I realize this is an old thread but wanted to add my voice here. I am a general contractor and specialize in bathroom and kitchen remodels. I use bostik trucolor on every single project and it works great. It’s not miraculous though. Anyone who wants grout that won’t get dirty is dreaming and needs to use a different floor choice. ALL grout gets dirty the difference is that the urethane won’t soak through the pores. I’ve used a lot of different grout and find this the easiest to apply that’s urethane. Plan on using bostik blaze afterward to get the grout haze you may have missed. It literally melts it away no issues. Way easier than your Home Depot special grout cleaner. As far as change of planes goes you should never put any grout in an area that is a change of plane. That’s what color match caulking is for. They even make a sanded version if you really hate the silicone look. This grout is great if applied correctly. Hope this helps!

If you buy a major name brand the cost of ownership of those will be higher (Trane, Lennox, Carrier, American Standard) because part prices can be considerably higher than so called 'landlord' brand. Once you breach the warranty period of the system, generally 10 years the only thing left is 'cost of ownership'. Other factors: time. Time the system is down waiting for parts. You want something that has ease of getting the parts to fix it when it does break. [It will break] If you are buying a system above that of a 'plain ole' entry level system (14 SEER in the South / 13 SEER in the North) You will be limited to that of those brands mentioned above and the 'landlord' brand. However, the landlord brand often times comes with a better manufacturer warranty. The warranty does little good if the unit is not installed AND repaired by a 'skilled' Licensed HVAC contractor, not only knowledgeable in doing AC work, but also those lengthy list of things that 'should not be done'. So what is the best brand for my company? Any brand that has the features you want and that I can get the equipment for within a mile of my house. The 'landlord' brand is within that mix... if you don't use someone knowledgeable, someone who goes around an bashes products because they seem inferior it probably won't be long until they start bashing the brand they sold you... so they can turn around and sell you something different once the warranty period runs out. I've probably been doing this too long. 24 years. 11 years running my own company. They all break. Don't kid yourself. I can and do reduce the risk, but no one can prevent it fully. I service the Katy, Texas area. PS: you do not want to do a 'direct to consumer' type deal where you are buying the equipment. If you buy the equipment, you're responsible for the warranty. That will not be good because AC always break at the worst possible time. Then you're dealing with a 3rd party to ship parts to when they break. That situation will not be pretty. I prefer pretty, with as little of down time as possible. That is the standard to look for. I run service everyday as an example. Yesterday was a holiday. My customers got service. How about you?

I preferred the 400 Woodwright for years because the thickness of the 400 Tilt-Wash sash forced exterior mullions to be flat which was unacceptable for my projects. That was eventually changed so the windows now look almost the same if you don't mind the protruding glass stop. The frames are the same; the sash balances are different and I have no way of knowing for sure how durable the PPG Flexacron epoxy paint is. Its used for other all-wood windows. I don't know if Adnersen treats the wood sash with a preservative like Pella does on their roll-form aluminum clad windows. I guess the Tilt-Wash might be a reasonable alternative if the budget couldn't accommodate the Woodwirght and the home owner didn't intend to live in the house forever but it would also depend on how competitive the price for the Marvin Elevate fiberglass windows was. At this point its unlikely I will ever use the Tilt-Wash. TILT-WASH on the left; WOODWRIGHT on the right

@Shiloh S We had a similar problem. The draftsperson made plans with 2x4 exterior walls, but the builder said we need to use 2x6. As a result, at the framing stage we had to make changes on the fly because the change from 4 inch walls to 6 inch walls messed up a few things, like shrinking hallways, spaces where a tub wouldn't fit, etc. I was on site every day with a tape measure to make sure that things end up being reasonable. We did lose a bit of interior floor space though, since the foundation was based on the original sizes. However, as some posters mentioned, the gross square footage that you pay for is based on external dimensions, so that doesn't change. A few other unrelated mistakes appeared during the framing stage, but all of them were fixed quickly after pointing them out to the builder. At first it was annoying losing 4" of width in a room, but then I realized that I wouldn't have noticed the difference if I hadn't measured it, so I just accepted it.