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emmers00_gw

General Remodeler or Window Installer Only?

Emmers00
13 years ago

My husband and I recently purchased our first home. We're planning to have quite a bit of work done. Our purchase price per square foot was very low given the neighborhood and general condition of the house, and we believe this is because of the house's style - the previous owner tried to turn a federal style home into some sort of '70's modern thing, and failed miserably. We'd like to turn it back into something with more of a traditional look.

These are the major projects:

1. Replace brown vinyl casements on the main part of the house (the whole house except the top floor/solarium) with white vinyl double hungs (with grids between the glass or outside, we can't decide).

2. Completely redo the kitchen.

3. Remove the solarium window from the top of the house and replace it with regular windows and a roof. (Yes, we have a solarium window - the kind people usually put on the back of their houses - on the top of our house, in the front, where one would expect to see a sloping roof).

4. Turn top floor (currently a mostly useless very large solarium room that spans the entire floor) into 2 or 3 bedrooms.

We'd like to do the windows on the main part of the house first, because they're difficult to open and close and leak air and water. However, we don't know if we should hire a company that does only windows (could do only #1 in the list above), a company that does windows and roofs (could do #1 and #3), or a general renovation contractor (could do #1-4).

I would guess we could get a better price on the windows from a windows-only company, but it seems that there could be some benefit to working with fewer contractors(both for the duration of the projects and with regards to repairs and warranties after the work is done). Also, can we trust that a general renovation contractor will do an A+ job on the installation/insulation of the windows?

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice? Thanks!