As most other topics, requesting your window brand knowledge

1st I will say that this is my 1st time shopping windows and i am not a do it yourselfer unless it comes to electronics. My wife and I bought a 1968 house up in the boston area and it looks to have the original windows, very thin single panes.

I have got the home depot and lowes quotes in and just dont have a warm fuzzy feeling on the quality of the products. the Simonton VantagePointe 6100 series DH from Home Depot and the Pella Thermaster series 20 DH by Lowes. Both of these are vinyls with the vinal grids in-between panes. Both on this site seem to have poor worth in the big posters here. I also plan to get quotes on the Harvey Classic windows.

And before you respond saying i can get better windows for similar price let me ask which specific windows are you refering to? the following quotes are for 15 DH windows and 1 Basement little window with window wraps on the outside and window grids. these average to $460 and $500 a window ( includes all costs / # windows)

my wife and i want the grid and the outside wrap and we like the idea of leaning the windows in for easy cleaning and the child lock thing for the 1/4 open. I know some windows have the spring system on the inside of the window( hidden inside the sleaves) while the other has the spring system outside of the window. constant force and i cant remember the other mechanism.

So im calling out Windows on Washington, ranger, and skydawggy. and instead of giving you a choice A or choice B i hope you can make use of this open ended question to give me recomendations of window brands in the same ball park.

Several questions:
-Have you identified or ruled out lead paint
-Are you existing windows wood
-What is the condition of the trim wood
-Do you have storm windows

Depending on the vendor, you should be able to find a pretty good window in that $450-500 range.

Harvey is obviously huge in your area and will probably have numerous dealers.

You are going to have to shop a bit and what people are charging in Boston is a complete mystery to me but I imagine you can find something pretty good in that category.

1)no, in fact we expect a high chance it will test positive for lead paint ( the big box companies charged around $40 a window for working with lead paint, i didnt include that in the above numbers
2,3) yes they have wood trim, the trim is average? they are painted white, looks like recently painted for sell, some paint on the glass.
4)yes the current windows have storm windows and a half screen. i realize that the replacement windows mean losing this. ( 1 of the reasons i want the window wrap)

there you go again saying 'pretty good window's , which brands in that range do you consider good windows? thats the problem, i dont know what is good and not good, i seem to see a lot of window trolling forms where its obvious salesment of various windows review theirs high and competiton low. Within a brand do the lower lines just less efficent ( less pane #, diff gas, etc) or is there a construction quality difference too?

I am not looking for ground breaking windows, i just want a solid window that will last,thats easy to shut and open and hits the .3 u factor rating or slightly less (double pane argon) with grids and window wraps. ( my wife wants the double hung and the tilt in for cleaning)

Okna, Gorell, Softlite, and Sunrise are all held universally in high regard. They all have "mid-level" options that are still very good (far better than the best of most others), and may meet your price point. Okna 400 or 500, Gorell 5100, Sunrise Essentials, and Softlite Imperial Pro (or Bainbridge/Barrington) to be more specific.

thank you, will looking into these.

+1

Make sure you test for lead and do not assume it to be lead positive.

A window that shuts easy and has a U-Factor of 0.30 is a minimum standard. Please dig deeper than that.