Sam Goh, Most dealers would be happy to sell to you even if they are hours away. But how much are you saving for that hassle? The local dealer is less likely to help you out with any problems if you left the area to make your purchase. That one small change you want to make after the fact might be $200 from your local dealer, but $800 if the other dealer has to make the drive to you. Same with Home Depot-do you think HD is going to help you at all if you need help later? If it's an appliance that will wear out in 5 yr anyway, that's one thing. When it's a part of your house that will be there for decades, I'd be glad to pay even a few thousand more from a reputable dealer that will be there for the minor problems. If you have ~60 windows, just keep in mind that it will be exponentially more expensive for you if you have to change them all out in 5-10 yr because they're junk... Just my $0.02, hope you can find a good solution that works well for you.

You may be 100% correct, lzerac. I have not sold Eagle products in a few years and they very well may have improved the quality but I just do not feel Andersen products are a top of the line product, either performance or durability wise. The 400 and Tilt Wash Double Hungs which make up the bulk of their sales are a vinyl wrapped frame which is not very think nor attractive from my perspective. The sash are not architecturally correct in that the sash are essentially the same top and bottom and do not give you the aesthetics that a wood window should have. The exterior of the sash are still a painted product and the glass is only 5/8" of an inch thick where as most companies have gotten better performance values from thicker glass. This is just for starters I do not sell wood windows currently and need to think back to some of the other reasons I am not a fan. I used to sell a hell of a lot of Andersen Windows but then I started selling Marvin and Kolbe and just found the workmanship and the quality if the products to be of a higher quality. I personally feel that when Andersen started making custom products and purchasing other companies that this was the downfall of them as they started trying to be everything to everybody instead of being themselves. Just my feelings and opinion forr what that is worth.

What did you choose and how do you like it?

I did mix them all throughout the house (my window style is a cottage 4-over-1 grid with both interior and exterior grids), and after all my fretting, no one would ever be able to tell from the inside or outside! (I even have to look and try to remember whether some of the casements are 100s or 400s.) If it weren't for needing some very specific sizes (and wood grids to stain in our den), I would do all 100's because I cannot tell the difference in terms of operation/quality on the casements and you can barely discern the difference in terms of looks. And even in rooms where I chose the 400 series because I wanted to have double-hung windows, I wouldn't do it again....as appealing as the notion of being able to open the upper or lower sash was, what I've found in day-to-day living is that I only ever open the bottom sash, so I would've been just fine with simply doing single-hungs! Overall I'm satisfied with my Anderson windows, but I like my friend's Marvin Integrity windows better than mine--hers operate better and just have more of a "quality" look (mine still look fine.....I was actually going to do Integrity originally, but they did a price-hike during construction, and I just couldn't justify the extra $15-20K). I will say, however, that my Anderson 100 sliding windows that I did in the basement are ATROCIOUS in every way. Incredibly difficult to lock (you have to slam the window shut in order for the locking mechanism to "catch"--I far prefer the manual latches I had on my previous sliders), don't slide open very smoothly, let dirt in (we live in a very windy climate but still I've never seen so much fine dirt piled up on a window ceil!), super cheap--the lock plates have snapped or broken off over half of them in just the first year (and we almost never even use them). Needless to say, the inexpensive vinyl sliders we had in the basement of our last house were far superior.