Window installation in Phoenix

Start with the honest part: most people who search for window installation do not need a window installed. They need the glass changed inside the frame they already own, which is a different job, a shorter one, and a much smaller bill. If that sounds like your situation, go straight to window glass replacement, because that is the job you need.

We do install windows, for remodels, rebuilds, new construction and frames that have genuinely reached the end. It is the smaller half of what we do, and we would rather point you at the right job than sell you the bigger one. A lot of this work lands around a move, and sequencing glass work around a Phoenix relocation covers when to book it so it does not hold up a closing. Call (602) 777-3717 weekdays between 7:30am and 5:00pm and a glazier will tell you which of the two you are looking at.

Do you need a window, or do you need glass?

One test settles it. Look at the frame, not the glass. Press the bottom rail, check the corners, run a finger along the sill.

• The frame is straight, solid and square. You need glass. The old unit comes out, a new one goes in, and the frame is never disturbed. Broken pane, clouded sealed unit, a pane someone put a ladder through: all glass work. See window glass replacement, or foggy window repair if the haze is trapped between two panes.
• The window moves badly but the frame is fine. You need hardware, not a window. Balances, rollers, cranks and latches are all on the window repair page.
• The frame is soft, split, corroded through or out of square. Now installation is the honest answer, and it is the subject of everything below.

We say this often enough that it belongs in writing: a technician who comes out to measure will tell you when the smaller job is the right one. Nobody at this company earns anything by talking a homeowner into a window they do not need.

When installation is the right call

Four situations put a window on our installation schedule.

• The frame has failed. Aluminum corroded through at the bottom rail, wood rotted at the sill, or vinyl that has warped and no longer holds a straight line. Glass set into any of those will not seal and will not stay square.
• The opening has moved. Houses settle. When a frame is racked out of square by the wall around it, the giveaway is a sash that binds hard on one corner and swings free everywhere else.
• You are changing what the window is. Making a bedroom opening larger, turning a fixed picture window into something that opens, adding an egress window to a converted room, putting glass where there was none.
• New construction, an addition or a gut remodel. The opening is being built rather than repaired, and the window goes in as part of the build.

What does an installation involve that a glass swap does not?

The wall opens. That is the whole difference, and every other difference follows from it.

On a glass job the glazier works from one side, the wall stays sealed, and the house is never open to the weather. On an installation the old frame is cut out, the rough opening is exposed and inspected, and everything that was hidden becomes visible. We check what is running through that cavity before anything is cut, because wiring, plumbing and duct all share the same space as the framing. A water line discovered by a reciprocating saw is how a single morning turns into a fortnight and two more trades.

Openings wider than about three feet want a header carrying the load above them, and while the wall is open that load needs temporary support. Once the new unit is set it gets shimmed level, square and plumb, fastened, flashed, then sealed inside and out, and the last check is that it opens, closes and locks without being pushed.

The part we do not do

Then the wall has to be made good, and that is not our trade. We do not do stucco, we do not do drywall, and we do not paint. On a stucco elevation, which is most of Phoenix, the finish coat gets opened up around the opening so the frame can come out, and a stucco contractor closes it back up behind us. Inside, the return and the trim are drywall and paint work. You will need someone for that part, and we say so before you book rather than on the day we leave.

We also do not fabricate frames. We install manufactured units and we glaze into existing openings. If a job needs a frame built from scratch, it needs a different company.

What glass is worth specifying in Phoenix?

This is where an installation quote is won or lost, because the frame will outlive several sets of glass and the glass is what decides how the room feels in July.

Low-E, and which face it goes on

A Low-E coating is a microscopic metallic layer inside a sealed unit that passes visible light while turning back infrared. Almost every homeowner here should have it, and the reason is more about furniture and skin than about the power bill: it blocks the ultraviolet that fades flooring, upholstery and art on a south or west elevation.

Which face carries the coating matters as much as having it. In a cooling climate like ours it belongs on the second surface, the inside face of the outer pane, where it rejects solar heat before that heat gets into the airspace. A house in Minnesota wants that layer on the third surface instead, so it traps furnace heat inside. Backwards for us, and worth one question to whoever writes your quote: which surface is the coating on.

Sealed units, and how long they take

Insulated units are two panes bonded to a spacer with a sealed cavity between them. Ours are built to your measurements by local fabricators here in Phoenix and come back to us in five to seven days. Nothing about that is made in-house, and nobody makes them faster by cutting a stock size down, because a sealed unit cannot be trimmed after it is assembled.

Obscure, thickness and safety glazing

• Obscure and patterned glass for bathrooms, ensuites and any window a neighbor’s wall faces. It passes daylight and stops the view.
• A thicker interior lite where the problem is road noise. Two panes of different thickness in one unit break up sound better than two matched panes, and on a house backing a busy arterial that is the specification to ask for.
• Safety glazing is required in and beside doors, low to the floor, and at tubs, showers and stairways. Tempered is the usual answer. Laminated meets the same requirement and has the advantage that it can be cut on site, where tempered cannot be cut, drilled or notched once it has been heat treated.
• Bronze and gray tints where glare rather than heat is the complaint, and where the rest of the elevation is already tinted and you want the new opening to match.

