Mistake #3 – Working with a company that does not provide lock and slide service.
Here’s another tell tale sign of an unconfident contractor. Lock and slide service means that a week or so before you move in the contractor will come back out to your house, install the screens, make sure everything slides nice and locks correctly. They will replace missing or damaged parts and give the windows a little tune up.
I hear customers tell me all the time. “The window company said, they worked fine when we dropped them off, if they don’t work now it means you did something to them.” The fact of the matter is that windows are the first finish product to go into the home. If the windows can’t stand up to 6 months to a year of construction wear and tear then they don’t belong in a custom home.
Manufacturers know that the windows don’t get installed and then three days later the customer moves in. They get beaten, banged up, painted, stucco’d, people lean ladders on them, pull extension cords through them, I’ve even seen someone put a piece of scaffolding through a window and use it to stand on to reach a light fixture. Any window manufacturer knows this and should build their windows to stand up to this kind of treatment.
If a contractor won’t come out and perform lock and slide service it means they have no confidence in their window. They either don’t know how to do a lock and slide or just don’t care enough about the consumer to bother. Most times when a window doesn’t work properly after the fact it’s a simple fix, but when its not, you want to make sure you have someone that will come out and take care of your window problems, because sure enough, every window will work great except that one window that you like to use a lot.
Extra Secret – When dealing with a company that does offer lock and slide service, make sure that immediately after the windows are installed and complete, you walk each window and door opening to make sure they work PERFECT. If you have any doubts about a window or door and its operation, make sure they come out and fix it right then. If they say, “No, that’s normal, we come out and fix those problems at the end before you move in,” don’t take that for an answer.
Demand that they come out right away because any problems that exist now are only going to be multiplied by months and months of construction. Now is the easiest time to make window adjustments, they can pull the whole window out and reset it easily if need be. That is definitely not the case if you wait until the end and then you just have that much more of a chance that the problem will be worse further down the line
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