Jeldwen is a poor choice in a window in my opinion. Poor performance, workmanship and quality control. United is worse. Just my .02..................

Agree, both are poor choices. Maybe call an Okna window dealer, or a dealer of soft lite or sunrise. All 3 make much better windows. Although the respective dealers would more than likely have to perform the install.

The house is being built in Central Virginia near Richmond. What makes these windows poor choices in your opinions? Personally, I would prefer to use another material other than vinyl, but it appears that doing so may be cost prohibitive. The problem we are having is that our house has an insane amount of windows - 67 to be exact. I know that sounds like a lot, but with the design (rambling, modern farmhouse), it works really well. We received two other quotes over the weekend: for Marvin Integrity and Marvin. The Marvin Integrity quote is nearly $40,000 more than the United quote and $25,000 more than the Jeldwen quote. The Marvin quote is $60,000 more than United and $45,000 than Jeldwen. I am having trouble justifying the extra cost, but would certainly welcome your thoughts and suggestions for other brands that may be a little less expensive. Thanks for your advice!

Also, I should add with respect to the warranty that United provides a lifetime warranty for the life of the original owner. This seems like a great warranty to me, but feel free to weigh in with your thoughts.

Ok, one more comment - we also went to Lowe's over the weekend and noticed that the Pella vinyl windows they have are much cheaper than the United. I know every brand has different levels, but if we were to go with Pella, what models would you recommend?

Not a fan of any of them, but the 350 is the best of their series. I don't like the pocket sill design from a long term durability standpoint.

What brands would you recommend?

Are you staying in the vinyl family of products?

Vinyl certainly will come in at a better price point but may not meet the aesthtic that you are looking for. If that is the rationale for the move from vinyl, the question becomes is what is the other than vinyl look worth to you and how much of a premium can you stomach for it.

The Marvin Integrity (wood - ultrex combo) is a nice looking combo and usually comes in that price range between nice wood and good vinyl. The wood interior is nice and it is a well regarded window by most who have used it. They did have some painting issues at one point, but that seems to be confined to a specific window of time. If you search for lkbum (poster on here), he had some wonderful pictures of an absolutely stunning waterfront build.

I am still waiting to inspect the product when I go there this summer to vacation....ha!!

I think you would be well served to look at that as well as maybe the Andersen 200 series to get a price comparison and see if you are willing to take the budget to that level. I agree with the past observations that the JeldWen is not preferable over those two options that I mentioned above.

In vinyl, I would love to see something from Soft-Lite (Imperial LS), Sunrise, Okna, or Kensington Quantum 2. Those are all solidly built vinyl units that can be ordered in a new construction format.

We provide a handful of custom builders around here with the Okna product from time to time for new builds or additions.

For the record, we are seeing million + dollar homes now with GBG. I do agree that SDL is prettier and more realistic, but most folks just don't like the way you have to clean the glass and the additional expense.

I would look at okna as well. The pella 350 is a garbage window in my opinion.

i would also stay away from the vinyl brands sold at the big home improvement stores,

I am not a contractor but own rental properties and do an occassional flip. I enjoy actually doing the work myself. There are alot of window snobs out there doing reviews. I have not installed any Jeld-wen windows, but I have installed United windows in a vacation home that I own. They have held up excellently. I also have installed Pella Thermastar (bottom of the barrell price-wise) and they have held up excellently. I rent the vacation home out through VRBO so I suspect that the renters generally abuse the house and I have had no problems.