Well I took delivery of my Kolbe window and door package for my house I am building. Thought I would start a thread on it since Kolbe is often asked about.

I worked with my factory rep directly since the window package was fairly unique. After we got the glazing figured out, they sent me to a local dealer. Both the rep and the dealer have been great to work with. Fast, great service from both. There are tons of changes, glass tweaks, more changes, different sizes, etc. Same fast, great replies every time.

I ended up going with the Ultra EP series. It is the extruded clad in triple pane (a true 1 3/8" glazing. Other triple panes less than that do not perform as well).

The package showed up on a truck for us to unload. I was a little surprised they came not wrapped in plastic like most do, rather just cardboard corners.

My front dining window (the one shown installed) did come with straps attached to it for easier carrying. Infact without them, carrying would be near impossible. It weighs close to 300 lbs.

Here are the windows in the garage. Black frames. They look fantastic.

The doors are from Kolbe as well. We went with their custom contemporary 3x8', 4 panel door with frosted glass. The blue finish looks great in person, perfect blue gray. It looks more royal in the pic, but its not. The patio door is black to match the windows.

Here is where the first issue comes however. The glass was tweaked per window, per elevation. The south triple pane windows were supposed to have a 180/180 makeup for a .17 to .21 u and .37 to .49, but they all came with the same 270/180 glass that the north windows have. I contacted the local company and he got right on it. The order/paper trail was submitted right, just not made that way. I am confident they will come get the glass switched out without issue, but something to stay tuned on.

We went ahead and installed the monster 8x7 front window. Took 4 guys and it was still a strain. One thing I noticed however was how sturdy this large window was. It did not flex, bow or anything when we were trying to move it around. obviously we were being very careful, but I would have assumed, with the vertical and horizontal mulls combined with the size and weight it would flex some. But it was very solid; well built. We loaded it onto a boom fork lift and drove it into place. It installed very easy (once we got it there). Shimming was a piece of cake, even given its size. The unit was perfectly square. installing it into the ICF made a difference as well as it is very strong without any flex, give, or bounch you sometimes have in wood construction. Very happy about that.

Here it is in its place. 8' wide by 7' tall. fixed uppes and 2' tall awnings below. All triple pane. We installed it early because the front porch has big posts that come down. With the posts in place, we would not have been able to boom it into place, so it went in now.

I can update as more get installed and see how the glass gets handled.