New Construction Window Choices & Culture Stone

[Alan L.]

There have been a few threads on here about construction, so I thought I would get some opinions.

We hope to start building a house this year and one item that is at the top of my list is quality windows. Both for energy efficiency (mainly for air conditioning here in Texas) and quality of the mechanism. I am considering brands such as Andersen and Pella but I can't seem to get any prices online - I am expecting to pay $500 or so per window for material.

If anyone has used these brands can you remember what you paid, and also I'd like to know how you like your window brand and which ones I should consider.

Our house will be fairly modest compared to bmac's house, maybe 2000 square feet, but I'd like quallity doors and windows.

Also, we are considering using cultured (fake) stone on the exterior instead of brick or real stone. Any experiences with this stuff? I will only use it if there aren't any negatives such as it not looking real or if there is a problem with moisture or something attaching it directly to Tyvek on OSB. I'm told it costs much less than real rock and a little more than brick veneer.

 

[bmac]

Good afternoon, Alan. We used Pella windows in our home. I can't tell you the average unit price, but I can call the window man tomorrow and get that figure, if you'd like.

Our brand decision was based purely on my builder's recommendation. We had no brand loyalty going in to this project. I was impressed that, one day while meeting with my builder and the Pella man, my builder mentioned to the Pella guy that one window at his personal home had devloped a problem. Without blinking an eye, the Pella guy said "we'll take care of it". I jokingly said, "Hey, we don't want windows that are going to give us problems". To which the builder replied, "Well, they are about 15 years old and this is the first problem I've had". The amazing thing to me is that after 15 years, the Pella window was going to be fixed at no charge. Now, being the skeptic that I am, I'm wondering is anyone would get this kind of service or if it is because of the volume of business my builder gives to Pella (he uses Pella exclusively in his homes). In any event, it appears as though they stand behind their product.

As I haven't moved in yet, I can't really give you an evaluation other to say that they seem to be well constructed. I've opend and closed a few and they are tight. I can certainly let you know if any problems develop.

As for as the synthetic stone, I have no experience with it. However, I did consider using it on the exterior of my basement walls instead of brick. From the little research I did, I think it is an OK product. We wondered if stone on the large area of our basement wall on the back of the house (10 ft high) would have been a little overpowering so we opted for brick instead. But as far as quality, I think it is a good material for veneering.

Good luck with your home building project. While we ended up with a home that is larger than we originally set out to build, you will have all of the same components in your home that we do. You will have all the same decisions to make that we did. The only difference will be the quantity of materials. I do think you are making a good decision to use quality products in your home. The only thing I would offer is that high quality doesn't necessarily have an easily recognized name brand associated with it. Just do your homework and take advantage of the good advice you will get on TBN.

Please feel free to PM me if there is anything I can help you with.

 

[MadReferee]

I have never used "cultured" stone outdoors but indoors I have. The attached photo is our great room fireplace. It's 13ft high at the peak and 14ft wide. It looks and feels like real stone. I have had experienced builders look at it who thought it was real.

This type of masonary is a great choice where you have a center of the room fireplace like ours and don't have the underlying carrying capacity and support for real heavy stone. I don't believe that the masonary weighs more than about 500-700 or so pounds.

 

[Humbleto]

Alan, I haven't used them but I have looked at both and both are premiun windows. $500 window may be conservative.
There is a company in Bastrop that makes the stone products. It's call Instone ( www.instonetexas.com ). If you are still in the planning stages you may want to look at sips construction. Structural insulated panels. They are stronger than stick built and much more efficient. See if there are any builders in your area.

 

[gsganzer]

Alan,
I had looked into this product when I was getting ready to build an addition. http://www.texasstone.ca/stone.html

I ended up using real stone for my application, but this stuff is very nice. A friend of mine is building a place up near you (Dorchester/Howe) and will be using some. I'll find out when he's planning to do it and maybe we can arrange to go look at it and see how it's installed if you're interested. I might still use it on a few places.

What's nice about this product is you can do it yourself. The site I attached has an on-line installation video. The other nice thing, as mentioned by others, is that you can use it where you don't have the structure/support for real stone.

 

[Alan L.]

I actually have a little experience with the cultured stone inside, but I wonder how it looks and wears outside. In 1986 I did my inside fireplace and it looked pretty good. Most people thought it looked real. I would not be doing this myself as I'm talking about perhaps the whole exterior the house unless we come to the conclusion that brick needs to be mixed in.

I saw some Pella windows at Lowes that were about $350 for what looked like probably 2.0/3.0 and they were pretty slick working and attractive windows. I put in one Andersen 5 by 5 casement window back in 1986 on the north side of my house above the bathtub. This was an awesome window. The wind could blow 40 mpg from the north in the dead of winter and it was toasty sitting right there in the tub, or so my wife said as I take showers. Seems like that window was $500 or so way back then so they are probably much higher now.

I'm anxious to hear what the cost of those Pella windows were.

 

[Alan L.]

Thats a beautiful fireplace, I surely couldn't complain about that.

Thanks for those sites, seems like nobody uses all rock, but accents brick or stucco. I sorta wanted all rock like a castle. Maybe thats a little much, but when I see those high dollar rock mansions in Dallas that are all rock, I think man I'd like to have that stuff on my house. Then I remember there is a problem with number of zeroes in my income compared to these folks, and start thinking cultures stone. Maybe some of those are cultured?

 

[rox]

Alan,
The Builders in Wisconsin have been using Cultured stone for a few years, I would say 5. I LOVE it. I think it look fabulous and is lower cost. This company
http://www.trustway.com/housedesigns/trustway/twostory_over2500/bennettiv_main.html
has doen many homes with Cultured Stone. They built my second to the last house we built. They are a very nice company, I am sure if you gave them a call they would give you honest feedback.
If I ever built again I would use this product.

 

[JimR]

I used Anderson's in my addition back in 1993. These windows have held up very well with no problems. I also replaced all the first floor windows at that time and an 8 foot slider and 12 foot french door in the master bedroom. I managed to get a great deal on these through HD when they had a window sale. I saved thousands of dollars on them. We bought 10 windows for the garage including a 3 piece casement. The house has a 10 foot bow, 21 other Anderson windows.

 

[dmccarty]

Alan,

We used Windsor windows. We put in wood casement windows with metal cladding on the outside. I think the 8'0x6' sized window was around $800. I'm impressed with the windows. It takes a big wind for us to hear it in the house. There are no drafts from the windows. That is the big advantage with casement windows. I noticed that my kids had been playing with the windows so that they where unlocked. The casements have a lever that locks the window tight. They had flipped the lever so the window was "loose" in a couple of rooms. But even in this condition I could not feel a draft.

There is a program called REFSEN that can tell you how much a window will cost. The program takes data from the energy sticker that is require on all windows, info on the house, power costs, location, etc., and tells you what it will costs to heat and cool the structure. It seemed danged close to our real costs.

Once you fill in the values for one window you can plug in the numbers for another window and see the difference. When I did this I could not justify a Pella/Anderson window. There was no energy difference of consequence so I went with a less costly window. Our windows are really nice. We like 'em.

Here is a link for RESFEN information, RESFEN documentation.

Here is a link about windows from Lawrence Berkley Labs. Window Information.

And here is RESFEN. REFSEN Software.

There are other programs out there this is the one I used.

Later,
Dan