We recently suffered a house fire and as a result our house is down to the studs and we need to replace all of our windows (along with everything else). We have a traditional style home with brick on the first floor and siding on the second. Insurance will replace the windows we have now which, unfortunately, are aluminum windows from the late 70's. In the interest of improving the look and performance of our windows without spending significantly more than the insurance replacement cost we're leaning towards vinyl windows (FYI we live in central Texas). This week we got a bid on Simonton 600 Series Windows with the simulated divided lite colonial grid pattern. As everyone who reads this forum knows, it is very hard to get a feel for what's "normal" in terms of pricing on windows. Is anyone able to tell me if the pricing below seems reasonable for the Simonton Brickmould 600 vinyl windows? The prices listed below are for the windows only, installation is separate. Also, given what we're looking for (especially the SDL) are there any other vinyl window manufacturers we should be looking into? 3060 double hung 6/6 w/ 1" s.d.l. $558 + tax 3040 double hung 6/6 w/ 1" s.d.l. $512 + tax Thanks in advance for the help!

The answer is, it depends on a lot of factors. Where you live, who you buy from, what's involved in the installation such as wrapping wood, whether insulation is used in the jambs and what type of insulation, what prep work is necessary, the experience of the installer, company reputation, labor warranties etc. Even depends on if grids are included, if the installer is using shims, backer rods or wood blocks on the sills. Best answer is you will usually get what you pay for.

thanks for the replies. If we only had 1 $1,500 place to cut, this would not even be an issue. We have lots of $1,500 places that we are needing to trim down cost. Does anyone know off hand if the Simonton 5500 series is as efficient/durable as the Integrity all fibrex? If the Marvin is that much more efficient then we will get our money back over time but if it takes 10 years & the windows will need replacing in 10 years then it's a wash. Thoughts?

Without going into the details of this remodel which has not gone according to plan and we just want to get it over with, let me rephrase my question. Our original contract specified Jeld Wen windows. Now we find we are unable to get what we want in the Jeld Wen vinyl window and do not want the wood version and have to come up with an alternative quickly. American Craftsman were brought up as an alternative which we refused. We see that we can get what we want in the Simonton window. I tried to research Simonton 600 quickly and it seems that while Simonton seems to have a decent reputation I wasn't able to find out a whole lot about the 600's, or to actually see an example of it. I was able to see the Simonton Reflections 5500 and it seems fine to me, in both looks and reviews. So is the Simonton 600 a decent window? Is the Simonton 5500 equal or better than the Simonton 600 and a viable window instead of the original Jeld Wen for a basic cottage remodel with a tight budget and an even tighter time frame at this point? I'd prefer to go with a window that I have actually seen (the 5500) vs one that I have not (600).