I looked at the Windsor Pinnacle Casement online and there was not enough information for me to take them seriously. I was not impressed with what little was offered which consisted of typical sales claims ("heavy duty extruded cladding" that appeared to be thin hollow extrusions) and a cut-away sample of a lower corner of a window that was impossible to understand since it was cut diagonally. Marvin provides scaled detail drawings in plan and section that can be downloaded.

My daughter has purchased a new home with 50 year old double hung windows that need to be replaced. It is a colonial home in Massachusetts several miles from the coast. She is trying to decide between the Anderson 400 series and the Marvin Integrity. She wants to stay with the same traditional 6 over 6 white double hung windows. Any thoughts on which is better - the Marvin Integrity, or the Anderson 400 Series?

@Kate Kate what did you end up choosing? We are going to use Windsor Pinnacle's (they are great here in the high, dry alpine desert of the west). I remember the awful rotting Marvin issues of years past (they had a period where the sills were rotting in a lot of their windows. We looked at both, and having used to have Marvin's, I was shocked at how cheap and flimsy they felt in contrast to the Windsor's. We were told Windsor's performed like Kolbe's, didn't have as high-quality detailed finishes as Kolbe's (like immaculate seams/connection points on mullions, etc). I've lived in houses with Kolbes and Marvins.... and now building our own, we're deliberating between a Marvin multislide vs. a Windsor multislide and I was curious if anyone out there has installed/used a multislide door in their home and can weigh in!

The window brand is local to where I am, not a national company, and is called Elevate. The particular problems with these windows, which were vinyl (we are now getting aluminum clad), were windows out of square, broken window seals upon arrival, larger windows that sagged in the middle, latches (for locking closed) attached crooked, and interior gridlines off-center and cantered. This last one would be problematic under any circumstance, but in our particulate case, we have transoms that are not mulled to the windows below (they have a 6” piece of trim between them—companies check when the windows are mulled to make sure lines are straight), so we would have a window below that could be off 1/8 in one direction with the window above off 1/8 in another direction. It was easily visible to the naked eye and ridiculous looking. Finally, the biggest issue was that half of the windows arrived with no nail fins, although we ordered all with nail fins. We had taken brick off the exterior of our house so that we could install the windows with nail fins. The company has strongly stated that the problems were not usual, and did issue a refund, so I’m going to give them credit where credit is due. The could make immediate and responsive changes, since they are smaller and local, so hopefully they will. Apparently they had many quality control meetings after this situation and are looking to correct the issues. What have I learned from the situation that actually could be helpful to other people? Probably, in relationship to the suitability of the materials, I have since been told that vinyl windows are not very suitable when you have a very wide span. We have some windows that are 96 inches wide. I don’t know if that is true, but with the sag we saw in larger windows, I am guessing it has merit. All that said, I still find it incredibly difficult to find unbiased, helpful information online. I hear a lot of what is “good” and “bad”, but why specifically? I don’t find that info readily available. Like, why Sierra Pacific over Jeld wen (even though neither are preferred)? The extruded vs rolled aluminum? Anything else? Any particular things we should look for with casement windows that makes a difference? I am 100% sure that I could have made a better first decision had I really dug into it on my own—that mistake was on me, in part. I just wish I knew where to get educated.