Should I pay for triple pane in this climate?

In most Valley homes, no, and telling you that is more use to you than selling you one. What a third pane buys is resistance to heat conducted through the assembly. Conduction is a winter problem. Our summer heat arrives as radiation, straight through the glass in the middle of the afternoon, and radiation is stopped by the coating rather than by pane count. A triple unit is also heavier on the hardware that carries it and dearer to replace the day a seal lets go.

Put the same money into a good Low-E dual pane package and exterior shade on the west and east elevations, where the low-angle sun does the damage, and you will feel more difference for it. There are climates where triple pane earns its keep. This is not one of them.

Which window styles are common in Phoenix homes?

• Horizontal sliders. The most common window in the Valley by a wide margin. Simple, no springs, and inexpensive to keep running because the wear parts are wheels.
• Single hung. The lower sash slides up and is held by balances. Common in some tract builds, and the reason our window balance replacement page exists.
• Picture and fixed lites. Nothing moves, so nothing mechanical wears. Often paired with a small operable window beside them for ventilation.
• Casement and awning. Crank operated, good seals when they close because the sash pulls against a gasket, but a minority style here and harder to find parts for later.
• Sliding patio doors and French door inserts. Large glass, safety glazing required, and the busiest wear point in any house. See sliding glass door repair.

If a supplier’s quote is using words you do not recognize, our window terminology page names the parts.

What drives the cost of an installation?

We do not publish a number for installation work, because the honest range would be so wide it would tell you nothing. What moves it:

• Whether the frame comes out or stays.
• Whether the rough opening is being resized, which brings framing and a header into the job.
• What the wall is made of and how the exterior is finished.
• The glass package, which is where Low-E, obscure, tint and safety glazing land.
• How the opening is reached, since a second-story window over a side yard is a different day than a ground floor bedroom.
• Whether the unit is a stock size or built to your measurement.

A technician measures at the property and you get a written quote off that. Nothing is owed until you are holding it. On approval we take a 50% deposit before glass is ordered, because units cut to your opening cannot be resold to anyone else. Hardware and stock sliding door glass are the exceptions to that.

What is covered afterwards?

Our installation workmanship carries a lifetime limited warranty, held for the whole time the house is in your name, and the fabricator warrants the units themselves against defect. Impact damage after the fact is a new job, as it is everywhere. We have worked in this market since 2010, which means the warranty is attached to a company that is still here to honor it.

Where do you install windows?

Anywhere inside 50 miles of 4202 E Elwood St #21, Phoenix, AZ 85040. In practice that is the built-up metro, from Buckeye and Goodyear across to Apache Junction, and north as far as Anthem and Cave Creek. Measuring and installing both happen at the property. Our address is a shop and a dispatch yard with no showroom attached to it.

Common questions

Can you install a window without touching the stucco?

Not if the frame is coming out. A retrofit unit set into a sound existing frame leaves the exterior alone, and that is one reason we push people toward glass or a retrofit wherever the frame allows it. A full frame replacement means the stucco is cut, and a stucco contractor patches it after us.

Who installs replacement windows in Phoenix?

We do, along with the glass work that most callers turn out to need instead. Call (602) 777-3717 and describe the frame rather than the glass, because the frame is what decides which job this is.

Where should I start if I do not know whether my frame is bad?

Start with a photograph. One shot of the whole window from outside and one close up of the bottom corner of the frame tells us most of what we need. Send it with the quote request and we will tell you before anyone drives out.

How long does a window installation take?

The window itself is usually a day or less per opening once materials are on hand. The schedule is set by the glass, since custom sealed units take five to seven days to come back from the fabricator, and by the finish trades that follow us.

Do I need a permit to replace a window?

Changing glass in an existing frame does not raise the question. Changing the size of a structural opening usually does, and requirements differ by city across the Valley. We will tell you when a job is heading that way so you can check with your municipality before it starts.

Can you match new windows to the ones already in the house?

Frame color, glass tint and style can be matched closely, and on a single elevation that is worth doing. An exact match to a discontinued line is often not possible, and we would rather show you the nearest option at the measure than promise something the factory no longer builds.

Is it worth replacing every window in the house at once?

Only if most of them have failed. Where two or three have clouded and the rest are fine, replacing those units is the better use of the money, and the rest of the house can wait until it gives you a reason. See dual pane glass replacement for what that involves.

Do you install windows in new construction?

Yes, for residential builds and additions across the metro. Bring us in at the framing stage rather than after the exterior is finished, because the rough openings are far easier to get right before the stucco goes on.

Book a measure

Call (602) 777-3717, Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm, and tell us what the frame is doing. If the frame is sound and it is the glass that failed, we will send you to window glass replacement instead and say so on the phone. Everything else we handle for homes is listed on residential window and glass repair.

Which cities do we cover?

We work across the Valley, inside 50 miles of the shop on Elwood Street. Start with your city for what we see most in the housing stock there.