A few months back we decided to get new windows in our house. Our house was built in the 1950s and the windows in the house were still original, so as you can imagine they were a bit drafty and inefficient. So we began the process of getting estimates and had some really poor experiences, and a few fair ones.
First of all our worst experience was with Castle Windows. They seem to like to use guilt as their main selling tool, and would recommend you look elsewhere if you are looking for new windows. I could go into this estimate in great detail with a lot of ranting and raving... perhaps another day...
Come to think of it though, I don't have a recommendation for you since the company we decided to go with, Home Remodelers Group seemed like a good choice at the time, and the windows are nice, but their customer service is absolutely horrendous.
For anyone that has been lucky enough not to have a window estimate, let me fill you in on one thing. They all take 3-4 hours. Seriously. These sales guys come into your house and want to put on a complete show. They go into detail about their competitors, how great their windows are and why their competitors are no good, warranties, service and so on. My first consultation ran close to 4 hours, and 2 family members of mine received consultations from separate companies and also ran over 3 hours each. So after our first horrible experience we would tell the sales guy we already knew all of those things and wanted to get right down to it, and were able to get through our next couple of estimates in under an hour.
So when The Home Remodelers Group sent a sales person out to our house we were ready and willing to buy windows and just wanted to get a fair price. The sales guy was very nice and extremely helpful, and the company was painted in a very good light. With a little haggling we got to a price that we liked and we ordered new windows. We were very excited and in only a few weeks we would have new great windows... right?
In the beginning of September the installers came out and in 1 day they installed our new bay window and 12 double hung windows. Thankfully for us only 9 of those 12 double hung windows would have to be later replaced. Actually only 8 frames were replaced, it should have been 9 and depending on who you listened to at the company it could have been as many as 12. Let me explain...
Amanda is at home with Emily while they are installing things so by the time the day is over Emily is getting restless and we don't really get a good chance to look over all the windows and we take their word that everything is done. So when I get home from work I start checking the windows and it turns out that most of the windows are having issues locking correctly, and just about every window has the screen holes drilled completely wrong so the screens don't close properly. At this point we are a bit upset, but everyone makes mistakes and the windows have a lifetime warranty, so it should be a cinch to fix right? Well if you want to call a cinch countless phone calls and 2 months of waiting, then it was a cinch.
Here is a quick time line of what happened following the install:
*Several phone calls were placed to The Home Remodelers Group in between each of these steps.
1. Placed calls to project manager about complaints.
2. Company sent someone out to inspect the windows, who said they all had to be replaced.
3. Company sent another person out who really just wanted to ask us which windows were bad instead of inspecting them himself and we ended up with 10 of 12.
4. Same guy had to come back out again because apparently he didn't keep track of the serial numbers of the windows.
5. Window company gets upset with such a large reorder and sends their rep, who says "all but 1 would need to be replaced".
6. Several phone calls are made to find out when the reinstall is going to happen because we seemed to be lost in the cracks.
7. I took a day off from work and the installers show up with 8 frames to reinstall (no idea where the 8 came from, and no one else seemed to know either).
8. 8 Frames were reinstalled and a 9th was modified so the screen would lock properly.
9. More phone calls are placed about a discount because this is getting a little ridiculous.
10. A whopping offer of 2.2% is offered.
11. The whopping offer is countered with a huge increase to 2.7%
And that is where I currently stand.
I am really upset with the The Home Remodelers Group overall, and they have definitely lost repeat business since we will soon be looking at redoing our kitchen, but there really isn't much I can do in this situation. I have thought of bringing the BBB into the mix to try and get what I would consider a more fair discount, but that would require more time and energy from us. So at this point I feel a bird in the hand is definitely worth 2 in the bush, and I will take the 2.7% and run.
Comments (1)
Sucks :( Definitely flame them everywhere. Stupid BBB.
Posted by Katie | November 21, 2008 10:23 AM
Posted on November 21, 2008 10:23