Not familiar with Sun and not a fan of the others. I reccomend none.

I would be in the "E - none of the above" answer category as well. Are these truly your only options?

Start the selection process over as I could not in good conscious recommend any of those.

We are trying to stay under $40,000 for 24 casement windows/1 bi-parting slider/1 french door with side windows attached. We have to take into consideration lead time as well some companies are 26 weeks out. Trying to stay in the 16 week lead time. Recommendations on other brands I should check out in that price range that is aluminum wood clad?

Where are you building? Look for a LePage dealer. Tell us where you are and I may be able to steer you to a source.

Asheville area

HU-310281047 I am told that Window and Door Concepts is the LePage dealer for the Ashville area. Kevin Gould is the owner. If he replies with his contact info I will pass that along. I got his name from the area rep for LePage.

Thank you!

HU-310281047, if you want to turn on messaging I have the owners contact info I can share with you.

How do I do that?

I’m in the Asheville area and ordered Sun Windows on 1/3/22. I have yet to see them and hope you are not in the same situation. Did you order from Sun Windows? If you did, what is your experience regarding delivery estimates and experiences?

My 1988 Austin, TX house has Pozzi windows that are failing. I'm looking at Jeld Wen Siteline and Sierra Pacific H3 at the recommendation of a local installer, Accolade Exteriors. Curious why these are bad options as referenced above??? We have A LOT of windows and plan to only be in our house about 10 more years.

Quality control, performance, fit & finish, customer service are all severely lacking across the board. And in fact just as an fyi Pozzi was bought and relabeled as one of Jeldwens product lines, and not really much improved. No pro worth his salt that I know will sell either line.

I do know Pozzi was bought by Jeld Wen. Ugh, so what are my options then?? I don't need the absolute top of the line windows, but my house is in a higher end neighborhood. And, I have a million windows!

Marvin Elevate or Kolbe Forgent for fiberglass. Are you open to vinyl? If so where are you located as some of the better brands are regional?

The other issue is that we currently have wood casement windows and really didn't want to change out all the windows. Would they look significantly different if we went to fiberglass or vinyl? We are in Austin, TX. I'm open to whatever if it's quality and not the absolute top of the line. Looking for budget-consciense at least mid-line quality and will match what I currently have.

Would any former commenters or those who were deciding between Sierra Pacific H3 and Jeld Wen Siteline give a follow up? We are absolutely stuck between those two, as we are using store credit after another unnamed window company which sent windows to us that were SO awful that we ended up being refunded our full amount, but in store credit (and the manufacturer aren’t even coming for their windows—we have 53 abandoned windows sitting around our construction site). The ONLY options for us are now SP H3 or JW Siteline, and I would love anyone to opine between those two. Please 🙏🏻

Good god, what an awful position to be in. Gun to my head I would take the S/P (grudgingly) over anything from Jeldwen. Would not be happy about having to use them but they "should" be better than Jeldwen.

We ended up going with Marvin Infinity. Ordered beginning of October. Hoping to have them installed in the New Year!

Thanks, @millworkman. Yes, if only we could go back in time. I am so very thankful, however, that the terribleness of the other brand was so terrible no one could deny it and we have been refunded, even if only in store credit (which I actually suggested to encourage the store work with us and fight for us). From what I’ve heard, it’s a near miracle we are getting all our money back.

@Gripsholm What brand window was so awful if I might ask?

@Gripsholm Same question, if you wouldn't mind sharing, what was the other window brand?

Also, if you wouldn't mind, what store were you dealing with?

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.

S/P is a mediocre product, with barely average quality control, performance, fit and finish and customer service. Jeldwen is just bad all the way around under all the same categories above. Anything in a roll form aluminum (think coke type can material) is an absolute non-starter in any pro with his salt in my opinion.

" 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. "

Without knowing the window type, obviously it is with this manufacturer. Window type dependent it very well may not be in a higher quality vinyl product like Okna, Soft Lite, Vytex, etc..

Thank you, millworkman. I’m going to have to just bite the bullet and go with mediocre this time, but, it sounds like I’ll be replacing these in the future, at which point I will make sure to go with excellent. My husband and I are GCing this job ourselves, and unfortunately, we ordered the windows really early on in our learning process. It was a very good lesson learned, and now we ask innumerable questions about every decision. Thanks for your insights. 🙏🏻

You're welcome. Please keep us updated and feel free to come back with any question you have during the install.

@Gripsholm We are building a lake house and I am finding it nearly IMPOSSIBLE to choose windows based on ANY confidence I might have gleaned from nauseating and insurmountable amounts of research. The amount of factors you have to consider for your specific situation, the egregiously conflicting comments on brand quality, and the rising costs on windows themselves ... leave me with my head spinning. Why, oh why is it this hard?

I think you might be over complicating this a bit. Let's start with what material do you want? Either inside, outside, or both.

Start there and we will make recommendations according to that construct.

@windows on washington --- are you talking to me? I so wish I had someone with your reputation on my side here in SC. I can answer that question very well, but it does include a caveat. Our intentions for building a lake house (vacation home) began approximately 2 years ago. There's a whole sordid story, but the bottom line is that after paying a talented architect to interpret our desires and needs on paper and waiting for the drawing to be done ... the estimate of the build increased by $750,000 because of the drastic rise in construction costs. Skipping over a lot of explanatory details ... we have since paid to have 500 sq ft taken out of the original drawing and are currently working intentionally to reduce costs without reducing quality. Windows are one of the first places to look after reducing square footage. The lake and the aesthetic of our home begs for many windows for the view - and for the Modern Traditional aesthetic. We would prefer aluminum clad over a vinyl product, but we know going vinyl will greatly reduces the cost. I am just completely ill-equipped to know what possible vinyl product would suffice in the areas of aesthetic and performance. After that it is trying to decipher all the "voices" about brands. I can talk to two different professionals and get wildly different advice about Sierra Pacific. We will need exterior doors with multiple sliders in order to open up Great Area with the Outdoor Entertaining area. We are looking for black windows.