impressive thing was probably the warranty. Anderson was 5 years on some things, 10 years on some things and 20 years on some things but the cool thing they did was keep that warranty going for future owners of the house. Window World was only good while you owned the house but it covered everything for lifetime and I really think everything, kids shooting out glass with BB gun, cat scratching the screen plus all the regular window problems. Plus they were backed by some Good Housekeeping company that agrees to replace or refund windows should WW go out of business.
Both companies claimed to be the biggest and at first I was like whatever but I think Anderson may be a big company with lots of different brands under then and WW might be the biggest replacement window guys.
Heath heard or saw an add like this for WW and as expected there are more fees and costs then the $189.
To get the glass that gets the tax credit is more and removing things and this and that. After talking about their windows forever the guy started to work on the quote. We had told him Anderson had been there the night before and he said he loves following them on a quote because he was way better. Heath and I were guessing 5-10% cheaper. He didn’t really measure anything because all windows really are $189 we just sat at the table and he drew the house and we told him where each window was and how many were in each room. Then he got out the quote sheet and calculator and got our price. It was almost exactly 1/3rd the price of the quote from the day before.
We were pretty surprised. All along I was expecting to get some quotes learn a few things then end up doing most of it ourselves but now I’m not so sure.
We talked a bit longer and as soon as he left we got after dinner. We had thawed out some leftover curry and once it was warm we ate it over some rice and watched House. We talked about Windows and decided to pause house and go to home depot and get an idea of what they sell and how much windows cost without any installation or warranty or anything.
Home Depot carried some brand called American Craftsman and they were made by Anderson. The tax credit stuff was really unclear at Home Depot but there were stickers all over advertising it on select windows but no clear info on what ones were select. We didn’t need exact number as we were just gathering some information. We found a replacement window that would match several of our smaller windows and it was about $170. We didn’t know if it qualified or not but just the window was $170 with no insulation and probably not the same warranty.
We headed home and changed Pumpkin and got her ready for bed. We plan to have 2 more quotes before we really make any decisions and one of them advertises $169 or something.
We finished House and watched some Cops and then headed to bed.
No window talk tomorrow, I promise unless Jon and I put a joist though one tonight.