Two sashes in one frame, and both tilt into the room. The most common window on Michigan homes, installed in vinyl, wood, or fiberglass by our own employees and backed by a 15-year labor warranty.
The Choices
Picking the style settles how the window opens and not much else. Every window we order is built to the exact size of your opening, and these six choices are what we actually sit down and go through, at your kitchen table or in the 4,000 sq. ft. Southgate showroom where you can work the hardware yourself.
Vinyl for value and the widest color range, wood for the stained interior, fiberglass for frames that hold their shape through freeze and thaw. All three are measured, installed, and warrantied the same way; the main windows page compares them side by side.
The single decision with the most effect on how the room feels. Two panes with a low-E coating and argon sealed between them is the sensible Michigan baseline, and a third pane is worth discussing for a bedroom over a busy road or the wall your winter wind hits first.
The bars that divide the glass into panes and give an older house its face back. Set between the panes there is nothing to dust and the color is matched to the frame. The front of the house can carry them while the back stays plain.
Options run from a fine mesh you barely notice to Pella's Hidden Screen, which folds away into the frame when the window is shut, so a closed window is glass and nothing else.
The lock is part of the seal, not just the security. A cam-action lock pulls the sash tight against the weatherstripping instead of just latching it, and vent stops let a window open a few inches and no further.
Aluminum slats sealed inside the glass unit, where dust, pets and small hands cannot reach them. You still raise and tilt them, and the glass wipes clean in one pass because nothing hangs in front of it.
The Right Fit
No style wins every opening. These are the situations where a double-hung is the answer, and the estimate is where we tell you honestly if yours is not one of them.
Most Michigan homes were built around double-hungs. Replacing like with like keeps the proportions and sight lines the street already knows.
Tilt-in sashes mean the outside glass cleans from inside the room. Upstairs windows stop being a ladder job twice a year.
Nothing swings outward, so a window over a porch roof or beside a walkway never has a sash hanging in anyone's way.
Drop the top sash and raise the bottom one and the room breathes: cool air in low, warm air out high, from a single opening.
No crank handle to clear, so blinds hang flat and a couch can sit right under the sill.
We do not publish a price per window, because an honest one does not exist. Cost tracks the size of the opening, the material, the glass package, and what the crew finds once the old unit comes out. What we do promise is that you get the full number in writing at the estimate, before anything is ordered, with no pressure to sign that day.
Flexible financing is available, and most homeowners replace in stages: the worst rooms first, the rest next season. Ask about it at the estimate and we will lay out both paths.
Our Work
These are our photos from our jobs across Downriver and Southeast Michigan. Click any photo for a closer look.
In Detail
The double-hung is the window most people picture when they picture a window: two sashes stacked in one frame, the bottom one sliding up, the top one sliding down. It has been the default window on American homes for well over a century, which is exactly why a replacement double-hung tends to look like it was always part of the house.
Each sash rides on a balance system hidden in the frame, a spring or block-and-tackle mechanism that carries the sash's weight so it moves with two fingers and stays wherever you leave it. Old rope-and-pulley windows did the same job with iron counterweights, which is what the clunk inside an old frame was. When a sash starts dropping on its own or fights you on the way up, the balances are worn, and in an old window that is usually the beginning of the end.
The two sashes meet in the middle at the meeting rail, and that joint does more work than any other part of the window. A good double-hung locks by pulling the two rails together against the weatherstripping, which straightens both sashes and closes the air path in one motion.
A single-hung looks identical from the curb, but its top sash is fixed: only the bottom moves. It costs a little less and has one less moving joint. The double-hung earns its price in two places: the top sash vents warm air out high on the wall while cool air comes in low, and both sashes tilt into the room, so every pane cleans from inside. On a second floor, that second point usually decides it.
Open the top sash a few inches and the bottom sash a few inches and the window turns into a quiet convection loop: warm air slips out over the top rail while cooler air feeds in at the sill. It moves more air than one wide-open sash, and with children in the house you can vent a room entirely from the top, with the reachable sash locked shut.
Care is a wipe of the tracks and weatherstripping when you wash the glass. Both sashes tilt inward for cleaning, so there is no ladder in the plan and no leaning out over a sill. Grilles between the glass keep the divided-light look of an older home without giving you twelve little panes to squeegee, and the sill stays clear enough for plants, blinds, and furniture pushed right up against the wall.
