Double glazed door and window vendors

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timmmay

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Topic # 143277 9-Apr-2014 07:47

I read on here a few months back about a particularly good vendor of thermally broken double glazed doors. I called them at the time but they never bothered to call me back - I forget their name, but they had a branch in Upper Hutt. Now I'm looking to replace a set of french doors and a standard door, thermally broken and double glazed. Can anyone recommend vendors, including the one that was previously mentioned?

I got three vendors around and asked for quotes a couple of years back. Three turned up and measured, one gave me a quote I thought was unreasonable, one I had to hound to get the quote so I won't bother with them, one never sent a quote at all. One of them (I forget which) emailed me a scanned quote, but didn't bother to reply when I asked them questions about the quote. Overall the service in the aluminum door industry seems pretty poor.

I like the idea of PVC (I have a PVC double glazed window), but the color options of white or wood grained don't work for me - I want to match color steel.

I know of:
- Eurovision (they tell me they closed before Christmas due to lack of work)
- Homerit (PVC, limited colors)
- Thermalframe (PVC, white/wood grain only)
- Aluminium Joinery Wellington (decent enough service, but difficult to see their work outside of standard business hours so I didn't pursue)
- Westview Aluminium (didn't bother to reply to my questions about the quote)
- EcoWindows (recommended by Eurovision)

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mailmarshall

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Reply # 1024043 12-Apr-2014 16:37

Hey

I used Rylock - got the whole house done including big slider and approx 13 windows with double glaze aluminium, low E, argon, thermal break 2 years ago.

It has made a big difference to the heat retention and with thermal break no more wet windows. Still need to open all the windows to get rid of moisture but way better than the crying windows we had before.

Things we considered when replacing:
a. your seal between the window and existing cladding will never be the same as your current windows. We saw the windows and the air foam gaps when we replaced the gib and did wall insulation this year. Ideally if you are going to regib then it will be good time to get the new window/doors.
b. check the manufacturers specs and see how they will handle the water cavity stuff at the bottom of window. Make sure the person you go with explains why or why not they will not follow their specs. Sometimes its impractical to follow the specs but insurance companies may not pay out if something not down to spec.
c. Most companies will not paint the external or internal reveals. Not a problem internally but huge problem externally if you need scaffolding to paint!! We didn't have issue with this but had to get treated external reveals because had no $$ left for getting professional painters 2 years ago.
d. Be prepared for damage to your existing gib \ cladding - at least touch up paint. pain in the butt if you had to do colour matching like us.

It is worth doign in my opinion as long as you aware of some of the above points. I have one window still which is single glazed (looks crap), one slider that is just double glazed and then rest of house is thermal double glazed.

The double glazed slider without thermal is fine BUT still gets a lot of water.

mailmarshall

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Reply # 1024161 12-Apr-2014 20:55

Oh and one more thing - double check your wind bearing for windows / doors. My LIM said "Very High" when I got my house in 2007 but when I checked with council prior to installing windows it was "Extra High". All important from an insurance perspective.

mattwnz

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Reply # 1024212 12-Apr-2014 23:04

There are lots of brands for aluminum windows, but many are owned by the same parent company so use the same profiles. I would suggest Fairview and their other brand is Elite. They have a range of designer thermally broken profiles which have recently come out. I am not a fan of PVC, mainly for the reasons you have said. Also many have been retrofitted into houses in the UK, and look ugly and out of place, and I can't get past that.

timmmay

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Reply # 1024310 13-Apr-2014 11:48

I noticed that most of the companies use the same door templates, or that there were only two sets.

Fairview doesn't have any installers/businesses that use them in Wellington, according to their website. Wainui is the closest.

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shall0w

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Reply # 1028101 20-Apr-2014 11:37

Have used rylock and high performance windows in our house, both good to deal with but hpw was significantly cheaper. Both supply similar if not identical products our front and rear doors are from the same o/s manufacturer but were supplied through different companies.

timmmay

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Reply # 1028138 20-Apr-2014 13:02

Thanks for the tip, I'll give HPW a try.

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Disrespective

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Reply # 1028989 22-Apr-2014 09:42

You can use eboss.co.nz to find particular brands of windows/doors which are thermally broken. We use it to get details but it might help you understand the appearance options before going in to talk to someone.

Vantage are a brand we use extensively and they do a product called thermal heart which is a double glazed thermally broken window/door. First and Altherm also so a similar product.

Manufacturers we use commonly are Nulook, Rylock and High Performance Windows.

timmmay

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Reply # 1029017 22-Apr-2014 10:39

I'm seeing HPW this afternoon, thanks for the tip guys.

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timmmay

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Reply # 1036730 5-May-2014 08:47

The High Performance Windows sales guy came around quite quickly, around 10 days ago. I've called twice since then but have yet to receive a quote. I might contact them once more, but honestly service is important to me and those guys seem pretty poor so far.

Edit - after I emailed to follow up for a third time I got an apology, an explation that they're very busy but this shouldn't have happened, was told the quote would be emailed out this morning. It hasn't arrived yet.

Edit2 - they got there eventually, mid afternoon.

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