Choose a window replacement company on four things, and settle them before you talk about price: who will actually be in your house on installation day, whether the company is licensed and insured, whether the manufacturer has certified it to install the product, and what you get in writing about the work afterward. A company that is set up properly can answer all four at your kitchen table without making a phone call. The questions below are how you get those answers.
Who Actually Does the Installation
Ask it plainly: are the installers your own employees, or subcontractors? Plenty of companies sell the window and then hand the job to a crew hired for the week. The window can be a good one and the installation can still be the part that fails.
It matters most when something goes wrong. A subcontracted crew's insurance is not necessarily the company's insurance, and a warranty call two years later can turn into a search for whoever did the work. Every Adkins & Sons installer is our own employee, on our payroll, never a subcontractor, so the workmanship we warranty is always our own.
A few follow-ups are worth asking. Who is the lead on my job, will the same crew be here each day, and who pulls the permit? Many of the cities we work in require a permit before window work starts, and the answer should not take a bidder a phone call to find out.
License, Insurance, and Certification
Licensed and insured is easy to paint on a truck door. Ask to see the paperwork behind it, because the difference only shows up on the day something expensive happens.
License and Insurance
Ask for the license type and number rather than a yes, so you can look it up yourself instead of taking it on trust. Then ask for a certificate of insurance and read the limits printed on it. Both halves of that question count, and the second one more than the first.
Workers' compensation belongs in the same conversation, because somebody is going to be on a ladder against your house. Adkins & Sons is a licensed Michigan contractor, and our license and certifications sit on one page along with the questions we think you should put to any bidder.
Manufacturer Certification
Window manufacturers certify the companies that install their products, and the serious certifications are earned rather than bought. Ask what a company's certification is called, who awards it, and what it takes to keep it. Certifications lapse when the work slips, which is exactly why they are worth asking about.
Adkins & Sons is a Pella Platinum Elite Certified Contractor, which means our crews are factory-trained and certified directly by Pella and the installation quality is audited. We install Pella and ProVia windows. That certification is also why the product warranty and our labor warranty sit together with no gap between them.
What a Written Quote Should Contain
Get every bid in writing, and get them all on the same scope so they can be compared at all. A single number with nothing behind it tells you nothing about what you are buying, and it makes the cheapest bid look like the obvious choice. Here is what a real quote spells out:
- The brand, product line, and material for every window
- The style of each window and the exact opening it is built for
- The glass package, in plain words
- Whether the outside trim is being capped or replaced, and in what
- Who pulls the permit, and whether the fee is inside the price
- Who hauls away the old units and who cleans up
- The schedule, and what happens if the order runs late
- Payment terms, and what is due when
- The product warranty and the labor warranty, named separately
It should be just as clear what is not included, and what happens if something unexpected turns up once the old window is out. Ask when the price is locked and whether it can move after the final measure. Our in-home estimate is free and the full price is in writing before anything is ordered, with no pressure to sign that day, and financing is available if you want it.
The Warranty Questions to Ask
Every window job is covered twice: the manufacturer stands behind the product, and the installer stands behind the work of putting it in. Ask for both in writing. Then ask the question that actually decides things, which is who you call when you do not know which one applies.
Ask how long the labor warranty runs and what it covers. Ours is a 15-year labor warranty on the installation, on top of the manufacturer's coverage on the product itself, and it covers our workmanship: the frame set plumb and square, the sealing, and the finished trim. Michigan gives all three a hard time, since a winter of freeze and thaw finds any frame that was not set true.
Ask when it is registered and what a claim looks like from your side. We register yours with you at the final walkthrough, after every window has been opened and closed in front of you, so there is nothing to mail in and nothing to lose in a drawer. If our workmanship needs attention, you call our office and we come back at no cost to you.
One more for any company you talk to: does the labor warranty transfer if you sell the house? Get that answer in writing with the rest of it.
Reviews, References, and a Showroom Visit
Read reviews for the pattern, not the score. The useful ones describe what happened after the money changed hands: a callback honored, a service visit years later, a crew that swept up before leaving.
Reviews and References
Look for a profile the company cannot edit. Adkins & Sons is accredited by the Better Business Bureau, where the profile is public, complaints and all. Our completed jobs are surveyed by GuildQuality as well, an independent service that publishes what homeowners actually said, dated and verbatim.
Then ask for references in your own area and call one or two. Ask what the crew was like to have in the house, whether the schedule held, and whether anything needed fixing afterward. How a company handled the one thing that went wrong tells you more than a page of praise.
Seeing the Windows in Person
A brochure cannot tell you how a sash feels, how a lock sits under your thumb, or what a color looks like in daylight. Go open and close the real thing before you choose. Our Southgate showroom holds full-size windows and doors you can operate yourself.
The visit doubles as due diligence. A storefront you can drive to, a phone answered by someone in the office, and a long run in the same trade in the same town all say something about who will still be there in year twelve. Adkins & Sons opened in 1979 and the third generation of the family runs it today.
Red Flags
Most of the warning signs are about pressure and vagueness rather than about price. Any one of these is a reason to slow down and get another bid:
- A price that is only good if you sign tonight, or a discount that expires when the salesperson leaves
- A bid with no brands, no sizes, and no scope behind the number
- No straight answer about who will be in your house, or whether the crew is on the company's payroll
- A certificate of insurance that cannot be produced, or limits you are asked to take on trust
- The whole job wanted up front, in cash, before anything is ordered
- A labor warranty that gets described out loud but never written down
- No mention of a permit on a job the city requires one for
- No address you can drive to and no showroom where you can see the product
Clear all of that and the rest is the enjoyable part: choosing the window itself, the material, the style, and the glass. It is worth doing with a company that will still answer the phone years from now. When you are ready, book a free in-home estimate and put every question on this page to us.
Published by Adkins & Sons, a family-owned window, door and siding company in Southgate, Michigan since 1979. See our replacement windows
