Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Wellington Windows: Total Window Failure, Part 3 (Almost)

By now it's early February in Minnesota. Not exactly the best time to be having someone taking windows in and out of your house. It was especially annoying for us, seeing as we bought the windows in August to avoid this exact kind of problem.

As promised, two weeks went by and the new batch of windows arrived -- the windows that were replacing the last set of replacements that completely failed that were replacing the first set that completely failed.

And what do you know? There were problems right from the beginning. One of the windows arrived broken. Four other windows were missing from the order. (Ironic, seeing as this is now the third time they had to build them.) Another issue is that even though we were told we would be getting total window replacements including the sashes, this set of windows came in exactly like the last set -- window replacements to be put into the old frames.

It had just been two weeks earlier when the installer told us it was impossible to put the replacement windows into the old frames without them cracking, yet here they were to try it again, and take a guess what happened? The frames cracked when they put the new glass into the old frames, exactly like it happened before. Only this time, they were partially successful. They were able to put six or seven windows in, but the remaining 18 windows were going to have to be remade a fourth time.

When we called Wellington to confirm this time the windows would get remade as a full sash replacement, we were promised two things:

1) The windows would be done as full sash replacements.

2) The windows would be made that same week and installed the following week, two weeks at the very latest. This they made specific point of "promising" us this would happen and finally be right.

So Wellington needed four tries to make one set of properly fitting and properly installed windows? And they needed six months to complete the job? As always, all we wanted was our windows. The sooner we could be done with the constant calls and emails trying to get this done correctly, the better. If all it would take was two more weeks to be done with this nightmare, we were all for it.

As you shall soon see, four attempts over six months is just not enough time for Wellington Windows to get it right.