Milgard Ultra fiberglass only has single hung, no double hung; I went to their Simi Valley factory/showroom. Their Tuscany line has double hung. I was impressed with how easy it was to pull it in to clean the outside of window as compared to the Pella vinyl I tested at a Pella showroom. I was impressed with Pella’s wood with aluminum clad exterior but everything else, vinyl and fiberglass, looked very low end. The finish on the Pella fiberglass had a wrinkly texture that looked cheap. I am concerned with comments about the Milgard Ultra fiberglass finish peeling. Has anyone else experienced this? We are planning on replacing all the windows and frames on our stucco house in SoCal so I want to get this right. We have white trim inside and out so color not an issue.

There were a couple of issues on one project where the windows were not sealing properly when they were installed plumb, true, and square. These windows were adjusted and re-adjusted to ensure exact fitment. Milgard did not view it as a product defect and the air that was leaking was claimed to be allowable, however, the customer and I were both unhappy with the results. That cost me money. The sample they shipped me for an in house demo didn't work right as I pulled it out of the plastic for the home owner. Their service team damaged a window while trying to get a sash out and claimed it was the customer that had done the damage. They actually used a kitchen utensil (expensive knife) to remove one sash and damaged the knife in the process. The factory service aspect may be great on the West Coast but it was a liability on the East Coast.

Hi sberg, My info is 4 years old so things may have changed for the better (I hope) since then. Other pro-posters like Oberon, guy-exterior-man, paintbrush (?) and skydawggy are sure to have better information. In general, we learned then that use of screws in vinyl windows is undesirable. Weld and fuse is much better. We did not find out what Integrity used to connect the joints, sorry. Having worked with fiberglass as a hobby while in college, I will say that one piece formed fiberglass is the best because there is no seam. The second best would be weld or some sort of chemical (heat?) bonding that completely fuses the joints leaving no seeams. Beyond these two, I am now out of date as to what is best in joining fiberglass material. Using regular old screws is a definite no, no. You can check the local marina (if you live close by a lake, river or ocean) and ask the service people what they use for boat joints. Fiberglass boat hull is very common. You can then call Marvin Integrity and see what they say. This also tests Integrity's phone service quality. :-) We also learned that the more "air pockets" in the window frame, the better. This is true for fiberglass, aluminum or vinyl. There is a special trade name for air pockets but I forgot what it is. Basically, a frame that has 1 simple air pocket between the outside and the inside layer suffers from transmission of heat and lack of strength. It is like a simple empty box compared with the same box filled with a few honeycomb structures. The one with the honeycomb (more air pockets) will be significantly stiffer and stronger. Depending on how the honeycomb is set up, they also slow or significantly reduce heat transfer. So more air pockets generally translate to stronger window and of course, will cost more. If you have a good Marvin shop, ask to see a cross section of the window. We saw one in our local Marvin shop and it really helped. We asked for same from two local Milgard shops but they had none so we relied on on-line drawings from Milgard. We ended up with Marvin (not Marvin Integrity) because Marvin Integrity was fairly new at the time and did not have the color we wanted. Sorry, not much help here as it is near the limit of our research. We wanted wood interior to stain and we wanted solid wood pieces so we did not look too deeply into vinyl or fiberglass.

We have Marvin Infinity, and love them. We're in North Dakota, so energy efficiency was important. Ours has wood-look inside, which the company stained to match the rest of our woodwork - when they measured, they brought a sample of our trim back to the shop to get a good match (and succeeded). My son mowed the lawn the day after the new windows were installed, and I thought it must be someone mowing 3 houses away. I hadn't thought about sound insulation, but that has been a major plus! Ours have been in for 5 years, no problems whatsoever.