Hi Flyleft, We are currently going through the same thought processes you did regarding the fiberglass windows. I'm not 100% sold on the Milgard Ultra, but it does seem like a reasonably priced window. I do think the Pella Impervia is lighter and easier to slide open and closed, and then I have the Marvin Integrity rep coming out tomorrow. Everyone seems to rave about those. Just out of curiosity, what did you decide upon, and why? I sure would apprecicate your thoughts.

I recently finished an exhaustive search for a sliding glass door. IMHO, Marvin and Loewen are in a different class from the rest of the pack. I'm not a professional--it's just my observances from looking at so many different sliding glass door brands. Unfortunately, the Marvin and Loewen were also the most expensive that I saw. But I guess you get what you pay for. Between Marvin and Loewen, I actually preferred the Loewen. Loewen comes with Doug Fir standard, while Marvin has fir as an optional upgrade. Loewen also just looked beautiful and felt beautiful. Marvin looks great too. I ended up with Marvin because it was less expensive than Loewen. I believe that the price depends on your region. I could only find a couple of places selling Loewen in a 25-mile radius, while Marvin was sold at a dozen places in a 10-mile radius, so the Marvin sellers were competing with each other and the prices were better. Also, customer service was a factor in my decision since Loewen was not well-represented in my area. Perhaps they are in your area, and I recommend you check out both Marvin and Loewen. BTW, I am replacing a Pella sliding glass door, and having lived with it, would never get a Pella sliding glass door again.

Hi Telly, We did this research in '03 and it took 5 months to research various brands. You may want to also look into Loewen, a brand that we just saw recently at a friend's new house. They seem to do really good work. We had to decide on quality as well as looks. At the time, vinyl, fiberglass and other composite looked weird even when colored. The neatest look was Aluminum so we settled for Aluminum cladding and wood interior. Things may have changes since then. We compared extruded Aluminum versus rolled aluminum, how do they bake on the color and what type of protection do they use, how the cladding is mated to the wood interior, whether the wood is solid wood or veneer, locking mechanism, ability to adjust height and extension of operating units, quality of interior wood work, glass and wood options. Finally, we needed to know if they could do what we needed for our somwhat odd-ball opening. Pella offers Duracast and something called Impervia, some sort of composite material supposedly stronger than Aluminum. You have to go see in person how they look and whether they meet your requirements. Andersen also offers some sort of special glass coating and some kind of exterior cladding other than Aluminum. You need to see them and decide whether they work for you. If you decide to stain the wood, it will be important to look carefully at the wood work to see if the lines are appealing. Different companies have slightly different way of finishing the interior. If you intend to paint them, then that may not be so important. If you see a window showing poorly in one store, find the same window in another store. We saw an Andersen in one shop being shown with visible gaps in the woodwork and even frayed ends. We went to another shop and the demo window showed real well. The local Home Depot and Lowe's were just not good at all in showing Pella windows and doors. We had to go to a shop in another town. Nothing beats close-up touching and looking at the windows and doors in a good shop. We settled on Marvin becaus we prefer the Marvin woodwork quality but that is just our taste. Good luck.

hi All, Thank you for your questions/comments. I should have expanded more into why I have commented on the SHGC, and the context. Most people do not pay attention to SHGC therefore my point was bring it to your attention so you can research and select the correct SHGC/U-Value that works for your home and climate. In Canada, the earlier conventional wisdom (which some still hold today, but awareness is starting to shift) is that using high solar gain windows allows "free heat" into the homes particularly during the cold months. This may be valid in some homes in some areas, but it should not be blanketed across all homes in cold climates. As our building codes continue to increase in overall energy efficiency and more high performance homes are being built, these builders and the industry as a whole have found heating loads are dropping to very low numbers (20,000-30,000 btus is very common in single family homes (in some areas). In multi's like town homes the numbers can be even lower). With heating loads that low, the home doesn't need the added "free heat" from the high solar windows in the winter. In fact for some time it was difficult to get forced air systems small enough to avoid oversized units and therefore short cycling of the units. We are finding the free heat becomes a detriment in the summer cooling seasons in many areas. With the low load homes, it is becoming common for cooling demands to exceed the heating demands and therefore forced air duct systems that were historically designed for heating loads are now being designed to cooling loads in many cases!! Although the high solar gain windows are adding free heat in the winter which is a marginal benefit, they are actually overheating some homes in the summer, resulting in more demand on cooling units or even having to install larger systems. Every home is different, with unique orientation, window/wall ratios, insulating types and values, size, geographic location, age, etc. Therefore this is why I recommended seeking out professionals in your area to work through what are the best windows for your home to achieve the overall best comfort for you, and to avoid the pitfall of affecting the operation of your mechanical system. Point is, pay attention to the SHGC and the U-Factor because they both make a difference. When you are spending that kind of money on windows, you want to be sure you are comfortable in your home. Again, thank you for feedback. It allowed for the opportunity to expand with more context. And, Happy Fathers Day to all of the dads out there!