Replacement Window Installation – No Shortcuts Allowed

You’ve just spent months, if not years making the decision to replace your leaky inefficient windows. You’ve taken the leap and selected the best windows that your budget could manage. Now comes one more decision, which may be the biggest one you’ll make – who will install your new windows and what is their installation process? Remember this -no shortcuts allowed.

Before signing a sales order for your replacement windows, select an installer and take the time to see at least one finished installations. Know the proper steps to install your type of window, for your particular home. Before you sign the installation contract read the detail.

At Woodland Windows and Doors, we think window and door installations done improperly may not be immediately obvious, but can lead to serious long-term problems. There are some things that as a business, you just have to invest in, in order to ensure the job is done right. We at Woodland think that installation is one of those things.

Most homeowners don’t realize all the things that can go wrong with window installations when performed by an inexperienced installer or a low quality contractor that makes his profit by underbidding a job and doing hurried substandard work. It’s important to purchase your windows from a window dealer with their own installation team. Windows can be ordered wrong, arrive defective or the opening needs modifying. We know the pitfalls and we know that the surest way to deliver an expert job is to control every aspect of it, deliver a quality job every time, with trained people who are committed to the perfect outcome.

In a previous posts, “Installation and Why Our Installers Are Woodland Windows and Doors Employees” and “Installation and The Big Mistake”, we relayed several customer stories about botched installations and poor customer service.  There is no shortage of stories from customers who didn’t know what a quality installation entailed until it was too late. Here’s yet another example of what we hear from people.

We were remodeling our home and the contractor found someone to install our new replacement windows.

We didn’t know anything about windows, so we let our contractor determine what windows to order and who would install them. Shortly after the job was complete we noticed that we heard more freeway noise with the new replacement windows than we had with the old windows. Our general contractor finally determined that the subcontractor hadn’t properly insulated or shimmed, and the windows were ordered without the correct glazing or for the proper wall width. Our contractor is fixing the problems and we see some improvement, however we won’t have the results we were expecting. Our mistake was not bothering to ask our contractor what type of window was going in the house and who would be installing them.

Installation, whether you are replacing your old windows or having new windows added to your home, requires careful planning, flawless execution, and superior response times to address those unforeseen problems. It’s a process that must be owned from the beginning to the end. Did the person who measured your job, check their measurements before the order was placed? Or did that person walk through the job with the installers? The best way, the only way, to achieve a flawless level of performance is to build a professional team of skilled people who don’t just show up, but who own the work down to the last keeper – if it doesn’t lock the job’s not done.

Don’t wait until the installers show up to start your installation, only to find them racing through the steps, taking shortcuts without regard for the details that produce a quality installation.