Unless you are going to sell the house in a year you shouldn't buy an exterior door or window at Lowes or Home Depot. Ask your contractor to take you to a professional window and door supplier that sells more than one brand and ask for their advice.

I would consider the Marvin Infinity the minimum quality worth buying.

The Jeld Wen is probably the most expensive door you could buy because it will cost $800 now and $4,000 to replace two years later but the most painful part will be looking like an idiot in front of your know-it-all brother-in-law; I know because I are one.

Here is a link that might be useful: a Jeld Wen from Lowes

Integrity by Marvin is a very good door and as Reno alluded to Jeldwen not so much. Nothing wrong with French doors, they can be prone to leaking if the installation is not spot on. Make sire you have te multipoint locks as they help quite a bit with weatherproofing the door.

This is where the problem lies...we have three contractors bidding. One of them says he is all about quality and wants the house to last the test of time, then turns around and wants to put in Cascade or Jeldwen windows and doors because they are cheap and fit into the budget.

The other one says to go for Milgard or the like in quality, but once i get quotes for $2300-$2700 he says i am getting ripped off. Ugh!

I really need to find a balance between looks and quality. I found these: http://www.doors4home.com/p-2575-mahogany-1-lite-pb-ext-2.aspx They are solid wood and I think they are beautiful, but I am concerned about wood in the elements (they will be painted). They are a perfect price point at $1500 for pre-hung. What do you think about these?

Or what brand/line of doors do you think would fit our needs? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

By the way, I ended up sourcing my own windows and we ended up going with VinylTek in Canada 9we are close to the border), but their door are extremely high priced.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wooden French Door Option

Renovator8 is the Marvin Infinity a more cost effective line than the Integrity?

Generally more expensive than Integrity and until recently only available as a replacement (insert) window. I will not even follow that link and bother to look as a $1500 French Door will not be a quality door period. There is nothing wrong with using a quality wood door (Marvin Ultimate, Kolbe or Loewen) but they will be upwards of 3K and in my opinion would be best under a sizable overhang or porch (minimum of 6')

We have had cheap and (more) expensive French doors and you get what you pay for. I agree it costs more to get the cheap ones because you will be replacing them unless you move quickly.

What about single 3' wide doors with transom vs 5' french? You could even put in 1' wide windows on either side of the single door if you wanted it to fill the 5' wide space.

We were supposed to have french doors on the back of our house too--3 sets. We opted for a 9' wide triple window w/ transom flanked by a single door with transom on either side. It worked out better costwise as well as furniture placement wise. We went with PlastPro fiberglass flush glazed doors. They look very similar to the higher end french/patio doors but without the cost. We have been very happy with them and even the builder was impressed (I found the doors at a different supplier--he didn't even know they existed).

I've linked a previous post with pics of the back of our house and info on the doors for you. Hope this helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: mydreamhome's family room window wall & Plastpro doors

mydreamhome, thank you for posting the Plastpro, I have a call in to the closest dealer (in seattle, so 1.5 hours away) to get pricing. They have the design I want, so hopefully the price is right.

Has anyone heard of or used Simpson Water Barrier doors? They are within our price point and look like they might be a good choice...advice?

ThermaTru is a builder's brand used a lot around here. They feel very solid to me but they are not fancy, which pretty much translates to reasonable in price. We have one set of real French doors in knotty alder specified for an outswing that sit under a covered porch. If those fail I will buy a thermatru door instead. Builders don't like callbacks so chances are they are choosing this door for a good reason... again, these are mid to higher end builder's doors.
We also had on our plans, 3 additional sets of French doors but decided to go with three sets of Pella sliding French doors for our interior courtyard. One set opens from the dining room, one from the gameroom, one from the living room. They give you the look of the French door when they are hung in tandem but because they slide open, they don't use up interior or exterior space. Ours are stainable wood on the interior and painted aluminum on the exterior to coordinate with our trim.