First, I know Renewal by Andersen is expensive. And we're in a pandemic - the salesman said they're scheduling installs 200 days out.

$14k for a patio door. Its a custom size - not surprising, this is an old house and the existing door was likely made by a carpenter, not a factory.

~$1,000/ea for basement windows. Sliders.

Those prices include installation. I'm not sure how much I should be budgeting for that.

Just to be clear, these prices get nothing but a belly laugh out of me. But it leaves me wondering what other options are out there....but there's no rush.

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We did basement windows (sliders) and replaced the original (92 year old) side door this year.

Andersen and a local window manufacturer each quoted about $6K for the job.

Local handyman quoted $2.3K. The windows were custom sizes, but the door was standard. He did nice work, but had to rebuild the framing around all of the openings. We encouraged him to at least bill us for the extra lumber.

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Embarassing myself on the Internet since 1978.

raz - how many windows? what brand?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2021 02:14PM by mattkime.

200 days out gets you this kind of pricing, yeah.

Wondering if you couldn't instead look for a carpenter instead of a company. And then buy the materials yourself.

Even if it's temporary, maybe a decent wood door would suffice that the carpenter can adapt to. If the windows are somewhat standard maybe he can install those also.

A friend got quotes from the Renewal people last year, and they were 50% more than using a local installer for the same Andersen Series 100 windows. The windows are not the problem so much as the installers.

Also, she said that all the windows are custom in the sense that they all build to order for the Series 100. Dealers do not inventory them.

The patio door seems really high?

yeah, what is that patio door made out of? Bitcoin?

I just had our sliding patio door replaced. Vinyl. Door was about $1200.

Matt,

Can't speak for whether or not those prices are fair but I can tell you this: the cost of materials is skyrocketing. The price of something as simple as a sheet of plywood has near doubled. So, anything that might have been X dollars six months to a year ago might be significantly more expensive now. That's not factoring in lead time. These days, you have to add lots of time - even months - to what previously was the normal lead time.

Several people I know have renovations planned and, aside from the high cost of materials and longer lead times (especially if it's custom instead of off-the-shelf), it's allocating time for the contractor. One person chose a great contractor but now has to wait until February before he can have the work done. The contractor is good enough and priced fairly enough that he is willing to wait for him instead of using someone else.

Aside from getting an estimate in writing, do the same for any warranties.

Robert

The exact contours of pandemic pricing can be quite surprising. We replaced about 900 square feet of carpet with hard wood in the spring when lumber prices were sky rocketing and I think it cost us only $300 more. We waited 2-3 months for the contractor to be available which wasn’t bad.

It’ll be interesting to see when product availability returns to normal.

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Last I looked, lumber prices had fallen by maybe 75% from the peak.

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anonymouse1
Last I looked, lumber prices had fallen by maybe 75% from the peak.

yeah, dimensional lumber around here is back to just about "normal" pricing, though a bit higher, which probably accounts for some inflation. Sheet goods are still high, but not as high as they were 6 months ago.

Supply chain disruptions are still pretty bad. Yeah, lumber went down. Metals are still NUTS. Plastics too... my company is having trouble sourcing plastic pellets for our injection molded parts.

We recently bought a house that has a LOT of large windows (for example, sunroom has floor to 12' ceiling windows). Wife wants to replace them all with double-pane windows. When our handyman asked her how much she thought it would cost, she guesstimated $100K. He laughed and said it would be "a lot more than that".

There's a lot of fat in replacement window and door pricing, always has been even before the pandemic, IMHO, especially for brand names.

Get some prices from locally-made window and door companies.

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mattkime
raz - how many windows? what brand?

2 in the basement. I think he used traco (3 rivers aluminum co)

Side door was off the shelf at Lowe’s

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Embarassing myself on the Internet since 1978.

I just ordered a bunch of Andersen 400-series awning and casement windows from Home Depot - unfinished wood interiors with clad exteriors & trim. They priced out at $650-$800/window for the materials (window, exterior trim, screen, hardware). Lead time went from 1 month (at time of order) to 3 months (2 days later when the factory acknowledged the order).

I did one "test" install with these windows this spring - installation really isn't that bad - 2-3 hours for me to remove the old unit and install the new unit without previous experience. The labor intensive parts for me are that the interior trim needs to be resized and the windows need to be stained/painted to match the existing woodwork and exterior trim.

For basement windows - they all mostly seem to fall into standard size categories. I replaced my old single-pane swing-out basement windows (1950's construction) with off-the-shelf glass block units with vents a couple years ago.

Pretty quick here I am going to learn how to do doors and windows. Going to practice on the garage before I move on to the house.

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C(-)ris
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Throwback Thursday Signature:

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C(-)ris
Pretty quick here I am going to learn how to do doors and windows. Going to practice on the garage before I move on to the house.

This.

I have a simple garage door frame that is rotting (looks like the developer put an interior frame in the exterior door. Doh!)

I think if I waited for a local pro to do it, I would have to wait until the spring at the earliest.

At this point I wish I would have been more direct about what I thought of the price of that door.

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