I know this is an old thread. If anyone is still reading, I'm looking for advice on replacing our windows and sliding glass doors at our beach house. We have 8 casement windows and 3 sliding doors. We were going to go with vinyl new construction windows and doors until we started hearing negative information about the durability of vinyl. We are doing this once so want to do it right. The sliders also face south and get hot afternoon sun. Also we are undecided between white or black exterior trim (white inside) but that's a whole other decision to make! We will be visiting both Pella and Andersen this week. We are looking at possibly the Pella Impervia fiberglass line, or the Andersen 100 Series Fibrex. We need to make a decision quickly to get the product ordered. This will be done in tandem with a deck replacement and siding replacement with Certainteed vinyl white board and batten. Any advice and recommendations are appreciated. Thanks!

I'm going to say something on this very old post. I hope everyone is happy with the choices they made on their windows and doors. So are we. We replaced all 17 windows in our house late 2022 with Renewal by Andersen (some single casements, some double and triple sliding windows) and are ecstatic with the results. Comments about trying to find windows, find a contractor (our always reliable fantastic contractor that we've used for years said no to doing the project due to the size and complexity of the windows), etc. are true. Was RBA expensive? Yes, chokingly so! BUT....the team that did the measurements, and the installation, were superb, and we could not recommend them more highly. One stop shopping as they say, We would go with them again in a heartbeat.

On the recommendation of our architect and builder we went with Sierra Pacific Aluminum clad Aspen Casement 2.0 Windows and are in Colorado at 7500'. We do have a few issues, loose aluminum cladding, some inside corners that were not mitered, some warped inside trim pieces, One set of three windows that are mulled together arrived with a really bad scratch. and the only solution, because of the location, is to dab a little paint on the exposed aluminum. If it was at eye level it would have to be replaced but it is up high and not visible to the naked eye so that will be okay with us. The service manager came out and is having everything fixed. My advice is, regardless of what windows you go with, try to meet the service manager for your area ahead of time. We met the SP service manager at the showroom more than a year ago when we were mulling over the windows and he ended up being the same person who came out to go over our concerns so we had a connection. There was one thing we didn't like that was by design, something we missed. The exterior trim for the Aspen Casement 2.0 Windows is assembled using metal screws that will be visible upon finish. The screws are bright silver and don't match the aluminum color. We are going for a modern look so weren't planning to have trim around the windows. About the only thing we can do is go around and dab a bit of paint on the top of each screw which we would only do on the windows that are at eye level. He said no one had ever brought that issue to his attention so maybe it is just us. Other things we didn't realize about the SP windows Aspen casement 2.0 version is that the inside trim pieces are not nailed in. They are held in by something called a rib. This is also by design to cover up hardware and also make it easy to service the window if needed. Only time will tell if this works out. He offered to nail in all the pieces. The windows themselves look great and all came at the exact correct size and had good labels for the installers to figure out where each window should go. Here is something though I still haven't figured out. We looked at the Cardinal Glass website to help us pick which type of glass to use. We also brought out samples and placed them around the house. We went with the Low e 272 which has a Visible Light Transmittance of 72% (we thought the e366 might make it too dark and unable to grow plants) and a Solar Heat Gain coefficient (SHGC) of .41 and a U factor of .30 (without argon). Yet, the VT range for our windows is 48% - 65%, the SHGC ranges from .28 to .31 and the U Factors range from .29 to .32. So there must be some program that considers exposure and a variety of factors to come up with the individual characteristics for each window. So, even though we thought we would be getting 72% of visible light we are in the range of 48% to 65%. There is still a lot of light because we have a lot of windows. I like to grow houseplants so only time will tell if plants will grow. Yes, window selection is very complicated. So that's part of our story with Sierra Pacific, again, only time will tell. We still have a ways to go, the inside windows need to be stained and none of the finish hardware or screens have been delivered as that is one of the last things that will happen. Sierra Pacific does something they call Lock and Slide where they come out and install the finish hardware, screens and adjust any windows that might be difficult to open and close. Hope this helps.

Oh that’s not true - we ordered ours as a custom 400, but here is the thing - with the custom size and ours being non-operable it did indeed end up with a different series number, however the base features were the 400 series. It was inserted into a brick wall in a reno of a 1969 rancher without much adieu. When I get home I’ll look at our invoice and tell you what the ‘custom’ version was, so you have a starting point of what to ask for. But we had a funky size, frosted glass, non-operable with the trim level, UV rating, and detail of the 400s. I do not believe it was woodwright, but let me verify. The sticker said 400 though :) Excuse the lack of trim, this was while we were still shimming :)