More Styles
A window's style is how it opens. These are the other five we install, in any material, backed by the same 15-year labor warranty.
Hinged at the side and cranked open like a door. Because the whole sash swings clear, you get the full opening for air, and the seal presses tighter the harder the wind blows. Good over a kitchen sink or anywhere reaching a sash is awkward.
Hinged at the top so the bottom swings outward. The open sash acts as its own little roof, which means you can leave it cracked through a spring rain. Often set high on a wall or paired underneath a picture window.
One sash glides sideways past the other. No crank, no lifting, and nothing sticks out into the room or the yard. A practical choice for wide openings and for basements, hallways, and rooms where furniture sits against the wall.
Fixed glass that does not open. With no moving parts there is nothing to leak air, so a picture window is the most efficient shape we install, and the biggest view. Usually flanked by casements or double-hungs when you still want ventilation.
Several windows joined at an angle so the unit projects past the wall. It adds a shelf of usable space inside, pulls light in from three directions, and changes the front of the house more than any other single upgrade.
The Advantages
A double-hung earns its place the practical way: it vents from the top or the bottom, cleans from inside the house, and looks like it has always belonged on the street.
Tilt-In Cleaning
Both sashes tilt inward, so you wash the outside of a second-floor window standing in your own hallway.
Two Sashes, Two Vents
Open the bottom for a breeze at the sill, or the top to let warm air out near the ceiling.
Keeps the House Honest
The most common window on Michigan homes, so the replacement looks like it was always there.
Any Material
Vinyl, wood, or fiberglass, all installed the same way and backed by the same 15-year labor warranty.
What Sets Us Apart
When the company that sold you the job is not the company that installed it, a warranty call two years later turns into a search for whoever did the work. We do not work that way. Our own employees do the installation, never subcontractors, and the 15-year labor warranty comes from us, so there is one company to call.
1979
Family-owned and operating since
15
Year labor warranty on our workmanship
3
Generations of the Adkins family
We are a Pella Platinum Elite Certified Contractor, which means our crews are factory-trained and certified directly by Pella. They are our own employees, on our payroll, not a subcontracted crew hired for the week.
View Our CertificationFactory-Trained Crews Certified Directly by Pella
Our Own Employees, Never Subcontractors
Our Process
Four steps, one point of contact, and a clean home when we leave.
01
We come to your home, measure, listen, and give you straight numbers. Or stop by the Southgate showroom and see the options first.
02
Every opening is measured twice, and every window and door is ordered to the exact size of your opening, so installation day has no surprises.
03
Our own factory-trained crew does the work, protects your floors and landscaping, and hauls away the old materials.
04
We walk the finished job with you and register your 15-year labor warranty before we leave.
Warranty
15
Years Warranty
Every installation is backed by our industry-leading 15-year labor warranty, on top of the manufacturer's coverage on the window itself. If the workmanship ever needs attention, one call and we make it right, at no cost to you.
180 Month
2
Years Warranty
Most window companies stand behind their installation for only a year or two. Once that coverage runs out, drafts, leaks, and seal failures become the homeowner's problem to fix.
24 Month
Double-Hung Questions
Choose double-hung when you want the traditional look, nothing swinging out over a porch or walkway, and sashes you can tilt in to clean. A casement cranks open like a door and seals slightly tighter in high wind. We show you both at the estimate and let the house decide.
Yes. Both sashes tilt into the room, which is the feature people use most. Second-floor windows stop being a ladder job.
Yes, that is the double in double-hung. The bottom sash slides up and the top sash slides down, so you can vent a room high, low, or both at once.
For Michigan, double-pane glass with a low-E coating and argon fill is the sensible baseline: the coating reflects heat back where you want it and the gas slows heat moving through. Triple-pane is worth discussing for rooms facing wind or a busy road. We walk through the options at your estimate instead of selling you the most expensive package by default.
Adkins & Sons employees, factory-trained and Pella Platinum Elite Certified, never subcontractors. Every opening is measured twice, the window is built to your exact opening, and the installation carries our 15-year labor warranty on top of the manufacturer's coverage on the window itself.
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Areas We Serve
One family company out of Southgate, working across Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and Washtenaw counties since 1979. Find your city below for local details.
