Chapter Three: And The Winner Is…

After much discussion, we finally signed the contract with SolarGlass the first week in October and the Marvin Integrity windows were ordered. Once the windows were received, they would be stained at the SolarGlass warehouse prior to install so that no finishing work, other than trim and wallboard touchup, was to be done at our house. We were looking at an expected installation in the first two weeks of November.

The windows arrived as scheduled. We were asked to do the stain match for the windows and we went to the local Sherwin Williams and tried to obtain a good match. However, this proved to be very difficult in that the paint store could not seem to match the stain to a standard, off-the-shelf stain. They blended a custom stain that looked very good on a small sample. The week that we were to finalize the stain match, we had a family member fall seriously ill. All of our attention was focused on our family and SolarGlass agreed that they would take over the stain matching. We truly appreciated this gesture and it helped immensely!

During the staining process we were contacted and asked to stop by the shop to look at the windows. Unfortunately, all windows had been stained and the color was wrong – very yellow and not the same as we currently had. SolarGlass went back to the stain supplier and purchased a fruitwood stain off the shelf, and it matched great. This meant that the windows needed to be stripped and re-stained with the new stain. The fact that all windows were stained prior to doing a final color match verification was a big mistake that cost all of us time, emotions and money (although the costs were absorbed by SolarGlass, we did not pay for the rework). The result is that in some small cases the corners of the windows show the stain/strip/re-stain work. However, it is not all that noticeable; you really need to look for it.

Due to the delay caused from re-staining, the windows were not ready for installation until ~1 week prior to our planned 3 week extended vacation over the Christmas and New Year holiday. Adding to the confusion and timing, SolarGlass was changing locations at the end of the calendar year. Rather than move our windows to a warehouse for temporary storage, we were asked if we’d prefer to store the windows in our garage for the time we were on vacation and they would get started with the installation as soon as we returned. In the interest of minimizing risk of moving the windows multiple times we decided to have the windows stored in our garage and we kept one vehicle outside during our vacation and the installation process.

Chapter One
Chapter Two