Hello, Ive been renovating a house(from the 1960's) that was given to me by my father for the last 6 months, and have gotten lots of great information from this forum. This is my first official post though.

The house is about 1800sqft, single level. Up till now I have reframed about 75% of this house due to major termite/water rot dmg. New floor joists, subfloor, wall framing, etc... I have installed all new Pella Thermastar 25 series double hung windows.

I have installed Hardi Plank w/Miratec trim on the exterior and wrapped all new facia boards and reshingled/guttered.

The entire wiring was stripped out of the house(it was very substandard 100amp and rigged together) and totally rewired to 200amp service. I went with a American Standard 14heritage heat pump, variable handler and honeywell 8000 termo.

You get the idea of how extensive the work has been. I have done all of it myself with the exclusion of the electric and hvac.

Ok, here is my problem I am facing:

I am up to the drywall phase and I ordered the boards from what seems like a pretty credible local drywall supply house and it was to be delivered. however, I couldnt be present at the time of delivery because of work. My wife went over to the property to let them in the morning of delivery. Shortly after they arrived my wife called me at work and told me they were using a "crane" to lift the drywall into the house.

I was shocked when I heard this. I knew she was probably reffering to the boom device that companies use to get boards up to higher level floors, but my house is a single level home with multiple doors to enter the house. No major upstructions that should prevent navigating the boards through the house either. So I had no idea why they decided to remove my sashes and put the boards through the window.

The first thing I did when I got to the property that afternoon was ask my wife which window it was. I checked it over thoroughly, and low and behold it was damaged pretty badly.

There are two 32x56 adjacent windows at this location creating kind of one big window. I have made custom Miratec casings on the outside to make it appear as a single giant window.

They only put the boards through the window thats on the right of the two. The window casing is busted on the inside of the bottom right where the sash sits in the channel. ALso it is roughed up pretty badly at the top corner where the screen sets in the channel.

I immediately called the company and spoke with the manager. I told him that my window had been badly damaged and I want to know what they are going to do about it, and asked him why they chose to put it through the window on a single level home.

He said that my front door was at too much of an angle with my wall for them to carry 12ft boards into the front of the house. So they chose to remove my window to load boards into the front of the house. Even though they loaded the rest of the boards through my backdoor with no problems at all to the rest of the house.

I guess they just didnt feel like walking the extra 20 feet to get to the kitchen from the backdoor.

As far as the damage was concerned he told me that they had noted breaking my 2x4 but that was it. He said if the window was damaged then its their liability and they would cover it.

Upon further investigation I figured out what they did. They had nailed the 2x4 to the inside bottom of the windows creating a plate to slide the boards through the window. Somehow they managed to bust the 2x4 and the board fell directly onto the window casing causing the damage.

I told the manager that I had did all the work myself and I would have to figure out an estimate of what I thought it would take to repair the damage. He said fine to just bring him the estimate and they would pay me.

I figured out the cost of the window(the whole thing has to be replaced since its the casing thats busted), flashing tape, Miratec boards, and labor. I have to replace the Miratec becuase I know more than likely its not gonna come off the house without damaging it(spiral galvy nails). Its gonna be quite a little job to replace this window due to it being one of a double window install, and having the casing and siding already finished.

The next day I took my estimate to him. He looked at it and said, OK. He told me to go buy the materials, do the work, and bring him my old window and he would pay me???

I was shocked to say the least. I told him ok because I needed to leave before I choked him at that moment. I left and calmed down a bit and started thinking.

I was wondering why he would make me pay money out of my pocket to buy the parts and have me do the work before I even got compensation for damages. And why on earth does he think he can have "my" damaged window. Then I realized that with my busy schedule that I wouldnt even be able to get to it for a while with everything else going on.

So I decided to call a local contracter that I know does excellent work and have him give me an estimate and his opinion on the situation.

He didnt think very much of how the drywall company was handling the situation. He told me there was no way they could claim ownership of my damaged window and that I should bring them the estimate and they pay me for the damages up front and thats the end of conversation. His estimate was quite a bit higher than the one I figured for me doing the work myself.

The next day I took his estimate to the drywall company. I told the manager what the contractor had said and demanded that I get the money up front and that they were not getting my damaged window. He said that they were going to take the damaged window and sell it? I still insisted on keeping it, in my opinion it isnt theirs to make money back on something of mine that they damaged.

He told me that he would just come out and look at the damage himself that afternoon. I said fine come on out.

That afternoon he comes to the property, and I showed him the damage. He said, yep that looks pretty bad. He asked me if I would consider a company that he had done business with to come out and repair the damage. He said that my contractors estimate was too high, and he could get the work done cheaper.

I told him that I didnt really want anyone doing the work that Im not sure what quality work they do. The contractor that I got the estimate from I have known for years, and he knows Miratec and Hardi plank, and he does really good quality work. The company he wanted to do the job is just a window installation company for Pella. He said that he can get a discount price from them and he could pay them directly.

I told him, fine, they can come out and talk to me, but I still probably want to use my contractor. This is the point I am currently at in this disaster.

I am waiting on these guys to come out Monday afternoon.

I need any advice that I can get on how to handle this situation. I need to know if these guys have a right to my damaged window, and if I have the right to make them pay me up front and use my own means of repairing the damages. Please any information would be appreciated.

Thank your very much for your input, sorry this was sooo long too. :)

Dee