Vinyl is the most popular replacement window material in Michigan, and the gap between good vinyl and cheap vinyl is wider than anything you can see from the curb. We install two lines we are willing to warranty, Pella® and ProVia®, measured and sealed by our own employee crews and backed by a 15-year labor warranty.
The Choices
Picking vinyl settles the frame 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.
Good vinyl is colored all the way through the extrusion rather than coated on the face, so a scrape from a ladder does not show white underneath and the color does not chalk off the sunny side of the house. Pella runs white, almond, fossil, beige and black, with a laminated exterior color over a white interior. ProVia adds sandstone, bronze, three woodgrains and a long list of painted exteriors.
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: the coating turns heat back where you want it in both directions, the gas slows what gets through. A third pane is a real upgrade, and it 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, nothing to catch a rag on, and the color is matched to the frame. Colonial, prairie, top row and custom patterns are all on the table, and the front of the house can carry them while the back stays plain.
Pella's Hidden Screen folds away into the frame when the window is shut, so a closed window is glass and nothing else, then reappears when you open it. ProVia uses a fine fiberglass mesh in a rigid aluminum frame, or the flush FlexScreen that sits inside the opening instead of hanging off the front of it.
A hung window is held shut at the meeting rail, so that is the joint that matters. A cam-action lock pulls the two sashes together against the weatherstripping instead of just latching them. From there you can add the lock that engages itself when the sash drops, the casement crank that folds flat so a blind can hang past it, and vent stops that 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 them and tilt them, and the glass still wipes clean in one pass because there is nothing hanging in front of it. It is one or the other with grilles, not both, so it is worth deciding room by room.
The Two Lines
We carry two vinyl lines so we can recommend a fit rather than a stock number. Both are built to your opening, installed by our own crews, and covered by the same 15-year labor warranty. The differences below are real but small, which is the honest way to say it: either one is a large upgrade over what is in the wall now.
A welded corner, one piece
Chambers inside the frame
The spacer between the panesBuying Smart
Two vinyl windows can look identical in a showroom and be twenty years apart in how long they stay square and sealed. None of the differences are hidden. You just have to know which six things to look at, so here they are, whether or not you buy from us.
Cheap vinyl is screwed together at the corners and covered with a gasket. Good vinyl is heat-welded into a single piece, frame and sash both, so there is no joint to work loose and no seam for water to find.
A hollow vinyl frame is a chimney with a window in it. Ask how many insulating chambers run the length of the profile, and whether any of them are filled with foam rather than left as air.
That thin strip holding the two panes apart is where sealed units fail first and where condensation shows up first. A non-metal warm-edge spacer keeps the glass edge warmer than a plain aluminum one and moves less through a Michigan winter.
If white shows through the scratch, the color is a coating on the surface and it will keep telling on itself. Solid vinyl carries the color through the whole extrusion, which is why a scuff stays invisible.
Vinyl on its own is not stiff, so a well-built window reinforces the sash and the frame where the span is longest. Ask what the reinforcement is made of, and whether it also conducts cold straight through the frame.
There are always two, and they are not the same document. One is the manufacturer's, on the window. One is the installer's, on the work. Ask how long each runs, what each excludes, and which phone number you call.
Vinyl is the least expensive of the three materials we install, and that is exactly why the range inside it is so wide. A plain white double-hung and a bay unit in a woodgrain finish with triple-pane glass and blinds sealed inside are both vinyl windows. Cost tracks the size of the opening, the glass package, the color and grille choices, and what the crew finds once the old unit is out. You get the full number in writing at the estimate, before anything is ordered.
Flexible financing is available, and vinyl is the material most people phase: the worst rooms this season, the rest next. We keep your order on file so the second phase matches the first exactly, down to the color and the grille pattern.
The Range
Grilles, blinds and glass choices in real rooms, not on a spec sheet. Click any photo for a closer look.
The Advantages
Vinyl holds heat well, asks almost nothing of you afterward, and comes in a wider range of colours and hardware than either wood or fiberglass. It is the reason most of the openings we replace in a year are vinyl.
Never Needs Painting
The colour runs through the frame, so there is no finish to fail and nothing to repaint.
Pella and ProVia
Two vinyl lines to compare, both openable at the Southgate showroom.
Locked Before Ordering
Colour, glass, grilles, screens and hardware are settled before the order goes in.
Same 15-Year Warranty
Vinyl carries the identical labor warranty as the wood and the fiberglass.
