The question is whether you will be happy? Will you be happy with Infinity for 10 years? If yes, then do not spend a penny more for the Marvin. Do you think you will want to change the Infinity in a few years to something "better"? If the answer is no, then do not spend a penny for the Marvin.

If you will be happier with the Marvin, absolutely no regrets with that decision even for the money, and money is not a huge concern, then go for the Marvin.

We faced the same question and my wife had a great analogy. We would spend $$$ for a safer and more reliable car for our family but we would not spend $$$ to fix up our home? That helped us look pass the cash issue (within reason) to do the right thing from the start.

Good luck!

Tough call. It's going to come down to your personal taste. If you like the Infinity, and you think you'll still like it a few years, get them. If you think you'll wish in a couple years that you got the higher end product, then spend the extra now. Otherwise, you'll end up buying the windows twice, thus costing you significantly more.

Easy first answer. If you want to be happy, period, avoid Marvin. Overpriced. Poor Quality control (both of two sets of french doors came with the trim mounted out of square. Both sets of four mulled together casements arrived without the ordered extra beefy sill to match those in my house). Poor service (when I called the dealer, Marvin sent an unfinished, unshaped piece of wood for me to make my own sill, and a service rep to fix my problem doors. He arrived in his Cadilac STS, wearing golf clothes, and carrying nothing but an allen wrench, blamed my carpenter, who is no fly by nighter, and left with no answers and no follow up.) The sad thing is my carpenter had an easy fix for the problem but said in advance he was worried about voiding their warrantee because there was a 60 odd page explicit instruction manual from which we were warned not to deviate one mm. After experiencing their service, the warrantee issue went out the window and we made it work. If they fail I'll just trash them and buy Brosco. Never again! Hope my rant was helpful.

Oh great...how does anyone ever decide on window brands? I realize there are going to be problems with all brands, but when I read something like your experience, pppllc2000 I feel like I have to start all over. I had just today decided to go with Marvin over Anderson....

Hi Helen,
It is unfortunate that there will always be something bad even in the most perfect product. But the post by is also good. if something is way too perfect, and everyone likes it and no one has anything bad to say, not even a tiny gripe, then I tend to become really suspicious of that source of information. This is case of balancing how many good things you have heard versus bad. Is this bad assessment generally applied to all of the company's product? Or is this one bad case in 1000's? And what kind of problem is it? Is it something that can generally impact everything they make?

Toyota is supposed to be the most reliable car and they have recalls. Ford is supposed to have poor quality but I have a Ford car lasting 195,000 miles with routine maintenance.

In the end, you kind of have to judge based on statistics and what you see and feel in the showroom. Then be ready to be really picky when the goods arrive. We inspected our windows at the shop when it first arrived and before the shop delivered them to our site. That was to be sure we reject defects. We then inspected again when they delivered the doors and windows to our house. The contractor was impatient but I made him and his crew wait for about 45 minutes going through everything, checking everything before I allow them to unwrap and peel off stickers.

The more you educate yourself, the pickier you are, the more deligent you are, the more likely you will find problems and have time to reject them. The shop and contractor will also be more careful because they understand you are watching over them like a hawk.

When we researched Marvin 3+ years ago, we also found a lot of complaints about wood rot back in the 80's. There was a big class action case in court. Customers claimed Marvin sold bad product, Marvin sued the company that made the preservative claiming that was defective. In the end, there was a settlement. The preservative company settled with Marvin, Marvin settled with its customers. We did our research and went with Marvin. It has been 3 years, we have had no problems yet, knock on wood!

There are other cases regarding other brands as well. Someone just posted Andersen 200 is letting in mulch. Someone else posted a few months back about yet another brand rotting and he aggressively post info on-line ending up with the window company threatening legal action.

You have to go with your research, your instinct and then be extremely picky when it arrives. Good luck!

Calbay03, of course you are right. We have had 5 Toyota Camreys or Avalons and did get a bad one a few years ago. The company replaced the motor though.

We are going to look some more tomorrow. The bad thing is we live in a rural area and it is always hard to see a big variety....thanks.

I don't know what pppllc2000's single experience with doors has to do with the OP's question about windows.

Just to offer a different perspective, I have specified sliding doors in houses for 35 years and will only specify Marvin sliding doors because they are the only brand I have found to continue to open easily after 5 or more years.

I put an 8-0 slider in my own vacation house although the windows were cheap single-glazed all-wood similar to Brosco. The house is on an island in Maine and only gets used in the summer but the door operates with one finger after 6 years with no adjustments required. Even my cheapskate brother-in-law now wants them in his new house after struggling with other brands in other houses.

We put in 11 Marvin all wood double hungs earlier this year and are very happy with them. We added these to
replace crummy vinyl and to undo a 1980's renovation to our house.

For the OP, why do you want to replace what you already have? What problems are you experiencing?

I have both Marvin and Andersen windows. I have been misled by Marvin during the sales process. Marvin's warranty service is very poor. The Andersen's are performing beautifully and cost alot less. They're my choice for the next install.