Thanks, windowsonwashington. And to the novice, I've done some further digging and I now feel dumb about the amount I was about to pay for windows. I did not realize the mark-up until I priced the Ultimate and Integrity product without the installation (Do this first if you can before you invite anyone into your house. I did not). On average, I was being charged $1700 per window for window and install of the Marvins (Integrity, Infinity and Clad) and about $1,050 per Inline window installed. This seems a lot given that only a few were full frame replacement. Worse, only one of the six quote did a decent job explaining the installation process. A word of advise to folks window shopping, be discipline, methodical, analytical and do not treat the process as something to get done immediately (though I understand why you would feel this way). If you do, you likely will be taken advantage of. Do yourself a favor and give yourself the time to work through the process. Also, there's lot of misinformation out there about the superiority and inferiority of one product vis a vis another. Caveat emptor certainly applies for a purchase this costly. Another thing, read the warranty before you sign. By doing this, I was able to rule out the Infinity product, much as I liked the aesthetic of the casement. I'm sure there's more to come.

Would like to hear follow-up from those chosing either Andersen Renewal, Andersen 400 or Marvin Integrity on their projects, esp'ly interested in how your windows have handled wind and cold, plus your impressions of their overall appearance. We need to replace Vetter windows damaged in a 50mph+ hail storm in Aug.'07. We will switch brands--they've resized. We need to replace windows on 3 sides of our '97 built modern home which has several very large picture windows, casements w/ transoms, and finished oak woodwork. The only prob. windows now are 2 windows placed over the whirlpool tub on north wall & west walls. Renewals' interiors have a dif. appearance but the pitch about being built to last over 50 years sounds good. Andersen 400s are going into the model homes of our builder w/ exc. customer response in past 10 yrs. A contractor is evaluating Andersen 400s for sizing and is "close" on most; he is pricing the architectural series for windows set in the stucco front. The Andersen exteriors are darker than our existing but we are thinking the vinyl "permashield" inside wrap would elim. any future mold on the rim touching the glass. Renewals only have a thin veneer and the rep. could not tell us if that could ever mold. Marvin windows look closer to what we have, inside & outside and did fantastic in wind studies done by Cons. Rpts. last month but with the wood interior, will I be sanding and restaining due to moisture along the bottom rim where we have exper'd some mold on existing windows? We constantly run an air-exchange system and seldom have windows open. We hope to have a product that can handle the extreme weather, handle future hail since it's now occurring regularly, along with straight line winds & blizzards. Thanks for any feedback!

eastbay is correct that while the A series sash is fiberglass, Andersen does use fibrex in the frame. My apologies for any confusion on that one. The last time I chatted with "someone" at AW about the A series they said that they were going to be full fiberglass; however my bad that I never followed up on that one before replying about the actual make up of the finished windows/doors. If I recall correctly AW did look into both full fibrex and full fiberglass during development of the A series and I also seem to remember that they did produce full fiberglass versions of A series units at one time, but I don't know if they ever actually sold any that way. Per "someone" who absolutely does know, A series is like 200 and 400 series in that the frame is actually clad wood rather than just fibrex (A series) or vinyl (200 and 400). So to be precise, A series units use fibrex clad wood for the frame and pultruded fiberglass for the sash. Again sorry for any confusion that I might have caused. This post was edited by oberon on Tue, Dec 2, 14 at 11:43

orveusz, You are welcome. I89 is an exposed surface 4 coating. What it does is reflect heat back into the room rather than having the glass absorb that heat. Reflecting back into the room does two things: 1) it makes sitting next to the window more comfortable because the air in front of the window is slightly warmer. This also results in improved U value performance (less heat loss through the glass) 2) because the glass isn't absorbing room heat, the glass is colder than it would be otherwise and this can potentially lead to increased condensation on the window glass if its really cold outside...you know like mid january in Minnesota. Some windows companies are more concerned about this potential than others, and some add disclaimers about this possibility. As I recall, testing by Cardinal has shown that I89 is going to lower edge glass temps about 4° or so, and center of glass about 9° or so versus not using the I89 coating. Is that a problem? The simple answer is...it depends. Primarily it depends on how cold it is outside and how much moisture there is inside. If someone is in a moderate climate then it simply won't be an issue. If you live in Minnesota in January then you might notice an increase in window condensation on the coldest days. Keep in mind that using a warm-edge spacer helps a lot at the edge. In fact, using a warm edge spacer with I89 results in edge temperature that is still higher than using an aluminium spacer without the I89 coating. As to center-of-glass, 9° does sound like a lot, but even with that much potential glass cooling, with a LowE coating and argon fill the center of glass temp is still higher than it would be if all you had is a plain uncoated dual pane glass package. And even in the coldest days (bathroom windows excepted), how often does anyone see condensation over an entire window - assuming that the inside of the home isn't really humid. So will I89 cause your windows to be wetter than they might be otherwise? They might where you (and I) live. But even if it does, it might not be an issue more than a few days during an entire winter. Make sense?