The Advantages
Vinyl earns its popularity on the boring stuff. It does not rot when water sits on a sill, it does not rust, it does not swell shut in August and shrink open in January, and it never needs painting or staining because there is no finish on it to fail. The frame is also hollow by nature, which sounds like a weakness and is actually the opportunity: a good vinyl window divides that space into insulating chambers and fills the ones that matter, so the frame itself does real work instead of just holding glass. What you notice is simpler: a window that opens with one hand ten years in, a sill with no condensation on it, and a wash with soap and water once a year.
47+
Years replacing Michigan windows
15
Year labor warranty on every install
2
Vinyl lines we install: Pella and ProVia
We install Pella® vinyl windows as a Pella Platinum Elite Certified Contractor, a status earned through factory training and audited installation quality, and we carry ProVia® vinyl alongside it. Every crew is an Adkins & Sons employee: the people who measure your windows are the people who stand behind them.
View Our CertificationFactory-Trained Crews Certified Directly by Pella
Our Own Employees, Never Subcontractors
Our Process
Vinyl is a built-to-order product, so almost everything that decides how the job goes happens before a single window arrives. Four steps, one point of contact, and a clean home when we leave.
01
We measure every opening, look at what is behind the trim, and give you straight numbers in writing. This is also where the six choices get made, and you can come work the hardware yourself at our 4,000 sq. ft. Southgate showroom before deciding anything.
02
Every opening is measured twice and every window is built to those measurements, not trimmed to fit on the day. Color, glass package, grilles, screens, hardware and blinds are all locked before the order goes in, because none of them can change afterward.
03
Our own factory-trained crew works one opening at a time, so the house is never standing open. Old unit out, new frame set plumb and square, sealed and insulated at the perimeter, trim finished. Floor protection goes down first.
04
We operate every window with you, show you how the sashes tilt in for cleaning and how the locks and vent stops work, haul the old units away, and register your 15-year labor warranty before we go.
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
Questions
For most Michigan homes, yes, and it is what we install most. Vinyl gives a good balance of insulation, low upkeep and price. Where it is not the answer: if you want a stained wood interior, or the house is in a historic district with rules about frame profiles, we will point you at our wood or fiberglass lines instead. That conversation happens at the estimate, honestly, and it is free either way.
Less than the brochures suggest. Both are welded, multichambered, low-E, ENERGY STAR rated windows from American manufacturers we install every week. Pella's distinctive piece is the Hidden Screen, which folds away so a closed window is just glass. ProVia's is the color range and a warranty that transfers to the next owner. We carry both so we can recommend what fits your house and your budget rather than what we happen to stock.
Sometimes. A third pane adds insulation and cuts noise, and it costs more and weighs more. It earns its money on the windward wall of the house, on a bedroom over a busy road, and in rooms that never get comfortable. It is usually not worth it on a sheltered wall or a window you rarely sit near. We will tell you which of your openings are which rather than quoting the whole house one way.
Decades, and the failure is almost never the vinyl. What ages first is the seal on the insulated glass unit, which is why the spacer at the edge of the glass and the welded corners matter so much, and why both manufacturers warrant the sealed unit separately from everything else. The frames themselves never need painting or staining to get there.
Old leaky windows are one of the largest holes in a Michigan home's envelope, and closing that gap shows up on the bill over the following seasons. We will not put a number on it, because an honest one depends on your furnace, your insulation and how bad the current windows are. What people report first is not the bill. It is that the room next to the window stopped being the cold one.
Any color in the manufacturer's range, and the range is long. What you cannot do is repaint them later: solid vinyl carries its color through the whole extrusion, which is exactly why a scratch does not show, and it is also why paint does not stick to it properly. Pick the color at the order, because that is the one decision that is permanent.
Yes, and vinyl is the material most people phase that way. Start with the coldest or hardest-to-live-with rooms and do the rest in a later season. We keep your order on file so the second phase matches the first exactly, right down to the color, the grille pattern and the hardware finish.
Adkins & Sons employees, factory-trained installers on our own payroll. We do not hand your home to subcontractors, and a lead installer is on every job to make sure our standards are being met.
Two layers, and they are separate documents. The manufacturer covers the window itself, including the sealed glass unit. We cover the installation for 15 years on labor. If anything we installed needs attention, one call to our office handles it, and you do not have to work out whose problem it is first.
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One family company out of Southgate, working across Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and Washtenaw counties since 1979. Find your city below for local details.
